Revival

While I was picking up film at the downtown Roberts on Saturday, I asked if they had any inexpensive used telephoto zooms in stock that would work on my later Nikon film bodies. The princely sum of $64 netted a 70-300mm f/4-5.6G that would function fine on the N80 and F5*.

Sunday afternoon, on a whim, I noticed that my old Nikon D1X had a pretty good charge on it, so I dragged my Coleman camp chair into the back yard with a tasty beverage and the new-to-me zoom lens mounted. With the D1X's crop sensor giving the lens an effective focal length of 450mm, you could get right up in Mr. Squirrel's grille...

When I sold off the Nikon D200, I had thought that was pretty much it for me and Nikon DSLRs (I still prefer Nikons for film) but I couldn't bear to part with that tank of a D1. Besides, its trade-in value is effectively nil these days...

*The G-series lenses by Nikon lack a manual aperture ring. This means that if used on an older autofocus film body that lacks a command dial, it will only function wide-open. The N80 and F5 both have dials on the body for controlling aperture like a modern Nikon DSLR. (Or, more accurately, modern Nikon DSLRs have a command dial for controlling aperture like an F5.)