The Travails of the Astounding!

My Nikon CoolPix 3200 has served me well. Steadfastly delivering superior images with mediocre circuitry, an interface designed for simpletons and in less than expert hands, it has truly been a stalwart companion. It's been with me since we started shooting Tyrants two years ago, and has since seen two riots, several towns villages and cities, a dozen movie shoots, twice as many smiling friends, thrice as many smiling strangers, and truly sparked a renewed interest in still photography. It's a sturdy point and shoot that now feels as familiar and comfortable to me as a pencil. However like that wooden implement of yesteryear, my CoolPix is aging and dangerously close to obsoletion. I've outgrown it. Or more precisely, I've surpassed the point where it's handful of auto-modes is enough to satiate my curiosities. I've grown weary of it's Mickey Mouse lens, it's craptastic digital zoom, it's 'when I feel like it' focus, and the bottom of the barrel 3 megapixels which is barely enough to produce passable 8.5x11 prints. There will always be a place on the shelf for it's tiny yet study frame, but it is no longer my primary camera.


On the other hand, the Nikon D50 is a luxurious dream. Its evenly weighted heaviness fits snugly in my right hand, and when I press the shutter down it snaps quickly with a crunch that reminds me of my Nikon FE. ( I just realized I'm totally Nikon's bitch). By all accounts it looks and responds like your standard 35 milimeter SLR (single-lens reflex). However the D50's Nikon-classic unassuming body conceals a dirty truth: it's all digital and totally bad-ass. I've been working so much at ThoughtForm that i haven't really had the chance to take it for a walk, but included are some shots from my initial excursions. It's incredible how great these shots look right from the camera! That's because you can adjust your shutter speed and aperture, right there on the scene, fine tuning each shot until it's juuuust right. This might not sound like much to 'Jose Public', but I've spent many a while poring over my FE's controls trying to get the settings just right, only to find out two weeks later that the frame was just slightly off, or the shot was over exposed, or any one of a thousand other considerations that can ruin a carefully executed shot creeped into the frame without my noticing. And that's the beauty of the digital SLR. I retain supreme creative control, with the added bonus of instantaneous feedback! Sweet and Double-Sweet!! And although I do miss the chemical process and subsequently the texture of the resulting prints, I frame a shot, adjust for lighting, snap and 5 seconds later I'm looking at the results of my tinkering. There is no substitution for such immediate response. The experience is astounding.


With the D50 I also purchased two telephoto lenses, a wide-angle lens, an external digital flash (although the camera has one built-in), an aluminum hard case, a 'weather-proof' soft case, a few basic filters, a tripod, an SD card reader, and a lens cleaning kit. The telephoto lenses are really cool, one being the Nikon 28-100mm AF (auto-focus) Nikkor Zoom, and the Sigma 70-300mm AF Macro Lens. With the Sigma, I can take extremely close-up highly detailed (macro) shots, or those private-eye across the street, through the bushes shots. The pics posted here were both taken with the Nikon 28-100mm. The first zoomed in all the way at 100mm, and the next zoomed out at 28mm. Anyway, I'll have lots more to talk about once I've really put the D50 through it's courses, till then...