Nikon D700 | Unconventional Travel

I paid 62.00 dollars for this Nikon AF Nikkor 70-210mm f/4-5.6D lens. After hiking a couple miles, it started to feel really heavy. The lens weighs about 600 grams. The lens is a push and pull. It hangs awkwardly from my camera strap. I bought it from MPB.com in excellent condition. Now a 1987 lens in excellent condition, it can vary from who is inspecting it. I’d say it is in good condition on the outside, but has some fungus dots on the inside. So I would probably rate this a good condition lens at the most. At 62.00 dollars I can’t complain too much and will keep it. I’m pretty happy with MPB.com for the most part. Packing and shipping is excellent these days. Plus, they still offer free shipping. Also, I bought a battery for 8 dollars for the Nikon D700. Can’t beat that deal!

These old lenses are great except for not having vibration reduction. I have to crank up the shutter speed to get sharp photos. Plus, the weight is a turn off. But the quality build is the great part about vintage lenses. They feel good in the hand.

I’m shooting this lens on the Nikon D700, which is my main camera now. My only other camera is a Nikon D70. I sold my Nikon D7100 and Panasonic G6. I like the photos from the Nikon D700 better than the Nikon D7100. The Panasonic G6 photos were great, but the camera felt fragile. But I miss being able to crop my photos from the high mega-pixel cameras. Plus, the light weight of the Nikon D7100 and the feather weight of the Panasonic G6 felt great on the body!

I’ve noticed there are a lot of injured geese this year. This poor guy has a hole in his head above the beak.

I’ve only shot with the Nikon AF Nikkor 70-210mm f/4-5.6D lens one day and my initial impression was I like the Nikon 28-85mm AF better. Mid-range lenses make more sense to me. Most likely I will bring this Nikon AF Nikkor 70-210mm f/4-5.6D lens out on special occasions. I’m looking forward to taking it under the cliffs and seeing how it does with mountain climbers. Probably a tripod would be the best, since the lens has no vibration reduction. I blew my last climbing shoot by having the shutter speed cranked up and losing the valuable light.

Some turtles across the lake. Too far to even try getting a good shot. But I guess I did capture a photo? What am I trying to capture? I have a feeling this lens will be doing a lot more time on the shelf than on the camera.

I’m telling you the Nikon D700 has some special sauce. The photo below with the single turtle on the log is funky. The log is sitting in the water, yet it seems abnormal. You could call it flawed, but I like it. It’s a special sensor in the Nikon D700 that you slowly start to notice. It has a soul. My Nikon D7100 took just regular photos. The Nikon D200 has some magic too.