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Before everybody gets their undies wadded up in an indignant huff either one way or another, let me explain how these cameras fit in my grand photographic scheme.
It's mostly this stuff, or at least this is the "acid test" for my criteria. Six Flags or environs like it. I'm the father of a 10 year old and a 7 year old. There's going to be several more years of this sort of stuff. Some years ago, while toting my D300, attendant super-zoom (18-200mm) and it's sling-style bag around Six Flags one Texas July, it occurred to me that; I didn't ever want to do that again in this or any other life. That'd be all fine and good..... if I was like most people who would be fine taking a nicer ($75-125) "point & shoot" and call it good. However, I'd still like to take some decent photographs to record the trip, which is really the issue here. If I don't want to carry a P&S or the big artillary, then what are my options?
Back in the old days, there was a whole class of cameras called "advanced compacts" that took the same 35mm film as full-on professional SLRs, thus ensuring the exact same resolution. The difference was that there was no mirror/mirror box, prism, interchangeable lens, motor drive, etc., etc.... As long as whatever little lens they were able to stuff into that tiny body was OK, optically up to snuff. Which meant that they just made them "slower" and a fix focal length (typically around 40mm give or take).
What's the problem you say!?! There are any number of tiny little "compact digital" cameras ready to go for a decent price. The problem is that in today's world, for the most part, when they shrink the body, they do the same with the sensor. They don't want to talk about it, but those tiny sensor's in those cute, colorful cameras are the actual enemy of good pictures. This is all terribly exacerbated by stuff more megapixels on there than should be, but I don't want to go into that rant again. So if you really want to know about this issue, use your friend Google. Otherwise, just trust me on this. Within recent years though, manufacturers started putting larger sensors into some "in-between" sized bodies and lo, the EVIL (electronic view, interchangeable lens) cameras were born. Now we have everything from the micro-4/3rds standard, to APS-C (same as most DSLR cameras) out there. Well then, again; what's the problem?
Funny you would mention that. That's exactly where I am right now. In case you haven't kept up with my machinations over the last year or so, I do (or have) owned, a Nikon D70s, D50 (Plastic Fantastic 1.0), Panasonic GF-1, and now the Nikon D40 (Plastic Fantastic 2.0). I also have a number of compact digitals; enough to know that those have their place, but they (with their sensor limitations) don't fit in my front-line arsenal. What I need is a small/light camera that isn't going to kill me a places like amusement parks, but have some image quality chops. So let's look at what I've got. We'll start with the physical; where, as you can see, the GF-1 gets off to a good start (although that's a D3000 next to the GF-1 which is a bit deeper than the D40). However, it isn't as cut and dried as it would appear. I've found that I use the VF-1 accessory electronic finder almost constantly. For me, the LCD is almost unusable outdoors. Although the controls are bigger and easier to use on the D40, they are actually similar in position and function, so that ends up being a wash. One thing that was unexpected though was the elimination of the handgrip/battery bulge on the GF-1 (although making it much more compact) has made it uncomfortable for me to use. Panasonic has recognized this mistake and corrected that in the current GX-1, but that camera is way outside my budget. One last point of comparison being that the GF-1 is a 12Mp camera whereas the D40 is 6Mp. Looks like a lot huh? In my usage, it never comes into play. The only time that I really need/want the extra resolution, are situations where I'm all too happy to take the D300 with it's extra capabilities anyway.
As it turns out, which I wasn't really expecting (remember, the D40 wasn't supposed to replace the GF-1, but rather the D50), was how compact it was once I got that atrocious 18-55mm kit lens off of it! OK, it's not really fair since that lens is an adequate performer and designed to be cheap, before all else.... but still..... As soon as I put my 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor on it, it dawned on me that not only would it be the D50's replacement, but could be that of the GF-1 as well!
In order for that GF-1 to reach it's potential in portability, I'd need to buy the 20mm f/1.7 pancake for it. That lens persists in stay between $300 and $400 used, which makes it outside my limits on such things. And, as you can see, add that VF-1 on there and it really does a number of the profile of that camera!
When you compare that Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens side-by-side with even the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 (which is bigger than the "E Series" lenses), the size difference pretty much evaporates. If you are familiar with the used/older lens market, you also know that there's a ridiculous number of cheap, but optically excellent lenses out there to fit the Nikon mount. Many, like the Nikon "Es" are very compact as well. Even if you add the cost of mounting a Dandelion chip to each one at $30 apiece, anything that comes in at less than $70 would be sub-$100 glass! Yes, I'm aware that I'd have to focus manually, but I'm OK with that.
So, here's an example. The somewhat bigger "E Series" 28mm f/2.8 on a D40, you can see that this is a "dad-gum" compact little package. Is it "as small" as the GF-1? The answer is an emphatic, NO! Does it spec as well as the GF-1? Again the answer is, no as well. Is it small enough for me. Then, that answer is a yes. When that's combined with the fact that I'll be able to eliminate one entire system; it's going to turn out to be a nice fit for me.
If anyone would have asked me years ago when I started writing this blog, whether I thought that I'd go 5 years writing this thing, or better yet, have 200 post; I'm not certain that I'd have answered, "yes". Yet here we are. Last week, when I wrote posts, #198, and #199 on the various considerations associated with B.Y.O.D., I briefly thought about what topic I would focus on for this landmark post. I didn't come up with anything. Then as I sat down this morning, I figured that a "day in the life of" would be good. It's a cloudy dreary Sunday morning. The donuts have been eaten. The children are happily playing on an "obsolete" gaming system (GameCube) in my son's room. My wife is reading, while listening to her favorite radio station on the big A/V system in the living room. Here I sit in front of my desktop computer with my cup of coffee, doing what I've really come to enjoy.
Our technology is pretty much ubiquitous, but it's also largely seamless. That's as it should be. Even ducks on the pond sometimes get to just sit, and float. Yesterday turned out to be one of those days that just worked. I started out driving into Dallas to meet a buyer for the Nikon D50 (Plastic Fantastic). We met at the big "buying club" sized Half-Price Books. The sale went without a hitch...once we found each other inside that place! On to my other "to dos". Up to Plano to the Chinese grocery to pick up the necessities for cooking dinner for the family. Down to Garland Camera, not surprisingly in Garland to pick up the, 55mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor with the super stiff focusing my brother sent me. They did an excellent job returning the lens with a firm focus, but nice and smooth making it perfect for macro work.
While waiting for the guy behind the counter to find my rear-cap, I spotted this in the used case. Yup, that's a Nikon D40 (Plastic Fantastic 2.0). Yup, I bought it. Here's what happened: I asked to look at it, and fitted my "chipped" 50mm, f/1.4 Nikkor to it to get a sense on how it felt. Should never have done that with the $175 from the sale of the D50 in my pocket! They had it sticker'd for $200 with the kit 18-55mm "kit" lens (VR version). At this point, my brain goes into high gear! "What can I get them down to; for cash." "Will they sell it without that lens (that I don't need)". "What would that price be?" "Should I buy it with lens and then sell that to help defray the cost?" Yes: I ran through all that in head in the 30 seconds it took while rummaging through my bag for the lens and putting it on the camera.
After holding it and admiring it's very compact size compared to my D300, I knew I was hooked. Well, look at it! In the end, I got the guy to come down to $175 "out the door" (meaning he swallows the tax), with lens included....for cash. Of course, that's exactly what I just sold the D50 for an hour before. I think I must have walked into there with a "has $175 in cash" written on my forehead. If I decide to sell off that lens, it should go for about $75-100, which would make the body itself cost roughly $100, maybe less. I'd have been pretty darned happy to get that price on eBay, much less, in town, "in-the-flesh" that I could hold and see the condition for myself! As you can see, if you know that you are looking for, and know the market price, you can often get a good deal pretty much anywhere!
Here's another image I shot this morning of it mounted with the relatively large 18-70mm lens. Good gosh; compare it with the D300 with the 18-200mm. The difference in mass is astounding! And that's with no MB-D10 battery grip or flash mounted, which is how the D300 is often equipped when I'm out shooting with it. I know, the D40 only has a 6Mp sensor compared to the 12Mp of the D300, and that it's a 18-70mm vs. an 18-200mm "super-zoom" lens, but this is how each camera is most likely to be configured "in use". Furthermore, look at the previous two images and see what that camera could very likely be configured with the even smaller lens! On top of that, I'm now going to be in full "bird-dog" mode looking for the "E Series" 28mm lens to fit this body which is significantly smaller than the 50mm in those pictures! In actuality, now that I have it in hand to compare, the D40 isn't much larger than the Panasonic GF-1.
So, to finish my story, I completed my swing through the Dallas burbs, by going to Costco in Rockwall to gas up, and top the tires with nitrogen (we've had a major temperature drop the last day or so here in North Texas). Then it was off to the bank and the dreaded Walmart on the way home. I know all that doesn't have a lot to do with the D40 or technology, but can I just say that how much more enjoyable the morning was after my little find in Garland!
Before I close out today, let me just put this little picture out there. Yes, that's most of my stable of Nikon equipment. Even though, the SB-600 flash is out on loan, the 55mm Micro-Nikkor hadn't come back from repairs and my wife's Coolpix 8100 is at school; it's most of it. Also, I wanted a "family picture" before I sold the D50. NO: I am not a crazed Nikon "fanboy" since much of what I have came by accident or gift. At some point in the future, I'll get into what-all this stuff is and what role it plays in our world. Until then; have a great Thanksgiving break!
If it hasn't become apparent to you by now, I'll be more specific. I'm in the process of trading out my backup/secondary camera from a D50 to a D40. You might ask yourself, why even bother to trade what is essentially the same sensor into a different (albeit smaller/lighter) body? After all, it's not a major difference in size, NO difference in resolution, little if any difference in capability.
You don't need to look very closely at these images to see the difference in mass. Although the dimensional differences are not terribly significant, the difference, "in the hand" is telling, but difficult to describe. I started thinking this after holding and playing around with my brother's D40x. One of the original reasons for the decision to go with the D50 was that my primary lens is the 18-200 VR Nikkor that is rather large and didn't balance very well on the D40. I found though that I virtually never use it on the D50, it's really my primary lens and lives pretty much exclusively on the D300.
Actually it's this lens that's the deciding factor. It's my 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 Nikkor. How this lens doesn't get more love is beyond me. It's sharp, doesn't have anywhere near the distortion of the 18-200. It's compact, and pretty darned fast. Maybe it's that there's no VR, or that weird compressed zoom area between about 30-45mm (eq), but it's the DX/APS-C equivalent of roughly a 28-105mm walk-around lens..... and it doesn't overpower the compact D40.
I'm not saying that it wouldn't look great with a "pancake"; just look! It makes that Pentax K10 look positively HUGE. But I doubt that I could A) afford that 45mm Nikkor-P, and B) it's probably not how I'd be using it most of the time. It's going to take the place of both the D50 and the Panasonic GF-1. So it's typically going to have one of two or three lenses mounted on it depending on it's role at the time. When I'm out shooting portraiture, it'll most likely have my "chipped" 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor mounted and become the "low-light/available-light" camera secondary camera that already has the lens mounted, which eliminates the need to change lenses in the field. In a weird way, one of the strengths of this camera is the 6Mp sensor, meaning very-few/very-large sensors on the same physical size give it excellent light gathering abilities.
And as you can see; making it, virtually, the perfect companion to the full-boat loaded D300. Kinda like the contract killer's .22 pistol compared to a machine gun!
And of course, it's other most likely use would be the walk-around camera when the D300 isn't necessary or welcome. This body is small enough to take the place of the mirrorless GF-1, while at the same time big enough for me to feel comfortable using. In this configuration, it would probably mount the 18-70mm or something even smaller, such a chip-converted 28mm which would give it a very usable 42mm eq. focal length.
When combined with the Quantaray XLF-50 (SunPak RD2000) that I picked up recently, gives a very compact little, "do everything" kit. One of the things that swayed me toward the little Quantaray was the rotating shoe that can hide out of the way when not in use. That along with the $40 price-tag and Nikon iTTL compatibility might have something to do with it as well!
Don't get me wrong. The original "plastic-fantastic" was a great idea (and a really nice camera). I really loved having the GF-1 as well and it did a great job for it's suited purpose. So, how I'm going to choose to see this change as an upgrade. On top of which, I eliminate one entire system and having to keep two different manufacturer's ways of doing things. Plastic-Fantastic/Travel Camera 2.0
Not too long ago, I scored one of these: a Panasonic GF-1, although mine has the 14-42mm kit zoom lens vs. this 20mm f/2.0 pancake. I later picked up the VF-1 electronic viewfinder, after learning the hard way that outside shooting in full-sun was pretty difficult just using the LCD. I love this picture of it with the Minolta CLE which I would argue is it's spiritual forerunner. Japanese company known for cutting edge electronics, teaming up with revered German lens (and camera) maker to create a hybrid camera which was more then either could accomplish alone......2 1/2 decades apart.
Turns out that I'm not terribly comfortable using it. Love it's compactness, however, for me to be even somewhat comfortable, I have to have the VF-1 attached. This really blunts it's most compelling attribute in my world.....the size and ease of carry. I find that I'm constantly snagging that finder on things. Maybe I'd feel differently if I already owned the 20mm pancake lens and would have another reason to try and justify keeping it. But that's another $300-350, when combined with the $175 that I already have in it; it's just way more than I want to have invested in a "sometimes" camera. And now that, I've got the CoolPix 8400 that my brother sent me, I just don't find myself turning to this camera very often if at all. Yes, I know that those are very different cameras, but for me, they fill a similar role.
Then there's this guy. It's smaller and lighter than my D300, and I've found, that for what I use this camera for; the 6Mp sensor is just fine. However, it's just not enough smaller and lighter than the D300 to make it compelling enough to keep. Plus, I've found that, other than the 28-80mm that I keep on it, I don't have, and aren't contemplating buying any more of the old "screw-drive" auto-focus lenses that allowed the D50 to have an advantage over the D40. It also turns out that the camera's commonallity of battery with the D300 is also something I never use either. The fact is: I was wrong. Some of you are now stunned, right? But hey, you live and learn. Well; now what? I'm going to say that I've got about $175 tied up in the GF-1 and conservatively, another $125 tied up in the D50. I'm almost 100% certain that I can get at least the $400 selling these two camera.
This is kind of like waving a red flag in front of the proverbial bull! Ouch! What can a Frugal Propellerhead do with a potential $400!?!
This is a little like asking Michael Jordan, what he'd like to do with a basketball in his hands! The possibilities are endless. He famously once told an interviewer that when he has the ball, "you are at my mercy". That's what I think of eBay or Craiglist when I have a mission and money to accomplish it!
So, we'll start at the beginning. This is the starting point; my D300, with MB-D10 battery pack, and Nikkor AF-S 18-200 VR lens attached. What I'm looking for is a counterpoint of this beast. Something significantly smaller and lighter. It doesn't need to be compact enough to be "pocket able", but I'm going to want it to take the same lenses and flashes that I already use. So in other words.....a Nikon.
Now, wait-a-minute! That's not a Nikon! No it's not. In a perfect world, that would be a Nikon instead of the Olympus E-420 with the Zuiko 25mm f/2.8 pancake attached (50mm eq.). But no, there's never been anything in the Nikon inventory of this size.
What....The Enemy!?! I wish! Let me just say that I love the form-factor of the new Canon EOS Rebel SL1 (100D in other countries). And I'm damn lucky that Nikon didn't do this! 'Cus it's brand new and the price is in excess of $500 dollars without a lens! The fact is; I don't want to spend anywhere near this kind of money for a secondary camera/backup. I am after all, frugal. However, if you are in the market for an entry-level DSLR, I'd highly recommend looking at this thing at the big-box stores and reading some reviews. It's very well thought out, the size is great (especially for those with little hands), and the price it pretty darned good....for those who are into buying new, that is. Why not the E-420, which by the way, can be had for $200-250 used on a regular basis? Dead mount, that's why! When the 4/3rds consortium moved over to the Micro version of the mount, it orphaned the old mount, plus all the lenses and cameras along with it. Does this mean that they are useless? Absolutely not! Just understand that they aren't making anything new for them so they aren't a very good investment. However, if you are already into this system, I'd jump all over the good deals that I see cropping up everywhere for these cameras and lens. If instance, for my friend Rich who already has Olympus 4/3rd gear, a cheap E-410/420 would be a great buy. I've seen 4/3rds lenses in pawn shops for less than $50 and E4/5/6x0 camera on Craigslist for less than $150. This is excellent equipment and a great deal right now. Just not for me since I'm pretty much married to with Nikon.
Which leaves me with this guy. The D40. Yup, I had considered it and rejected it back when I was looking for a backup/secondary camera. I originally went with the D50 because it was not only smaller and lighter than my D300, but could use the same battery (which has never come into play). It also was a more similar form-factor with a secondary LCD info panel next to the penta-prism just like the D300 as well as other controls in similar locations. And I believe that's why Nikon went with the D40 design to replace the D50. When you keep everything very similar, by default you also limit the new design in many ways as well. Duh! Therefore, really, other than weight, the D50 didn't give me nearly as many advantages over the D300 as I would have liked so as to fully be an alternative! The very reasons that led me to choose the D50 over the D40 are the reasons that it failed in it's mission. But why not the higher pixeled D40x and D60 built on this chassis? Ahh; that's fodder for another post.
Yup, I feel pretty dumb about it, but I don't feel too bad. I can fix this. I should be able to sell the out-going cameras for around $400 and able to snag a functioning D40 for between $100 and $150. So, in the end, I'll probably do better than break even....plus I'll have had the fun of the hunt!
This is what I feel like, most of the time when I shoot pictures. Although, I've long-since gotten over the desire to "look pro", when I have to images that I'm serious about, I pull out the big guns. In my case, that'd be the Nikon D300 (usually with battery grip attached) and the 18-200mm (35mm eq. 28-300mm) VR superzoom. Plus there's often a SB-800 flash attached! It's a big rig and weighs a lot. Can't argue with the quality of images though!
Although I've tried to create my own light-weight "street shooter" in the D50 married to a 28-80mm "G" version lens, in the end, it was still just too much mass and too much like the D300. I've got no complaints about this camera as it is, but I just wanted it to be something that it wasn't........a modern-day equivalent the legendary rangefinder. If you've never used a classic rangefinder, you really owe it to yourself to just go out and hold one if nothing else.
As you guys know; I gave in and bought a Panasonic GF-1. I didn't really have a good conception of how small and different it was until I pulled it out of the box! Holy Smoke!
That's it sitting next to my D300! I've got both similarly configured with the GF-1 mounting a 14-42mm (eg. 28-84mm) and a 18-70mm (eq. 28-105mm) mounted on the Nikon. Both have similar megapixels and pop-up flashes as well.
However, what you see is the configuration that the Nikon is most often equipped in, which is the aforementioned superzoom and battery grip. The difference in mass is truly astounding!
This side shot really gives an even more marked comparison. And I imagine that eventually, after I sell of a few things, I'll buy the 20mm/f1.7 "pancake" lens for the GF-1 which will make it truly pocketable! Today was just a quick-hitter to give you an idea what I've been playing with the last couple of weeks. More to come on this topic!
Yesterday could have been a hellish time of misery, but I was able to do a lot with the situation. As usual for the summer, we had plans to go to Six Flags; you know...."More flags, more fun"!?! The kids had accumulated enough Accelerated Reader points to earn tickets, so we planned to take them, but this time, we were not only taking our two, but Josh's friend Wyatt as well as his older sister. After looking at the situation, we were going to have 4 kids, so if you add two adults, that number doesn't fit in any of our vehicles! Beside which, the wife had plans to go to a teacher (mostly elementary) store with some of her teacher friends, so I bit the bullet and volunteered to take the kids myself. Me, 4 children between the ages of 6 and 13 at Six Flags over Texas in late July! Hey it only got up to 98!
What a great opportunity! Time to get out the "Plastic Fantastic", D50 that had arrived last week and have it fulfill it's destiny in camera life. Hazardous, yet need to be physically light, photographic duty. On top of that, I had a very compact, very plastic, and very cheap Tamron 28-200mm zoom that supposedly didn't work which needed to be field tested as well. There you have it, "new" (to me) camera, problematic lens, iffy lighting, fast moving subjects, and adverse conditions.....what could be better!
Let me start by saying that it was an unadulterated joy to carry that sub-two-pound camera/lens combo compared to my usual D300! It's not only light, but much more compact, so that I wasn't constantly worried about slamming it's mass and bulk into something (or someone). This camera fits my hands very well. Although I have smallish hands; I do have rather long fingers, so really small gear feels uncomfortable to me. No, I didn't shoot any Pulizer Prize worthy images, but it (and the lens) did do a creditable job.
In some semblance of order, lets start with the lens. It's one of the early autofocus "Superzooms", by the inventor of the category, Tamron. A 28-200mm f3.5-5.6, it's generally not considered to be one of the better examples of the type in this day and age. It's also one of the older type that is "screw-drive" vs. ring-motor self-driven that is common today. It was listed by the seller as unable to auto-focus, meaning that it "hunts" and won't lock on to anything. And sure enough, when it showed up, I tried it out on the D70s I had at the time and it had all kinds of trouble locking on anything. I also tried it with the D300 and didn't seem to do much better. So it went into the cabinet for the next 3 months to await my ultimate decision on disposition. Last week, when the D50 arrive, the urge struck me to give it another try since I was still waiting patiently for a "G" spec, Nikkor 28-80mm/f3.3-5.6 appear at the right price on eBay. The upshot was that it actually seemed to lock on subjects with regularity on the D50, so it went to Six Flags yesterday! Well.....guess what......it worked just fine, probably 95% of the time! There were a couple of instances where the subject was dark enough that it couldn't lock on, so I had to switch to manual, but otherwise it was fine. No, it isn't a terribly sharp lens, but it was something like $17 after shipping!
Moving on to the D50 camera itself; all I have to report is that there's nothing to report. It simply did everything it was suppose to do, when it was suppose to do it and how most any photographer would want it done. I LOVE the compact, light easy handling aspects of this body! When I was weighing my options, I had thought about possibly a D40 as well, but in retrospect, I don't think I'd have been as happy with the body that would have been TOO small in my hands, and a control layout that's completely different than the D300 as well as my previous Nikon DSLRs (D70, D70s, D200). All the Nikon DSLRs up until the D40 has had an LCD control panel to the right of the pentaprism housing, where-as the D40 did away with that entirely and moved all those functions to the back LCD. This and the fact that it used a different battery and lacks the capability to focus old "screw-drive" lens would have made it very alien to my system. Sure, I'd have loved for the D50 to use compact flash, but I can live with having a different set of memory cards for all the pluses that it offers me. I'm certain that I'll find other things that'll annoy, me, but for now, I couldn't be happier with this camera!
I returned from Six Flags to find a little box, which contained the "G" spec Nikkor 28-80mm/f3.3-5.6, that I was able to nab on eBay during the weekend for.......$29! And indeed, everything that I had read about it was correct: it is in fact, VERY compact and light. I wished it had arrived early enough for me to take to the amusement park, but even that served the purpose of finding the Tamron to be at least partially working and a now a candidate to be sold for profit.
The last point I want to touch on today is the comparison between the D300 and the D50. Hopefully the picture can give you some sense of the difference, although it's difficult to tell until you see both together and more importantly to hold them. Sure, the D50 isn't the "baby D3" that the D300 has often been called, but at about five-eights scale and half the carry weight, I think it's going to be great at what I want it to do! They do make a very good match for each other and should work very well as a team.
I know that people tend to use this little phrase in a negative sense, but this is a case where the opposite is true. A few posts ago (In "Milk Run") I wrote about picking up an underpriced 2010 MacBook with the funds that I had accumulated from doing some misc. computer work. Of course I'm not in the process of a switch to Mac, but I'm more than happy to take advantage of the Mac-Lovers out there, by making money off of them! In this case, I ended up selling the cleaned-up (in a physical as well as computer sense of the word) for $500! Yup, I doubled my money (more or less) in 2 weeks.
At this point, things started coming together. First I came across a D50 that the seller seemed to think that there was something wrong with: he stated that it would occasionally "not focus" giving an R07 error. After a little bit of research, I found that this wasn't an error, but the camera telling the user that it's in the process writing the images from the buffer to the memory card and there are 7 images left to write! While this is happening, the camera won't do anything else, including trying to focus. I got it for $91 (shipping included), so the "back-up/hazardous duty" camera has been acquired. Pretty closely thereafter came the Tablet.....
Several months ago, I got involved in examining the market for tablets at the prompting of a friend, of course, I had come across the ThinkPad offering at that time, but dismissed it because it was in the "nose-bleed" $650+ area that's clearly aimed at the business end of the market. However, it was essentially a ThinkPad version of what a tablet should be, with excellent IPS/Gorilla Glass hi-res screens (1280 x 800) and built-in Pen input capability. What one reviewer said sums it up suscintly: "What your IT department would design a tablet to be". A few days ago, there appeared on eBay the high-end (64Gb) version "As Is" for $200 with a "make offer" option. After a little back and forth with the seller, it was found that the tablet won't power on, but.......still under warrantee TILL NOVEMBER! Holy Cats! I offered him $150, which he took, so I'm chomping at the bit waiting for this thing to show up so I can send it in to Lenovo for repairs.
Which leads in to a rarely discussed grey area. That of buying products known to be "not working", but still under warrantee. This can be a tremendous technique for saving and/or getting an otherwise overly expensive product. But it's not without problems. First of all, there is every possibility that you'll find that the item has been broken due to some user error that voids the warranty. Secondly, it often requires a LOT of research to ascertain whether it's even eligible for repairs under warranty anyway. In this case, I was able to find this out because I'm very familiar with ThinkPad support (which the seller was not). Then comes the really tricky part. In the process of messaging back and forth, you have to figure out whether the seller is being honest about his selling the product. Whether this was really something he just broke or in this case, part of a "mixed lot" of corporate "cast-offs" that he picked up. A quick look at his "other items" for sale indicated that it was the later reason. So, I decided that I'm willing to bear the risk of getting it repair under warranty (or not) for $150 which is what I offered and he accepted. Typically, these are not IT guys and want to just sell off as quickly as possible so they can do it all over again.
The last thing was the "Plastic Fantastic", or 28-80mm f3.3-5.6 "G" lens which I had previously written about as the perfect pairing with the light and compact D50. Virtually all the professional reviews I've seen of it rave about it's performance being all out of proportion with it's weight, size and cost. I had found that it can often be found under $50, but last night, I scored one for under $30, after shipping! This was probably because of the auction ending at the awkward time of just after midnight central time, regarless......I'm happy!
The upshot is that, all-in-all, for about $280, I was able to score three of the items on my "wanted" lists by spending just a little bit more than the profit I made from "flipping" the MacBook. Yup, this there is going to require more writing after I use them for a while, but I'm sure looking forward to that!
