Hi all
I'm back after over 3 years away from DSLR's.
I used to have a Canon 450D and used a few lenses in my time including L's and a lot of Sigmas.
Anyway I ended up selling most of my lenses due to lack of funds and ended up with the 450D body sitting in the cupboard...so I sold that too and bought a pair of gorgeous floorstanding speakers...
Recently I've been finding more and more images on hard drives and I kept saying to my wife, I really loved that time of my life and despite having many hobbies since then, photography was always a great time for me. Long story short, I was back in the market. I did my usual research for hours on end and settled myself on a Canon upper entry level camera - I was used to it, had used Canon extensively and was familiar. Plus my mate has a 100-400L that I could borrow.
Went to John Lewis to pick up a table lamp and thought I'd have a squint at the cameras face to face, as I'd liked the look of the 600D and the new 100D. Sure enough there they were and I liked them. After all, cut me in half and you'd have seen Canon.
Then as I was just crouching down to look at the 600D in the cabinet, the girl behind the desk asked if I'd need any help, and usually I'd say no, I'm just browsing. That day however I said, aye ok lets have it, here's what I'm looking for - "600D as cheap as I can get, with no lens. I always wanted a Sig 50 1.4 and I really just want a decent body. And also a decent SLR body too...hawhaw."
She said, ok, budget around say £300-400? Aye.
Well come over here and hold this beauty, it's magnesium, is weather sealed etc etc etc. Nice nice nice. My wife at this point was over looking at housey things, but wonderfully enough managed to time her arrival precisely when the girl said, "And this one is £800".
I ended up having the 600D, D5100 in front of me with D7k in the background. I held them all, felt totally alien to the Nikon but always went back to it. She recognised my awkwardness and tried to ease my mind with the whole lens fitting thing unlike Canon's EF / EF-S compatibility issue.
Finally I picked up the D7k again, looked through the 100% viewfinder, felt the weight, felt the grip, the cool touch of the body, the awesome look of it with all those buttons and switches and layout compared to the 600D's frankly plastic looking stark body (how could you traitor!?) and then said, I'd have to think about it some more.
Got home and went back to researching, as now I had a real dilemma - do I get a cheaper entry level Canon DLSR and be able to afford the 50mm 1.4 that I'd always wanted with my old Canon 450D along with any accessory I wanted like the grip etc...or do I go all out for the upper enthusiast's D7k body only, and just wait to afford the 50mm and all that other bumpf....
Browsing on a Sunday evening I noticed on camera price buster that the D7k was around £589 for the body only, or you could get the body and 18-105 kit for £629...it took me a while to process this, but for an extra £40, I could get the body and kit! I then could sell the lens on ebay or trade it in for the Sig 50, thus making the body cost around £480! And it was on Amazon too!?
A damn sight cheaper than the £700 in John Lewis.
What-Ho! I got the card out there and then, despite it being out of stock until the Monday, but I'd have it for the Tuesday, Amazon said.
Monday came, no dispatch. Monday night came, no dispatch and out of stock for 8-12 days!! I emailed Amazon on Monday night who said aye, sure enough it wouldn't be back in due to a supplier issue. Checked the price of the kit after the call, just to be sure that I wasn't purchasing a
second hand or grey market one, or indeed one of Amazon's many "merchant suppliers" used but new situation.
Nope, brand new, Amazon.co.uk selling, but now the price was £735!? I immediately thought that Amazon had made a boo-boo and had priced it at a massive discount, caught their error and were now trying to get me in a position where it was permanently out of stock and I'd have to pay full dig. Worried, I spent the whole of Monday looking for rules and regs that would allow me to hold Amazon to their price error, or other ways to get around the fact that there had been a foul-up.
True to Amazon form though, the order was changed to dispatched on the Tuesday, and I had a glorious D7k with 18-105 in my hands, brand new from Amazon for the same price as the 600D I was going to go for (If I sold the kit lens)
Couldn't believe my luck.
Moreover with the money I'd saved I bought myself the genuine Nikon grip (used from
MPB photography mint cond) and a Sig 50 1.4 (also from MPB used but mint) for £380! (by the way, how good is MPB!?)
So I now had a gripped D7k with kit lens and the lens I'd always wanted to try - a Sig 50mm f/1.4 for a shade over a thousand bucks.
I've had it now over a week now and I have to say, I absolutely love my Nikon. I would never have believed I'd be the proud owner of the dark side, but the D7k is just magnificent. I tried to compare it to Canon's model structure and I think it's a 7D or at worst 60D, but either way I now have a metal bodied upper enthusiasts camera with 2 fabulous lenses, both of which are pin sharp (Sig needed a bit of focus adjustment, but with the D7k's in-camera adjustment, I need not send it all the way back to Sigma for 7 weeks of testing! Oh what!)
I've read the thread here and there's a few people finding issues with their gear, but I have to say I am absolutely over the moon with my Nikon, and the deals I've managed to find. It truly was a case of right place, right time.
I look so much forward to getting back in to it, and with the Nikon D7k and its standing-ovation sharpness for both the kit lens (which I've decided to keep) and the Sigma 50mm, it's just a fantastic experience so far.
Cheers for now
G