It’s hard to believe that August will mark two years that I’ve owned my Nikon D700. Upgrading from a cropped sensor D80 to a full-frame D700 rocked in all but one department: lenses. The Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 Lens that I had coveted for so long and only owned for two months sold with my D80. It and my Nikon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 were my most versatile lenses (I finally listed the 18-55mm for sale on Amazon last week), but both were DX format, compatible but unsatisfactory with my new camera.

I went from four lenses to two—a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 and a Nikon 70-300mm f/4-5.6—the day I upgraded, which means I’ve been toting a seriously sweet camera with two $150-or-less lenses for the past 20 months. Most lenses for this camera represent a sizable investment, and so I’ve waited.

Wanting? Yes. Patiently. Yes.

Living by faith puts it in focus: someday the lenses will come (or not?) and in the meantime just shoot with what I’ve got and learn to use it to the best of my ability. If one lens was all I could own, my little nifty 50 would be it, anyway.

One difficulty with my current lens arrangement is indoor portraits where space is limited: 50mm is the widest angle I’ve got. I borrowed a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 to shoot at Help-Portrait in December. I used my 50mm for our homeschool group’s Father/Daughter Dance, but it would have been easier with a wider angle.

I don’t know Ken Rockwell, but I check his site when I make camera decisions. He seems to have every piece of equipment I could ever imagine owning; he has strong opinions; and he doesn’t believe that a bigger price tag equals a better product. In fact, he thinks my little 50mm is pretty hot, too.

Ken Rockwell has great things to say about my camera plus Nikon’s 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 lens. While ideally I’d prefer lenses with a lower f-stop, this works for indoor shots with lighting and outdoor landscapes, so I blew my entire newly-started lens fund on it: $97.98 after shipping and handling.

This lens focuses closer than my other two. The photo at the top of the post is straight out-of-camera.

I tend to shoot wide open and initially blow a lot of highlights on outdoor shots until the blinky highlight warnings on the back of my camera scream at me to adjust the settings. In my limited use, this lens doesn’t let me blow many highlights. These next two photo were taken shooting into the light. The first one is straight at the sun (the white blob on the right) and the patch of sun is the only blown spot; the rest of the sky is blue.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get lens flare, but my 50mm can do that.

All three shots are JPG, not RAW, and the first and last one are unedited. The last one just has a little fill light on my daughter.

What do you think? Sweet deal, huh?

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