Saturday, 03-Dec-11 23:10:00 CET

A new era: Nikon D5100 DSLR, Nikkor 18 - 55 and 55 - 300!

I started blogging June 10 this year. In October I had worked my way through most of my piles of paintings and things. It is a lot darker now in December. When I go to work it is dark and when I come home after work it is also dark.

It is not so easy to blog about paintings if I cannot make photos of the paintings because it is dark outside.

Another thing is that I noticed is that one corner of the images of my little compact camera is a bit fuzzy. I use to choose the least interesting corner of the image and make that the fuzzy corner.

I decided it was time for a camera upgrade because this was starting to feel depressing. What should it be?

When you decide on a camera brand it is like casting a vote so I started to feel in on where I wanted my vote to be. We live in a fluctuant time, it seems, when it feels difficult to cling on to robust values. This was the most important feeling I had. Last time I bought a camera I was not intending it to be a long lasting investment and so I did not spend so much time on deciding what my needs were.

This time I am completely done with gadgets that fall apart or get outdated just after the guarantee has expired. Another thing that irritates me is manufacturers changing standards for no other reason that forcing me to buy new things.

My list of camera manufactures became Nikon, Canon and Sony. Sony has their own standards on things. Why would a manufacturer have a proprietary memory stick standard? That is not done so Sony is not for me. Next on the list is Canon. They changed their lens system a couple of years back so they can do that again and again and again and again. Then left on my list we have Nikon. They make use of standard SD cards! They have a lens system from before computers were invented. That is old! Also I found out that at my work there are many colleagues that are Nikon camera owners. So this was it, I knew were to cast my vote: Nikon.

We are not done just yet. I had to buy the camera as well and I had to choose model. Nikon has a new middle segment DSLR camera right now that looked interesting to me. Nikon D5100 with an 18 – 55mm lens and a 55 – 300mm lens. Where?

I used a large part of a Saturday to walk around between the camera shops in the city to see what prices they had on the Nikon cameras. I found out that a large computer, camera, radio, dishwashers and TV etcetera shop had the lowest price. This shop is large in Europe. They told me that if I could get the price cheaper somewhere else then they had “lowest price guarantee” whatever that means. The nice thing with this shop is that they have all sorts of sets in the shop so I could hold the camera in my hand and imagine I was the proud owner of the camera. I could try out various things. In other shops the cameras are behind glass. There was no battery in the cameras so I could not try out any menus. All equipment in this shop is connected to alarm devices and these devices are not so well maintained so they go off constantly so it is a constant beeping mixed with the all sorts of noise in this shop.

In this shop I usually don’t ask any questions because then the reseller walks over to a computer and type my question in Google and to me it is a really silly feeling to stand next to a completely uneducated salesperson that only knows how to operate Google and it is silly to know that I could have done that searching quicker and get a better result. Then the salesperson usually provides the Google half-truth with a charming self-confidence.

When I found out that the big shop with the uneducated salespeople indeed had the cheapest prices I decided to buy the camera in a smaller shop with smarter people. They did not have my set on stock. Then I went to all shops in the city and none had my set on stock. In one shop they were so friendly to tell me that due to problems with flooding the specific set I was looking for would not be in the shop until next year in February. In two months.

Then I went online and found that www.cameranu.nl had my set on stock and that they could deliver the next day. Another thing, they had the same low price as the shop with the uneducated salespeople.

So here starts a new era for me. Restart I must say. I have been into photography a number of times but I think that now it is going to be a really pleasant experience.