Nikon D90

(picture credit: Nikon)

Bought the Nikon D90 which is a great upgrade over the old D80. Some others even forego the D300 to use the cheaper D90. Personally for me, the advantages of the upgade (in order of importance): CMOS sensor Large LCD Live View Video

Vibration Reduction (VR)

Vibration Reduction (VR) is an important technology developed by Nikon for its lenses to somewhat counteract for camera shake when a photographer takes a picture. It is analogous to anti-shake in compact cameras that we see in the market.

Naming the technology differently, Sony has its super steady-shot built into its alpha series dSLR and not in the lenses. There is certainly room for debate whether anti-shake should be built into the lens or into the camera body.

See here for an introduction to vibration reduction by Nikon.

dSLR part 4

gotten two more addition to my lens collection.


the nikkor 105mm f/2.8 vr micro suitable for shooting macro.


the bright nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens suitable for shooting portraits.

circle of life

my sister-in-law delivered a baby boy on wednesday. he is the first grandchild in both families and everyone was particularly overjoyed.

his name is Kedric and heard that the chinese name will be 萧恩豪。

this blog entry will enable his name to be searchable in the Internet, heh.

the "walkaround" lens

took the d80 and the 18-200mm lens out for a shoot during the chinese new year at sentosa flower festival. see them here.

think i must improve more on the depth of field and the exposure.

dSLR part 3

new addition: the 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 vibration reduction (VR) lens!

the wide range of focal lengths is touted as flexible enough for anyone to use it for 90% of situations.

dSLR part 2

got myself a new spare battery and an external flash over the weekend.

dSLR

finally got my first dSLR earlier this year, after getting my performance bonus and had extra cash to spend, heh.

i have always found the photos taken with dSLR rather captivating and always had the thought: how nice if i were the one taking those kind of pictures?

i got myself the nikon d80 that came with a 18-135mm lense, a tripod and a camera bag. the set of equipment set me back by almost two thousand dollars. before making the plunge, i was contemplating between the nikon d80 and the nikon d40x. i couldn't decide between the two and went down to one of the retailers wanting to check things out. the decision became apparent as soon as i tried to hold both dSLRs: the d40x was too small for my right hand's grip! since this will be a long term investment, it made sense to me that i should get one that is comfortable to hold and operate.

before buying the camera, had borrowed a few books from national library for reading up and to understand various principles such as aperture, shutter speed, white balance, exposure etc. after getting the camera, i went on to buy this book that was written for d80 owners for them to quickly get started on learning to operate the machine. trust me: operating a dSLR is more complicated than driving a car, if you are planning to fully exploit the dSLR's potential, that is! but if you want to use it as a point-and-shoot camera, it is also possible, but that would defeat the purpose of getting a dSLR in the first place. it is indeed quite overwhelming to have to bear in mind the principles of photography and at the same time get myself familiar with operating the d80, but hey, didn't we all come through that phase just like the driving lessons? :)

fundamentally, i think the reason why pictures taken with dSLRs are better than the point-and-shoot camera is due to the better lens for each type of scene that a photographer could use, as well as the larger image sensors, where all other conditions (eg. exposure, aperture, shuter speed) being equal. shall see what kind of pictures i can manage to capture as compared to my previous casio exilim z30!