Poor Rudolph
Ah. At last. I've manually deleted another seven comment spams (now stands at a total of 208 addresses banned) and sent back a rebuttal to a well-intentioned alarm about the federal bill that will tax my email (which is a hoax, folks). And what I thought I would be talking about now was how pumped I am because we got an income tax refund yesterday, and I am almost convinced that now is the time to replace my four-year-old digicam with its successor. I even went by Ritz Camera to see and especially hold in my hands the Nikon D70. I'm not married to that camera but have been very happy with my Coolpix 950 these last four years. But it is so new, it hasn't reached out little rural outpost yet.
And it may be a non-issue anyway. On the way to town to my little writer's group last night, I was hit by a deer. It came down in a single bound off a five foot bank--a single bound, and hard into the driver's side door. I didn't begin to have time to go for the brake. Last seen it was doing the GyroSpin on the asphalt in the rear-view mirror, very dead.
The door to my truck will open and close, but it looks like somebody took a vacuum to it and sucked out all the air. My $500 will buy not a camera but a replacement door from the junkyard, whatever color they have--certain NOT to be the white with teal stripe of the original.
And thus I will be one step closer to owning the archetypal country truck: I already have the dented fender from an encounter with a guardrail in the ice; I have some places where the paint is chipping off and soon will have the requisite rusty spots; I'll have at least three, possibly four colors of body panels. Now, if I can just find a place to put some unpainted Bondo and a gun rack in the back window...
Anyhow. I got a request to use (and pay for) one of my images last week, which is encouraging. I'm going to be working soon on some ways to do more with the photography. So, I may pursue the camera upgrade in spite of the Close Encounter of the Hooved Kind last night. I'm open to suggestions. I'll need a high-resolution format (D70 is six MegaPixels) and close-up potential. Beyond that, what would you suggest is a "must have" for the kind of images I take?
Comments
Are you familiar with dpreview.com? A comparative summary of cameras in the D70 market is at http://www.dpreview.com/articles/nikond70/ .
This entire site is excellent for information gathering but I must warn you can waste hours there. The forums have thousands of posts from camera users, some pro and some con. You can come away more confused than ever. The reviews though are good information with sample shots. The main competitor to the D70 is Canon's Digital EOS Rebel. Either way you can't go wrong in my opinion. My choice for a Nikon was based on already having several Nikon lenses. Don't forget the lens expense also which can be substantial. Also, from either of these cameras, don't expect quality shots at first like you can get from point-and-shoot cameras..it will take some time to get the best from the SLRs.
Posted by: fletch | March 30, 2004 7:43 AM
Whoa Fred, glad you're okay even if your door isn't.
Dpreview has a lot of good info, but the signal to noise is sometimes very low. http://www.luminous-landscape.com has very good in-depth reviews as well.
I second fletch that you definitely have to factor in the cost of a lens or two. You seem to take a fair number of macros, so it might be good to pay attention to the minimum focusing distance when you choose your lens.
Congrats on the offer! I've run across some links on pricing pictures; I'll look them up and email them to you sometime in the next couple of days.
Posted by: Ana | March 30, 2004 8:33 AM
Fred:
I'm also a Nikon man so the D70 would be my choice. I've used Nikon digital SLRs since the original D1 and Nikon gear has paid my bills since 1965.
I printed out some shots from a friend's D70 the other day and the resolution is better than my D1X and equal to my D100. Don't know yet how their RAW files compare with the other D-series cameras but I suspect it will be comparable or perhaps better given the later technology.
The D70 uses the same auto-focusing system as the D100. If you want to drop by the studio and try out my D100, please feel free to do so.
Doug
Posted by: Doug Thompson | March 30, 2004 10:04 AM
Oh dear, a deer!! Thank goodness you're okay, Fred. We drive through the countryside with that always in the back of our minds, especially at night. Good luck on finding another door.
Posted by: Gretchen | March 30, 2004 12:39 PM
D'oh! A deer? A female deer?
Posted by: Trey | March 30, 2004 2:09 PM
OK, you're kidding right? Buy a door? You did say it will still open and close. If you're going to talk the talk, you need to walk the walk. The truck now has "character". Be the country boy I know you are. Leave it be, drive on. I'll bet no one would give it a second thought around Floyd and it will be a great conversation starter. I can still remember the first "street legal" vehicle I bought, in Floyd by the way, 1964 Malibu. That would have been in 1968........sigh.....
Posted by: Darrell | March 30, 2004 2:31 PM
Now who's got the Bondo bomber? Hmmm...?
Glad you're okay, though. I would NOT want to get deer-slammed on your road.
Posted by: susanna | March 31, 2004 8:42 AM
You can get the dent sucked out...I got backed into in a parking lot and the bastid drove off leaving the rear quarter panel on my wagon as deeply dented as your door. A guy came over and put this big suction cup thingy on it and bingo! POP! it was done...the area has a little paint crinkling but the dent is gone...it only cost a couple hundred.
Of course if the door leaks then ya gotta address a replacement...but if not I'd have to go with Darrell and leave it...cuz you know there's another deer out there with your name on it. Goes with the territory. We hit 4 deer in one year when we lived on the SF penisula in a remote area backing onto the water shed reserve.
Posted by: feste | March 31, 2004 12:37 PM