Hi all, Have been having an unusual late spring/early summer, as I had a heart attack in April, and life since then has been a bit of roller-coaster ride. Much of it good, but certainly not all! By now I am pretty used to ambulance travel, with blue lights on, and sirens blaring! Naturally, till I am declared healthy enough, I am off the water, and I am not to drive the car at all - I do cheat, a bit but I have at the most gone to the shop, or fetched the wife at work. Like Mel Lammers, that started the Bagboater Yahoo group, I seem to have turned more and more into photography, as alternative occupation/interest to paddling. As you might remember I got into DSLRs via Pentax (the K-x was my first Digital Single-Lens Reflex - aka DSLR), but I switched brand, I blame it on Steve Huff. His site got me sidetracked, and while he's a Leica man, he also takes interest in other brands, and if he likes something, he announces it LOUDLY, if he dislikes a camera or a lens, he tells you that, too! The most advanced Pentax we had, the wife and I, was two K-5s, now both with new owners. By the way, Pentax lenses are usually small, and sharp, but not wide open! Some are better, but quite heavy! So Steve Huff got me to buy my NEX-5N (there is a nice UW house for it, but then it can't take my lens - sigh! - so not ideal for paddle-photography), into Olympus XZ-1 (just gave my copy of it to my stepson's wife, who likes diving - yeah, I had a nice UW housing for that). Then he got my wife into the OM-D (that's what my wife uses, most of the time - she also has a Pentax K-30), and into the Nikon V1 (I gave my wife the one I have now, after Steve's recommendation, but it ended up in my lap when she opted for the OM-D instead. So here I was, suddenly a Nikon man (the only thing Nikon I used to have was a pair of binoculars). Nice little camera (for those into video it can even take 4K! 2 seconds at a time), but few lenses available, so I bought a few used, and battered, Nikon lenses, then a nice long zoom, and so on. A D3200 ended up in my lap, for a while - sold it for about as much as a new cost now! Not my camera, no never. As I still had cameras of that sensor size, it never got used, and it could only take splendid shots under ideal circumstances, thus not my camera! Never been a Nikonian, as I said, but then Nikon did a brave thing and released a cheapish full-format camera, the D600. Now we hear that everyone is scrambling to release cheapish full-format, aka FX, aka 35mm film-size cameras. Only time will tell if there actually will be some new players in this field of the affluent and rich (I spent a couple of monthly salaries to finance mine). After a lot of gnawing on my nails, gnashing (spelling?) of my teeth, and sweating, I took the plunge, and bought one. Not perfect, but my what a camera! Too big for comfort, too complex, and not without its faults (the dust-on-the-sensor syndrome, that did affect my K-5 - R.I.P. - as well. I got a new one for free, after more problems, which I promptly sold). I had planned to use my V1, with an adapter, for my long Nikon lenses, and the wide on my D600, with the breaking point somewhere around 80mm. I got myself a AF-S VR 70-300, that works with either camera, but is fairly dizzy along the edges, when used with the D600, while the V1 only uses the central area, which is superbly sharp! It uses about a third of the sensor, thus it looks like I am the owner of a 800mm long lens - that would be something! Instead it costs about $800, or less than a tenth of what such a lens would cost! But I did want to get further length, and while a really nice long Nikon prime lens would cost around $8,000, a 80-400 costs a little over $2,000. A lot of money for a guy on sick-leave, but who knows how long I will live?! So I now own such a beauty, if bought, by taking a loan. For some samples, please visit Facebook, and Tord S Eriksson: https://www.facebook.com/tord.s.eriksson Not that much paddling there, but I've made a new mizzen! All the best, Tord *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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