The camera is a Nikon D200, which ranks at the low-end among Nikon's high-end range of DSLRs. Released in 2005, it's also a little old, nevertheless it looked, felt and weighed like a sturdy piece of machinery. And of course, using it was an absolute blast. There's nothing quite like the characteristic, almost addictive "ch-kak!" of its shutter noise*, knowing that the very best of optical and electronic engineering are working hard at my disposal to provide images of quality no mere point-and-shoot camera could physically achieve.
* I should also add that it's completely natural, unlike the gimmicky kind that every single point-and-shoot/phone camera on the planet feebly emulates using their cheap speakers.
Compared to my Panasonic Lumix, the transition is akin to going from a Proton Saga to a Mercedes*. Mmm, classy.
* An SLR McLaren, perhaps? ;)
Anyway, here's an interesting experience I had during my time spent with this thing. While walking around the campus lake taking photos of the scenery and wildlife, I stopped in the middle of a short stone bridge over the lake to look around, when a squirrel emerged from the woods nearby. At first I wanted to move in for some closer shots, but I didn't need to -- turns out the squirrel was investigating me! It even voluntarily came within half a meter of my feet.
Photographing the squirrel was no easy task. Not only was it twitching and zipping around, the sheer weight of the camera alone made it difficult to hold still during exposure. No, the lens had no vibration reduction. But the camera's 5 frames/second shooting rate did give me a fighting chance.
Eventually, everything went right for just once, resulting in the following shot. In fact out of over 300 pictures I've taken with this camera in a week (and discarding about 80% of them), this is my #1 favourite.
Granted, it still ends up getting 0wned by this picture, but I guess it's not bad for someone who has never changed a DSLR lens before. :P
3 comments:
Welcome to what our SLR community calls 'THE DARK SIDE' and 'THE POISON".
Dark Side for Nikon as duh, it's black.
Yeaaa kena poisonnnn...
Aren't all DSLRs black?
Canon's top of the range "L" lenses are white in colour =D, thus the "White" side.
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