phil_koenig

<p>The price on the 70-300VR came down significantly since Nikon started a promotion bundling it with DSLR bodies for a very aggressive price.<br>

It's a very nice lens for the money, although it suffers a bit from a common long-zoom problem where the performance starts to falloff somewhat at the long end. (The 80-400VR also reputedly suffers from that problem, in addition to having a reputation for slow AF)<br>

The hot item in that range is reputedly the 200-400VR Nikkor.  Unfortunately it's about $6300 at Calumet.  ;-)<br>

I'm with these other people: we need a really nice ~70-200 or 70-300 VR lens with a fixed F/4, to bridge the gap between the "amateur" lenses and the "lenses that cost as much as a car".  [crossing fingers]<br>

I got my 70-300VR in mint condition for $420 last year.  Now that's close to what it costs in one of these new DSLR bundles.. sigh.  (Same thing happened to me on the 55-200VR, which I still need to sell.  I sorta lose my motivation to post an ad when I see what the value has dropped to..)</p>

<p>B&H no longer has any of the MN-30's.<br>

As a matter of fact, I've been looking high/low on the web, and if anyone has any, they're invisible. Nothing at all on ebay, B&H, Adorama, KEH, Helix, etc.<br>

Everyone's got chargers, no one's got batteries..</p>

<p>I now have a second copy (with a lower serial number) of the 28-105 I mentioned above, and this one does NOT have the focal-length encoding problem the 1st copy did. My original one must have a defect.</p>

<p><em>"I would not mind having my Cibachrome back."</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

As someone else mentioned above, it apparently is back, with a new name: Ilfochrome.<br>

I haven't tried it myself in its recent incarnation yet, but I also loved my old Cibachrome prints.</p>

 

<p>Here's why I'm shooting film these days.<br>

I was one of the first to get the Nikon D300, my first DSLR - after shooting 35mm Nikons for years.  Enjoyed the D300 for sure, but to be honest since I'm in the I.T. industry and already spend way too much time in front of computers, I was tiring of the computer work.  In addition, I found that digital had made me lazy - I stopped actually working out exposure and contrast in my head while shooting, instead "letting the camera figure it out" or doing the 'ol "click/view, click/view, click/view" - which was starting to bug me.  So I finally got tired of all that and started longing for the simplicity of shooting transparencies again - along with the required discipline.<br>

When Nikon announced the D700 I thought now there's a sweet idea - better quality, decent price, works fine w/ older lenses and since I figured it will all end up FF eventually and with the rumors of the D300 being replaced and its resale value likely declining I decided to sell the D300.<br>

Took advantage of fabulous deals on recent-vintage pro-level Nikon film bodies, found a good deal on film/processing, and started back in earnest with the film work. I love the fact I can "just go out and shoot", without having to deal with all the computer-time.  I love the "look" of the slides, seeing them on a (color-corrected) light table, or projected - that stuff just has a real timeless appeal to me.  And I'm starting to get my "photographer's chops" back, being forced to not to be as lazy as I had gotten with digital.<br>

Now I will probably eventually get a D700 or perhaps something even newer, but I'm not in the rush I once was.  I'm enjoying my own "film renaissance" for now.<br>

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<p>I acquired a 400/5.6 AIS ED-IF in the last year or so and I think it's a -great- lens. Wide open it's sharp as a tack. Relatively small/light for a 400, although some people think that's a disadvantage with that focal length. I used it on my D300 before I sold it, as well as my film cameras. Did some really nice shots of the moon, among others.<br>

This is the kind of thing that makes me really happy that Nikon stuck with the F-mount all these years. Back in the olden days I couldn't dream of affording a lens like that. :-)<br>

(My next project will be to get one of those aftermarket CPU chips added to it so I don't have to manually dial-in the custom lens number to setup the meter on newer cameras.)</p>

<p>This is a common problem these days, it is usually the advertising networks that are injecting this stuff onto "legit" sites. The New York Times got hit a couple weeks ago, for example.<br>

The virus-writing crowd has shifted from kids messing around trying to make a name for themselves, to underground crime networks. And as email malware mitigation tactics have gotten more effective, the evil-doers are increasingly migrating to web exploits. Typically they either exploit insecure web servers, or use unscrupulous or insecure advertising networks to inject unexpected code (generally javascript) into the ad stream.</p>

<p>I really like my Nikkor old 28-105 AF-D, personally. Not quite as fast at the wide end as the 24-85, but I find the long side a lot more useful for me, and it's renowned for its low geometric distortion. It close-focuses down to 1:2 (just like a Micro-Nikkor) and I find it to be pretty decent sharpness-wise. Nothing like the old 35-105 AI-S I used to use.<br /> <br /> The only issue I've had with it is the distance encoding feature doesn't seem to work entirely smoothly, ie it seems to "jump" from one focal length to the next a bit. (You can test this if you mount your SB-800 and zoom the lens - that's how I first noticed it.) Apparently at least one other person I spoke to who tried this on a 28-105 observed this - I don't know how common this is in general with AF-D lenses.</p>