I placed an order for the Nikon D700 today.

This has been a long time coming and is a much needed upgrade to my DX format digital SLR’s. Why? Well, I’ve always been a reluctant DX shooter. To my eye there is something curiously unorthodox about the way images look when shot with 35mm lenses on a DX frame, especially when you’re trying to shoot with a wide angle lens. I’ve also never felt that the DX wide angles produced pleasingly rendered wide angle shots. They don’t look right to me and that’s why I have been loath to invest a lot of money in DX, particularly lenses like the Nikon 10.5mm DX Fisheye.

Not only that, I think that my style of shooting is better suited to a body that can produce high quality, low noise images at high ISO. Lord knows I have to do a lot of work to the stuff that I produce with my D70 and former D2H cameras, so if I can shoot at 3200 or even 6400 without having to go to extremes with the Neat Image plugin for Photoshop, I think I am going to be able to produce work of a much higher standard.

Well this is what I’ve been trying to convince myself of anyway!

For ages I have been wanting to specialise in photographing stage shows and this looks like the perfect camera for the job. I can’t wait to see how my Tamron 90mm 2.8 macro, Nikon 105mm 2.5 and Nikon 16mm 2.8 lenses perform on this beauty.

ETA at Nikon SA is 25 July, a week from today.

Greetings!

All photos ordered at the SASAD Congress have been printed and either mailed or taken to your dance teachers. There are about 10 people who only gave me their cell phone numbers so I have sent you an SMS explaining where you can collect your prints.

Unfortunately my Coppermine Gallery website got hacked last week so I have not been able to put up the other photos yet. Nasty Ukrainian hackers had their way with me! I will be putting up the photos on this new site, so keep your eyes peeled for them.