The Second Camera Upgrade Story

Some time back I bought a Nikon D50 body as a second DSLR body that I could take travelling or use if anything happened to the D2X.  It was cheap ($200) so I wasn’t worried sick that it might get stolen in a foreign country and it was also light.  The thing I didn’t like was the small screen.  Usually it was paired to the Nikon 18-135mm which I also didn’t pay a lot for, and is a handy all round lens.

About a year later a cheap D80 body came up, which I happily used for a while until the seller of the Sigma 20mm f1.8 said he was interested in a D80 as a trade.  So I needed another back up body.  I managed to locate an open box D90 for a very reasonable price, and suddenly the cheap D50 became a D90.

Nikon D90 with Nikon 18-135mm lens at 135mm, f8.

Last week I did a trade with a guy and got a Nikon 18-200mm VR II and said goodbye to the Nikon 18-135mm all in one deal.  So now my cheap back up camera and lens combo went from being worth about $350 to about $1350.  Mmmm.

Right now as I don’t have a nice full frame camera, it’s not a big issue.   However with this value of camera gear, I am not sure I will be 100% comfortable taking this on a trip; despite it being perfectly set up as an all in one travel package.

I haven’t really given the 18-200mm a trial run yet.  It will be interesting to see if it has as much, or indeed more distortion than the 18-135mm, which has lots of barrel distortion at 18mm, and pin cushion distortion past 30mm.  Here’s an example of the pin cushion distortion at 38mm – check the bridge at the top of the picture sinking in the middle.

Nikon D90 with Nikon 18-135mm lens at 38mm, f8.