$612.25

The Keed.

AF-S VR zoom-Nikkor f/4.5-5.6 70-300 with hood.

Yesterday (Thursday, June 14, 2007; Flag Day — and you can can be sure our flag was out; as it is almost every day), in concert with a trip to mighty Hahn-Graphic, the place I bought the D100, and 40 years ago the mighty Pentax SpotMatic, and a slew of lenses, that I used so many years until the D100 retired it all, I bought a new telephoto zoom lens, an AF-S VR zoom-Nikkor f/4.5-5.6 70-300 (pictured).
Hahn-Graphic is no longer what it was 40 years ago — in fact, probably not the same owners. They have moved to an old Rochester fire-house, and become part of the funky artsy-craftsy establishment. —And of course, photography has come way beyond what it was 40 years ago — ‘pyooters and digital-photography have made it much more accessible.
40 years ago Hahn-Graphic was a tiny adjunct to Hahn Automotive — the effort of the owner of Hahn-Automotive’s son. Hahn-Automotive was just a small Rochester auto-repair shop.
And 40 years ago, Hahn-Graphic wasn’t the place the serious photographers went to. That was LeBeau-Photo; a place that has since tanked. My enlarger and all my photo-supplies (chemicals, bulk-film, printing-paper — I used to roll film myself, from 100-foot rolls) were from LeBeau. I also bought stuff at the Rochester-Institute-of-Technology bookstore, including a second Pentax camera-body — a black-body.
The reason I went to Hahn yesterday was because the D100 wasn’t shooting and it looked like it was going to have to go to Nikon-repair.
I had called Hahn, but apparently wasn’t talking to the right person.
So I dragged-butt all the way to Hahn — over an hour trip.
But as soon as I walked in the door, somebody yelled “That’s because you don’t have a lens in it!” (Well, of course not. I had taken the lens out to send the body to Nikon. The camera had not been working with a lens in it.)
The camera’s display was throwing up a message the phone-person thought might be an error-code; the message was r06.
Correct-person then said r06 was the number of image-spaces left in the camera’s buffer: where images are stored before they go on the flash-card — like if you’re shooting motor-drive. Trip the camera quickly and it goes from r06 to r05 to r04, and so on.
So we purloined a lens from stock and installed that, and the camera worked.
“No sense sending it to Nikon to find nothing’s wrong. Take it home and reinstall your lens. If it still doesn’t work, bring it back. That r06 is not an error-code.”
I also was instructed to lock my lens at its lowest exposure-setting; otherwise the auto-exposure won’t work, nor will the camera.
They showed me how.
But my lens doesn’t have any such things. I can’t reset or lock it.
I reinstalled the lens and the sucker works.
Who knows. I was inclined to think something got bumped, but if so who knows what.
“Before I go,” I said; “what I currently have will only do up to 85; which ain’t much telephoto. For years I have been interested in getting a bigger telephoto, and here I am at your store.” (“Toss another steak on the grill, Martha.”)
It’s probably the onliest additional lens I’ll ever buy for the D100. The lens I have is zoom 24-85 — wide-angle to slight telephoto — and I shoot mostly at 24.
Any wider than that, the wide-angle distortion gets noticeable.
The image-size on the D100 is slightly more than a 35mm film-camera, so a 24mm lens on the D100 is about equivalent to a 35mm wide-angle on a 35mm film camera — maybe a little wider.
I had a 28, and even a 21, for the Pentax, but generally I went no wider than 35 — 28 indoors.
I also had five telephotos for the Pentax: an 85, a 105, a 135, a 200, and a 300.
Back then zoom-technology wasn’t what it is now. Zoom-telephotos back then rendered a compromised image. Nowadays zoom performance is equal to my old single focal-lengths.
In fact, I got a normal focal-length zoom years ago for the Pentax.
When introduced, the normal lens for a Pentax, a 50, opened clear up to 1.2; which is extreme.
At 1.2 depth-of-field is about zilch; and the tighter you go the depth-of-field expands (hello, bluster-boy), so f16 or f22 was preferable.
My father’s Hawkeye went clear down to f64 — almost a pinhole. Of course, at that setting you had to offset the tiny f-stop with slow speed (or faster film) to get enough exposure; the Hawkeye went up to only 1/125th.
The fact the new lens is 70-300 means I don’t have to buy a slew of lenses. —Plus my Pentax 300 was a cannon.
But I would imagine a small camera-bag of some sort is in my future. My old camera-bag was too specific to the Pentaxes. (It’s big, and had a styrofoam-insert for all the lenses.)
Plus I should probably replace my fabulous Marchioni-tripod, which was unfinished aluminum and a work-of-art. It’s become kind of wonky; stable but hard to work. (Again; “toss another steak on the grill, Martha.”)
My old rifle-stock should be reusable.

“The D100” is my Nikon D100 digital camera.

“Rochester-Institute-of-Technology” (RIT) is a local college that specialized in photography. I took a photography-course there.

“Toss another steak on the grill, Martha” is what I always say to my loud-mouthed macho brother-in-Boston, referring to the time he walked into Monty’s Harley-Davidson emporium and ordered his GeezerGlide. “Here comes another one of those guys with the stars in his eyes, hot to prop up his manliness by pretending he’s a Hells Angel. Toss another steak on the grill, Martha.”

RE: “The tighter you go the depth-of-field expands (hello, bluster-boy)” refers to the fact I once asked my macho brother-in-Boston (bluster-boy) how one expands depth-of-field; and this is the answer: by tightening f-stop. He had no idea whatsoever, but loudly claims to be all-knowing in photography.