A travel, photography & nerd blog

I just received some photo toys for my trip to Egypt next week:

The Nikon MB-D80 battery grip: Though it adds better handling (especially with big lenses), the battery grip feels pretty cheap and the shutter release on the grip is just crap. There is no “half-press-point”! I bought some AA rechargeables, though I would recommend you to just get another EN-EL3e battery, because that’s easier to handle and recharge.

The Nikon 70-300 f/4.5-5.6 VR tele-zoom: This really is a great lens. I got mine new for 350€. It may not be as fast or sharp as the 70-200 f/2.8, but it’s very sharp even at f/4.5 or f/5.3 at 200mm. With f/5.6 at 300mm image quality still seems pretty good, although it’s no longer as sharp as in the 70-200mm range.

A Hoya HD circular polarizer: This one is very well built. I actually wanted to buy a cheaper one (the HD goes for 80€ in Germany), but it’s definately worth it! They are so easy to clean. Though I don’t have any comparisation, this one only costs about one full f-stop, whereas I’ve heard that the ceaper ones cost about two full f-stops.

The Hama DustEx: just blow your dust away… I think I’ll need this in the desert.

Some Sanyo Eneloop reachargeable batterys: Wanted to use these in the MB-D80, but I think I’ll get another EN-EL3e for better handling. But these rechareables really rock! I already owned four for about a year or so, charged a couple four months ago, and my new battery charger tells me they are still at 1.39V (e.g. FULL!).

Some SanDisk Extreme SDHC cards: I buy SanDisk since almost 5 years… never had any problems. My D90 almost never stops shooting with these fast cards!

A Technoline BC-700: I is just a re-labled ELV BC-700, and so far it works perfectly well with the Eneloops.

The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally: Well, for more than 35€ this book didn’t answer my expectations. Joe McNally is a great photographer and I really like his work, but i think the book is more about McNally’s career (a bit like an autobiography) and about being a photographer, with great images but very few explanations about the setup. Nevertheless Joe McNally has a great writing style and I got some inspirations. I think I’ll sell it on eBay when I read it again.

The Digital Photography Book Vol.2 by Scott Kelby: I didn’t read this one so far, but from a quick look at it, it’s a more technical book (what is what I wanted). I’ll read it in my holidays.

Ah hell! I still need a camera bag!!!!!
… 10 hours later … I’ve just bought a LowePro Inverse 200 AW, which is a pretty small bag. It hardly fits all my gear. I could store a flash at one of the sides, but it won’t fit the wide-angle I wanted to buy next damn!