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At the beginning of July, flush with some extra cash from selling off my duplicate Bronica gear, I was trying to decide how to use the proceeds. I had to be really careful about how I spent this money because it would be the last chunk of cash I would have for a major purchase for a long time to come. If you read my review of the Tamron SP 20-40mm lens then you would know that I'm not entirely satisfied with the lens due to its lack of saturation and overall quality compared to Nikon lenses. I was thinking about the Nikon 17-35mm f2.8 AF-S lens as the remedy to this but this would present another problem for me. My chunk of cash is limited and I could only go with one major upgrade and a few other items I had been wanting to round out the 35mm kit. There is no way I could afford to buy the 17-35mm lens and a top notch body like another F100. I would have to compromise and go with a F80/MB16 combo to get my desired AND needed second body. Before seeing the F80 body I was thinking that a 17-35mm and the F80 would be the way to go since the F80 sounded very promising in features and ability but slowly as the F80 became more widely available, first in the east then finally out west, reports trickled in on the Nikon Mailing List that the F80 wasn't as good as people might have hoped for. It had nothing to do with features since everyone knew what they were for months prior to release but it had to do with build quality. The F80 is almost all plastic save for the lens mount and some basic under structure components and is marketed almost entirely to non-professional users. I was not pleased to hear this and neither were many of the Nikon List members. I had to wait anyway since the F80 was not out west yet so I reserved judgment but the build quality issue was nagging at me in the back of my mind. In the meantime I posted a request for opinions on what they would do if they faced a similar choice, would they choose an excellent body a la F5 and a third party wide angle lens or would they go with the best wide angle lens on the market and compromise on the body. I got a few responses and most seemed to be towards going for the lens and instead of buying a F80, they were advising me to forgo the F80 and save up for another F100. Good advice but one that I already thought of and couldn't see it working due to the lack of funds. I suppose I shouldn't lose hope but I couldn't imagine when I might ever be able to afford another F100 or even a F5 if I bought the 17-35mm lens. On the other hand the 20-40mm would bother me until I could also afford to replace that with a Nikkor lens. Neither option seemed wholly satisfactory but with the 17-35mm route I would at least be able to keep everything within Nikon (mostly). I did receive one excellent, tongue in cheek response which sums up not only me but many others too and I offer it below: On Wed 5 July 2000, at 20:33 Vancouver time, Edwin Leong wrote: |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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Edwin's
Vignettes - Dissatisfaction