CGrindahl wrote:
I spent a short while taking photos of old cars Sunday at a local street festival. I struck up a conversation with one fellow as we gazed in awe at a 1955 Chevy Nomad that had been restored to beyond perfection. The body had been lifted off the frame, and everything was reworked with fancy suspension, chrome everywhere, the finest leather seats in the interior. This fellow spoke about helping a friend who was considering rebuilding a 1934 Ford Cabriolet. They visited car shows and evaluated hardware available for the serious restorer. They concluded after doing their analysis that buying a completed car through E-Bay for $68,000 was cheaper than doing it themselves for well over a hundred thousand dollars. When I came home I checked E-Bay, marveling at the 1957 Chevy Bel-Aire convertible for sale for $125,000 before checking photos I'd taken. Photography is a hobby for me and I'm very glad I can enjoy myself for so little money. From that perspective, even a five thousand dollar camera doesn't seem like quite such an extravagance. I won't do it, but I feel fortunate that I can find my pleasure in a hobby that doesn't require mortgaging the house......Show more →
Curtis,
You sound like the guy who sold me his 600 f/4 - it was a lot cheaper than what his friends spent on motorcycles over the 10 years he had the lens. And it still works as good as the day he bought it. Well, it worked as I bought (or am buying) the lens, so there must be something to that!
Man...what is the US anymore, chopped liver How come we don't get a Nikon Road Show? Nikon USA just rakes in the $$$ and gives nothing in return for the loyalty we have shown for over 30 years.
It kinda ticks me off... but I'm still getting a D3 ASAP Life is short, ya know what I mean, Vern?
Because unless you're either rich or a pro making most of their income from photography, the D3 is not affordable even though it may well be worth Nikon's asking price. In my case, I make a small percentage of my income from photography.
If you're a pro, it's easy to rationalize a D3 if it provides better output and makes one a more efficient shooter. If you can upsell $200 of product per gig because your photography is better, you'll make back the cost of the camera in 25 jobs. But I primarily do websites for poor musicians who have plenty of people willing to shoot for free. And while I do a lot of low-light shooting and would love to have improved low-light performance, I don't think a $5K camera is in my future but I could see myself upgrading to the D300 if the performance is substantially improved over the D200.
Now having said that, some of the early reviews of the D3 have been so incredibly positive (including one by a PJ who left Nikon for Canon long ago) that I might not be able to resist. But from a financial perspective, it wouldn't make much sense. Luckily I consider my photography to be primarily a hobby and the question is how much am I willing to invest in that hobby and where should that investment take place. For example, would I be better off investing in a really great printer?
Martin, we might be all be spared since apparently there's only going to be 6000 of the D3's made per month, we probably won't be able to get one anyway.
How come we don't get a Nikon Road Show? Nikon USA just rakes in the $$$ and gives nothing in return for the loyalty we have shown for over 30 years.