Farewell Flight...

Coming in on short final at MSP on this trip, I glanced out the window and saw this Delta MD-88 on a parallel runway. Since my D200 was in my lap, I picked it up, cranked the zoom lens out to 140mm, tickled the ISO up a notch to 640, and popped off a couple frames.

There was something a little poignant about it being pictures of a jet coming home to roost, since I knew these were going to be some of the last pictures I took with the camera. It wasn't even supposed to be along on this trip, since I'd intended to shoot the whole thing with the Sony/Hasselblad MILCs that had increasingly come to take over shooting chores for the DSLR. Only a mixup leaving the Hassy at home and getting the wrong camera forwarded caused it to be along for the ride.

While on the trip, I'd decided that I was going to look seriously into a camera with a full-frame sensor, either a Nikon D3 or (more likely) a Sony A7, and either way that would leave the APS-C D200 sitting unused and its "G"-type DX zoom lens unusable on either the new camera or my older Nikons.

I was going to need to re-home it, because it had a lot of life left in it...

This camera's been with me to Colorado and New Mexico, Washington and New Hampshire, Virginia and Arkansas.

It's got a lot of memories in it now: Three Blogorados, two Paul-E-Paloozas, Tac-Con '17, a couple NRAAMs. It's been to both classes I took from Pat.

It's taken some of my favorite photos...

...and some of my best.

It's weird finding myself a lot more attached to a camera than any gun I've ever owned. Yeah, it's just a tool for work, but I can't just let it gather dust on a shelf, and I'm certainly not selling it to J. Random Camera Dealer...

Fortunately, I found a new home for it, where it will continue on in its current line of work. I hope it makes thousands more memories for its new user.

Now it's time for me to start putting some memories in this one...