Tuesday, February 19, 2008

$900 Poorer

Last Friday I went to B&H to buy the Nikon D40 kit with extra lens. I followed the DSLR breadcrumbs to the counter upstairs, put on my friendliest smile, and announced to the gentleman lucky enough to serve me that I was in the market for my first DSLR.

Me: I've done some research*, and I've narrowed it down to the Canon XTi...
B&H Guy: Excellent, excellent, that's a great camera.
Me: ...or the Nikon D40.
[insert crickets chirping here]
Me: I take it you're not a big fan of the Nikon?
B&H Guy: The Canon is an excellent camera.

And so it went, until I left 20 minutes later with a quote for the Canon (body only), a $230 lens, and a few other necessities that would total $880. I needed to sleep on it so I went home and read too many reviews (again) of the Canon and the Nikon and played a few (dozen) games of Chain Factor in between. Today after work I went back to B&H and upped my tally to a nice even $900 (they were out of the 2GB CF cards so what the heck! I bought a 4GB one).

I brought it home and let it sit in the bag for an hour while I ate dinner. Then, and I'm slightly embarrassed to admit this, I played another game of Chain Factor (my high score is over 200,000!). Moments ago I unwrapped my lovely new camera, snapped on the lens and took a couple of really crappy photos.

Next step: RTFM, and relearn everything Mr. McDonald taught me in Grade 11 Photography Class.

*The understatement of the year. I have read every article on entry-level DSLRs and most reviews of lenses in my price range. And my eyes are bleeding (probably why I can't take a decent picture tonight).

P.S. I went with the Canon because I really want a 50mm lens, and I want it to auto-focus. The cheapest Nikon body that will support that for existing Nikon lenses is the D80, and it rings up at $800. Big huge thanks, again, to everyone who emailed me and left comments with advice, especially Mike, who proved that you don't need IM or Facebook to waste a lot of time at work.

6 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Congratulations! This is so exciting!

Lisa said...

Exciting! Take some goodies!

montague said...

fantastic news! congratulations darling... i am really happy for you.

gillicious said...

Dear God, the parallel Gillian universe effect continues. I was looking into getting a D40, as they've gone way down in price, but decided against it because my 50mm wouldn't autofocus with it. This was last week.

Given that I already own a bunch of Nikon lenses, I may just save up for a D80 (since the D60 won't autofocus on older lenses either). That's over $800 Cdn for the body. Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for shopping here. We hope you enjoy your new camera a LOT!!

--
Henry Posner
B&H Photo-Video

aaronyo said...

I got my first SLR back in 1992 - a Canon EOS 10. My take, back then, was that Canon offered more features for the dollar than Nikon; you payed a serious premium for the slightly better Nikon optics. I think it is still the same. Canon = best value, so maybe this does fit with your Monk philosophy after all! (this blog now has readership in Chachapoyas, Peru)