Of bodies and lenses....

I'm having a great time shooting with the D200. I'm really starting to learn the subtleties of the camera which is pretty cool. I've posted a couple of pix from the D200 in the Street gallery and the Abstracts gallery.

I also upgraded my Tamron 28-75 f/2.8 lense to a Nikon 35-70 f/2.8. I picked up a used one from Henry's downtown which was in superb shape. The 35-70 is legendary for its consistent sharpness at all apertures. The Tamron is a good lense, but the Nikon has it beat - especially at the wide end (f2.8). I do lose some range at the wider angle and at the zoom length, but the better sharpness is worth it for me. The funny part is when I went to look for my used lense, i didn't realize that Henry's would drop the price if I haggled a bit. I actually got $75 off the listed price which was pretty cool. Wish I knew this before!
Wondering what the difference between the lenses is? Here are a couple of sample photos which I took at the store. I've cropped them to only show the area I focussed the lense to:

The Tamron at f2.8 (left) & the Nikon lense at f2.8 (right):


The Nikon lense is far sharper. Note, the Tamron is a good lense - better than most consumer lenses out there. This picture magnifies its softness cos I used a very wide aperture, and then cropped the photo. I also hand-held the shots, otherwise they would both be sharper.

Coincidentally today, I pleasantly bumped into a couple of friends unexpectedly at two different locations. Bumping into friends unexpectedly is like finding money in your old pair of jeans (or in the sofa if you dont wear jeans)... ie. a nice feeling indeed :)
I've got a trip to Quebec City in the pipeline... that will be a great oppurtunity for some photos, but only if this winter chill we're feeling lets up a bit! Otherwise I'm just gonna shoot from the car with heating turned way up! :)

That's about it for now, its been a long day so I'll sign off for now. Have a good week!