I don’t talk about it much on FoG, but I take pictures.  Lots and lots of pictures.  And I have been doing it for a long time.  Paul Stamatiou outed me over the weekend when he posted on Flickr this shot I took of him at Octane.

It was taken was his Nikon D90, which in program mode (I am typically a manual mode shooter) seems to overexpose things to me, and my personal favorite lens.  Paul has a nice review of the D90 if you are in the market for a new camera. 

Which I am not.  But I recently was in the market for a new lens when my wife bought me a D80 as a present.  The D80 upgrade made the autofocus on my Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5AF inoperable so I decided it was time for an upgrade.  And somewhere along the way I learned, or was taught, that the lens that you use is more important then the camera body.

So I reached out to Josh Hallet who suggested the Nikon  17-55mm f/2.8. That lens was not quite tight enough for me so I ended up with the Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8 which is one spectacular lens.  It is generally considered to be Nikon’s best professional no-compromise normal zoom from 1999 to 2008.  It was discontinued this spring shortly after I purchased it and replaced with the Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 (picture below shot with Nikkor 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5).

It cost about twice as much as the D80 body but it’s been worth it.  The f/2.8 is a step function better then the f/3.5 min on my old lens and that in and of itself is worth the price.  Perfect for low light no flash situations which I tend to be in a lot.  On top of that it comes with a nice hood to keep the lens safe and a case for when I have another of my three lenses on the body.  Biggest downside is that it weighs in at nearly two pounds, so it is a bit heavy, but it is the main lens I use when I am out and about.

I love photography and I don’t know why I have been hesitant to talk about it much on FoG.  This is the start.  I am in the process of making a decision on the best online photo sharing service to use so that I can bring more of my pictures online.  I have conflicting needs around this.  I want to be able to share them on this blog and want to be able to distribute them to distant relatives that are not as Web proficient as readers of FoG.  I would welcome any direction that you can provide.  Until I get that figured out I will leave you with a parting shot of Buzz, taken outside my office yesterday morning with the 28-70.