Just to keep you all up to date.
The new D2x bodies both worked very well, coping with the dust and crap and general knocking about. One body now looks considerably scuffed due to being bounced against my 9mm pistol until I moved the holster round to the other side of my belt.
Battery life is still an amazing improvement over the D1-series batteries. I watched one photographer run out of juice at al-Hillah and amost cried in disgust. He hadn't conditioned the batteries, I think, as mine never went down as quickly as his did. I asked him if he'd refreshed them recently and he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.
You'd think people would know about the kit they use, wouldn't you?
Once again, the 1Gb cards I have been issued proved too small for the job (shooting RAW-NEF) and I had to use my back-up Lexar 512 cards on several occasions as the Sandisk ones were downloading to my Smartdisk ImageMate too slowly (10-12 minutes for the whole 1Gb card) - that's the fault of the HD: USB1 technology, not the cards, which are fine.
We're suggesting a minimum card size of 2Gb, preferably 4Gb for safety's sake.
My older-model 70-200mm came unglued - the two screws at the fat end came loose and the whole assembly started wobbling until I tightened them up with a Leatherman. 18 months since the last service, so i can't complain. Rather than take it back to Nikon, I'll get the Loc-Tite out tomorrow as all of my lenses are due for repalcement shortly.
My Lowe dri-zone failed on me - the waterproof zip seperated and proved impossible to fix without major clobbering - if you fill the bag one iota over capacity, the waterproof zip wont close properly, rendering the whole thing pointless.
We're waiting for word on the upgrades we've suggested and I'll keep you informed of how that goes.
The new D2x bodies both worked very well, coping with the dust and crap and general knocking about. One body now looks considerably scuffed due to being bounced against my 9mm pistol until I moved the holster round to the other side of my belt.
Battery life is still an amazing improvement over the D1-series batteries. I watched one photographer run out of juice at al-Hillah and amost cried in disgust. He hadn't conditioned the batteries, I think, as mine never went down as quickly as his did. I asked him if he'd refreshed them recently and he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.
You'd think people would know about the kit they use, wouldn't you?
Once again, the 1Gb cards I have been issued proved too small for the job (shooting RAW-NEF) and I had to use my back-up Lexar 512 cards on several occasions as the Sandisk ones were downloading to my Smartdisk ImageMate too slowly (10-12 minutes for the whole 1Gb card) - that's the fault of the HD: USB1 technology, not the cards, which are fine.
We're suggesting a minimum card size of 2Gb, preferably 4Gb for safety's sake.
My older-model 70-200mm came unglued - the two screws at the fat end came loose and the whole assembly started wobbling until I tightened them up with a Leatherman. 18 months since the last service, so i can't complain. Rather than take it back to Nikon, I'll get the Loc-Tite out tomorrow as all of my lenses are due for repalcement shortly.
My Lowe dri-zone failed on me - the waterproof zip seperated and proved impossible to fix without major clobbering - if you fill the bag one iota over capacity, the waterproof zip wont close properly, rendering the whole thing pointless.
We're waiting for word on the upgrades we've suggested and I'll keep you informed of how that goes.
