Nikon today announced the new D80 and 2 interesting new lenses. the D80 looks good for the money, especially if you get the camera with the new 18-135 (non-VR) lens. It has a ASP of around $1,300 which is a good deal. The other new lens is the 70-300 VR zoom, which is probably sharper than their 70-400 VR and will give people more reach than the 70-200 VR, but at a speed cost and probably not as sharp.

It doesn’t have the 10-pin connector that the more ’serious” Nikon cameras feature, putting more into the “am” category than the “Pro” category, but looks to be a full featured performer.

The 18-135 lens will be a nice alternative to the Sigma 18-125, a lens I liked for it’s convenience, but had a few flaws.

Also Nikon announced a price drop on the venerable D70s, so this camera will be quite a bargain for the entry level person who wants a full-featured, solidly built camera that uses compact-flash cards instead of the SD/MMC cards that the new D80 uses. it’ll be interesting to see if Nikon keeps compact-flash as the format for their more “Pro” featured cameras while going to smaller card formats for the pro-am cameras. It’ll also be intersting to see if Nikon keeps shrinking the pro-am cameras into something more resembling a 4/3rd system camera, that, while not “pocket-sized”, may appeal more to the casual (but good) shooter who needs to fit this into a diaper-bag. it’ll be interesting as well if Nikon builds a “4/3rds” camera that has a fixed lens similar to the 18-200 VR and SLR viewing, it could be a threat to the worthless EVF cameras out there (the EVF is worthless, the cameras are usually great).

The last point will be if anybody can actually get these products when they’re released. You still have a hard time getting D200 bodies, let alone the wondeful 18-200VR lens, and a quick check even revealed a dearth of D70s bodies out there. Maybe Nikon needs to announce less and produce more.

Check out the announcements here or here
Hanging in the 310- Port of Los Angeles

This past weekend, we spent Saturday hanging around the Port of Los Angeles.

There are a ton of photo opportunities at the port and the Ports-o-call shopping district that is part of the port.

Located at the end of the Harbor (110) freeway in San Pedro, California, the port is the nation’s busiest, and the 8th busiest container port in the world.

The huge gantry-cranes can unload ships like a kid dumping out his legos on the floor.

With the operators high above the harbor in their “offices”.

Huge ships come in from all over the world, with the majority being from the Pacific-rim countries (although they might be registered in more “tax-beneficial” countries).

The chinese alone account for more than $70-billion worth of goods a year, with a total of about 170 Million Metric Revenue tons of cargo a year.

We saw a few “celebrities” while at the port including the “Black Pearl”

from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and the restored WWII Victory ship

the Lane Victory on which you can sail to Catalina Island and experience an aerial assult by vintage fighter planes (lots of fun, I recommend it for the whole family).

Having been at the port for a party, we didn’t have the luxury of arriving early in the morning and catching the good light.

We were stuck with High-noon lighting which was harsh and contrasty.

I was using my Nikon D200, my Nikon 18-200mm VR lens and my SB-800 speedlight.

The harsh light forced me to use a mixture of spot and center-metering, coupled with the fact that many of the subjects I was shooting were back-lit too.

The Nikon took it all in stride, producing a near 100% amount of good exposures.

The other problem I had was the tendency of the tour-boat to want to throw you overboard, so holding on to my camera was imperative, but the Vibration Reduction built into this lens worked like a charm.

All in all, it was a good day shooting pictures, it could have gone on for quite a while more as far as I was concerned!