New Camera and Lens...

So in the last couple weeks, I got a new camera and lens. I got Nikon D60 and the 18-200mm VR f3.5-5.6 lens. This lens is incredible! No wonder it was sold out for the last 3 years. It combines 2 of my lenses. Previously I was using the 4 year old 18-70mm lens and often found myself wanting more reach than maximum 70mm. Nikon's image stabilization (VR) also works really well. I find that I can shoot around 2 stops slower now. The image quality seems just as good as my other lenses.

The D60 works much better than my 4 year old D70. It's got a 2.5 inch screen and is smaller and lighter with more resolution. There are some features that are missing like the depth of field preview (which isn't that useful with digital) and the inability to auto focus my older lenses. It's got Adaptive Dynamic Range (ADR) which does seem to improve dynamic range, but slows down the camera significantly. My 18-200 mm does seem to be a little large for the body, but it's still manageable.

Eventually, I want to get the D90, but settled on the D60 for its smaller size and cheaper price. It seems to do 95% everything I need for 1/3 the price. I'll probably still get the D90 or D700 eventually for autofocusing my non AFS lenses, shooting sports, the D90 for its movie mode, and/or D700 for its awesome low light abilities. 

The baby Nikons (D40/D60) and this 18-200 mm super zoom seems to be all I need for the most common situations. The Nikon D40 is also great, but those are hard to find just the body without the lens. The D60 also has some nice features like ADR, anti dust system, 10 vs 6 Mega pixels, and an eye sensor, and 100 ISO which is useful when you want to shoot large apertures at slower shutter speeds.