Our last day in Osaka was a little sad for the fact that we’d just started to get a handle on the Namba district. Another week or so would not have gone astray. Bic camera is listed in the Lonely Planet as a one liner, but this mega store of everything photographic (and electrical and computers and whitegoods…) was astonishing for the uninitiated. I picked up more SD memory and a GPS unit for my Nikon D300s. 15 minutes is just not enough time to investigate 7 Floors of modern shopping goodness.
Knowing not a lot about photography (other than a lifetime of whacking the camera into ‘Auto’ and pressing the button), I’d spoken to a few friends and done some net research http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/nikkor.htm about what lens to get. I decided on the Nikon 18-200mm which seems to do it all.
I’d had a few tamron 28-200mm in the past. The big heavy early ones did a degree of macro, and the later one was ok, but unsatisfactory for its minimum distance to shoot (about 1 metre meaning a lot of lost shots). I’d also been unhappy with the color & sharpness of the pics on my D70, and put it down to the D70.
The Nikon 18-200mm was a revelation. Nice pics, easy and quiet focusing, vibration reduction. Just for fun I whacked it on the D70 and magically, the D70 started to sing! It is true what they say about getting a decent SLR body but getting the best lens you can afford.
Now to find some camera/photography classes.
It arrived too late for my actual birthday, but I’m so excited over my Nikon D70 replacement.
