The technical section

When I decided to take this way of photography, the first thing I had to think about was what camera I was going to buy. I knew I was buying Nikon, because if I couldn’t find second hand lenses at good price and my budget would only let me buy one new lens, I still could use two of my lenses. In fact I will be using one of them until I earn money enough to give myself another whim. And what the hell, I like Nikon, I use it since I take pictures and it worked well, so I stay with Nikon.

Knowing I was going to buy Nikon I had a doubt: D3 or D300? I was really tempted by D3, of course, being able to take pictures at 1600 ISO not being worried about noise is great, but D3 is too expensive (even in Malaysia). So I finally decided that I was going to buy D300, because even if it doesn’t have a full frame sensor, it is very well considered in all the reviews.

But it must be that somebody in Nikon heard me somehow and on July the 1st they announced the launch of the new D700, the camera that suits perfectly my needs. Basically we could define the D700 as: the sensor of the D3 in a body as the D300 at a price between both of them. For me it is perfect: lighter, smaller (better against thieves, it goes unnoticed), FX sensor… and it has the cleaning sensor system which is not in the D3 (it is in the D300). Ok, it doesn’t take 9 pictures per second as D3, but for my needs I think 5 per second is more than enough.

Buying it in Malaysia it has been almost 1000€ cheaper (yes, one thousand euros) than in Spain (I think Spain has higher prices than other northern European countries, I don’t know why). The only problem is that I don’t have international warranty, but I hope that if it works right during the 3 or 4 months that I will be here, there won’t be any problem rising when I go back to Spain (everybody fingers crossed right now… thank you…). So I started to look for shops in Kuala Lumpur and to find out the date it was going to be released in shops. I was not sure if it was going to be available by the time I arrived. When I knew they were starting to sell it in Malaysia at the end of July I was quite happy. I really have to thank Zuzana that she called like 20 times Jason (a seller here in Kuala Lumpur with quite a good reputation in Malaysian forums) to reserve one for me until the 13th. Later, Jason told us that the demand is so high that after buying mine he got 5 more cameras and he sold all them in one day.

So this is the camera which will be travelling with me, the Nikon D700:


Now I had to start with lenses. However you approach this and whoever you ask about it you will reach the same conclusion: using a good quality sensor with bad quality lenses doesn’t make too much sense. And everybody will tell you that it is worth more to invest your money in lenses than in the camera body. From all this we could have a nice talk about why I decided to spend my money in the D700 instead of the D300, together with the topic “bodies and lenses of DX series” vs “bodies and lenses for FX format”. But we can leave it for the next time we meet.

I wanted to buy some good lenses, but they are so expensive that I had to reduce it as much as possible and look in the second hand market.

First I decided that I was keeping the Nikon 28-80 G from everyday life, I decided it after reading in Ken Rockwell’s site his review and seeing that it is in his Nikon's 10 Best Lenses list. So I only had to look for wide-angle and telephoto. Depending on what I could find in the second hand market, and the money I had after buying the first one, my options were:

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S
Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF-S
Sigma 12-24mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG

Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G AF-S VR
Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF
Sigma 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 EX DG OS APO

I know there are differences between all them, but if I couldn’t find any second hand one and I had to buy both new, then I could only buy one of the first class from one of the groups and from the other group I had to buy one of the second class. All this depending on what shops had and the price they could offer. After several walks around Kuala Lumpur and searching on the Internet, I found this in one shop:

Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8D ED-IF AF-S

Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF

Great, isn’t it? Two second hand lenses that I was looking for. And since I bought them in the same shop I could get them both for 7000 ringgits, which means something like 1490€ both together. I think it is quite a good price.

At this point (even before buying the lenses) it was obvious that I was going to need a new camera bag, because the new camera fit in the one I had, but it was a bit tight and I didn’t like it. Besides with the 17-35 the zip shut but not very well, and with the 80-400 attached just forget about it.

I like Lowepro, but thieves also like it, they know when you carry a Lowepro bag there is something interesting in it. But they don’t know Tamrac that much, and I really liked the one I had until now, so I bought another Tamrac. I bought the Tamrac pro digital zoom 7, a new zoom case for the 80-400 and a belt to carry it all when I go trekking (both things also Tamrac). I think backpacks are comfortable but too slow to take the camera, and all this is too heavy to carry only on one shoulder.

In short: too much money, I better leave it before I start crying...