Nikon D300 DSLR

After ten years with my Nikon N90s 35mm SLR, and after a number of years shooting digital with a "simple" point & shoot, I finally made the jump to the DSLR realm. Named by Popular Photography as the "Camera of the Year 2007", this 12.3 MP is one of Nikon's finest "pro-sumer" cameras, suitable for both professionals and serious or advanced amateurs. Now, that distinction alone might be enough to make me question whether I am "worthy" or capable of using this camera to its fullest extent. We'll see. It's a complicated technological device and an immensely flexible creative tool.

Now, out of the box, the camera isn't as tall as picture at the left. I have added the optional MB-D10 vertical grip. Yes, it costs a little more, but my Canon Elan IIe had one, my old N90s has one and by golly, my new D300 is going to have one. Some people think it makes the camera too bulky and difficult to handle. But the camera fits better in my hands with the extra grip attached. As added bonuses, it holds a second battery (or 8 AA batteries), and it's a little easier to shoot pictures in portrait (tall) orientation.

That's all I'm going to say about this camera so far. But don't this short treatise fool you. Much, much can be – and has been – said about this excellent camera.

Nikon N90s 35mm SLR

I originally purchased this in 1998 after using a Canon Elan IIe for a couple of years. It has travelled to Boston (of course), San Francisco, and Dallas with me and taken some really wonderful photos in both color and black-and-white. At the time I bought it, it was, as the D300 is at the time of this writing, Nikon's premiere "pro-sumer" camera body. I upgraded it with the vertical grip and a multi-function data back to expand the overall functionality. And although I originally saved some money and purchased a Sigma lens, I later upgraded to two Nikkor lenses (28-105mm and 70-300mm below).

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

As expensive as some high quality lenses are, this little gem is almost deceptively inexpensive, and "prime" in two senses of the word. The first way it's prime in terms of its picture quality: the lens is capable of producing very clear, clean and sharp images – on the right camera, of course. The second way it's prime in terms of its focal length. When photographers speak about "primes" (prime lenses), they mean lenses of a fixed focal length. This is not a zooming lens: if you want the subject to fill the frame more, you must move closer to the subject. Conversely, if you want the subject to be smaller in the frame, you must move away from the subject. While this might seem limiting, it offers a compensating feature that produces a very shallow depth-of-field.

Of course, shallow depth-of-field [DOF] is very desirable when you want a portrait subject to stand out from the background, or when you want to focus on one specific point of a subject while the rest of it blurs out. Nikon offers a f/1.4 version of this lens at nearly three times the price. If I were shooting professionally, I may have opted for the f/1.4; but my amateur budget (and to be totally honest, my non-professional skills) agreed that the f/1.8 was just dandy.

One more thing I should mention – lest other enthusiasts berate me for missing a crucial point – is that this lens, because of its low aperture number (f/1.8), works very well in lower light conditions.

Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6G ED AF-S DX VR

This is great Nikkor lens for DX-format cameras like the D300. It's focal length is roughly equivalent to 24-128mm. It has a great 24mm wide angle, compared to 28mm (or even 35mm) on a typical wide angle lens, or average point-and-shoot camera. While not as "fast" as more expensive lenses that may be f/2.8 or lower, it is a great all-around lens. It incorporates Nikons vibration reduction (hence the "VR" in the lens identification) to help with potential camera shake while shooting handheld (as opposed to utilizing a tripod).

As much as I liked the lens, I didn't use it as often as it deserved. I have leaned much more on my 28-105mm (below), partially because of its macro capability. So I sold the 16-85mm on eBay.

Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D IF AF

This is my very good but also very economical Nikkor-quality wide angle lens that I picked up a few years ago from Huppin's (my favorite local camera and stereo store). Like the 16-85mm DX lens above, it's not as fast (and thus, not as expensive) as other lenses I could've purchased. On a 35mm film SLR, it's a great lens for landscapes. It's mediocre for portraits. On my D300, however, its focal length range is effectively (in 35mm-equivalent terms) 42-157.5mm. That means it's not great for wide-angle landscape shots.

UPDATE: When I first got my D300 and 16-85mm, I thought this lens would just start collecting dust because the 16-85mm and the 70-300mm (below) completely cover the focal length range of this lens. But what I inadvertently overlooked was the f-stop range of 3.5-4.5. This means I can get a more shallow depth of field with this lens than I can from the 16-85mm at overlapping focal lengths. The other benefit is that this lens has a macro switch, so I can get really nice close-ups when I want.

As it turns out, I've actually started using this lens more than either the 16-85mm or the 70-300mm.

Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED AF

Even though this isn't the best lens I can buy for this range, it is a great lens overall that gives me plenty of zooming capability. In fact, due to the size of the sensor in the D300, I get the equivalent of a 105-450mm zoom.

Nikon SB-800 Speedlight

Description coming at some point.

Nikon SB-26 Speedlight

This is an old – but trusty – flash unit. "Back in the day", it was really quite the complement to the N90s. At this point, it sits almost abandoned because I haven't gotten to the point where I'm doing a lot of multiple-flash photo shoots. Perhaps one day it will rejoin the kit as a slave flash.