A new purchase

Since meeting the a Flickr Palermo group at the Punta di Vista exhibition, it’s come to my mind that my ancient Cosina CT1, fantastic camera and all, is just not up to the standards of todays’ amateur photographer.

So the next step is to find out which dSLR I want to get. Easily solved, in my price range, the Nikon D80. Easy peasy.

Next, the lens. Ah, now there’s the rub!

I have 3 lenses for my Cosina, two 50mm fixed lenses (one of considerably better quality than the other) and a Toshina 80-200mm telephoto lens. The better 50mm lens goes out to f1.4 – this is obviously quite big and takes great landscape and portrait shots. It’s also pretty fantastic indoors, that huge aperture lets in a lot of light.

When I want a better framed shot I’ll turn to the Toshina, which supports f2.8. Not so good for indoors, and the times I’ve forgotten to lug the 50mm to cathedrals or shows, I’ve really regretted it, ‘cos the Toshina takes crap pictures indoors. I have to fiddle a lot with the exposure and speed, and use a tripod, to get usable images.

So here’s the dilemna, the Nikon comes with a Nikkor DX 18-135mm, which is a good camera and all, but at max it’s only f3.5. It’ll still take good pictures, but camera-shake is gonnna be a problem. Is it worth the money to upgrade to, say, the Nikkor DX 18-200mm with Vibration Reduction – by all accounts this is some pretty neat technical trickery to steady the sensor. At almost Eur700 (as opposed to under Eur300 for the 18-135mm) it’s a lot of money to pay for being able to take better low-light shots. 😦