hey Neil!  you know, I’m a little miffed at Nikon and question their business sense.  why the D700 when they could have just as easily made the D300 full-frame?   I’m getting pretty tired of this horse-and-carrot game, I’ve hung in there with them for a lot of years but this makes me want to eBay the whole slew of it just on general principle.  but you got me to thinking, if I got the D700, my 16mm would no longer be what I’m seeing, and I’m having fun with it!  I eBayed my 28mm f/1.4 when prices started to get silly because (I rationalized) the $1500 profit was worth a few ISO stops that the newer bodies could afford.  I miss the lens, but don’t regret the decision.  so to answer your question, no, I’m in no hurry to jump on the D700.  it looks fun, but I don’t have my 28mm anymore and fall sports are right around the corner where my 70-200 is essentially a 300 (600 with a teleconverter?  whatever.  it’s way fun whatever it is to photograph my kids and their sports teams.)

and when I threaten to eBay my Nikon gear, it’s not to run out and buy [completely counterintuitive] Canon.  I have no intentions of getting out of frying pan just to land in the flames.

I don’t mind at ALL telling you the specs, I’m glad you asked!  I’m especially glad that you asked what kind of LENS I’m using and and not what kind of CAMERA I have; you’ve been well taught!!!! 

the image of my family in shadow along Crater Lake was shot at ISO 200, f/18 for 1/100s with my 16mm Nikkor fisheye 2.8 lens.  of course, since I’m shooting a D300, the 16mm is more like a 24mm.  I kept my 16mm on my camera for the whole week for two reasons: one, I didn’t want to use a zoom as we left Crater Lake and traveled through Hell’s Canyon (I’ve yet to post those photos) because it’s so dusty, I figured it might just be safer to keep a fixed lens on and not invite more dust by changing lenses every two minutes as I’ve been know to do; and two, I’ve never shot for a whole week with the 16mm and I wanted to give it a whirl.  I’ve always been a wide open telephoto girl, and the experiment was to stretch myself in the other direction.  I was originally given that assignment (to shoot for an entire day with a wide angle lens at f/22) by Dennis Darling, a University of Texas professor, and I revisit his assignment now and again because I feel I’ve never truly mastered it.  regardless of mastery, it was fun!

of course, when it comes to people I love, I digress: the image of my son’s Lego scaling the side of my glass of shiraz was shot with the 16mm at ISO 400 f/3.2 at 1/30s.  old habits die hard. 

no, I don’t own a Sigma lens.  all my lenses are Nikon, 2.8 or faster, and on this particular trip, I hauled them all: my 16mm, 28-70mm, 70-200mm, 105mm and (oh, I do own a non-Nikon) a Lensbaby.

the first two images are processed with Kevin Kubota’s “earth” setting in Lightroom. I’m pretty sure it’s K.K. — I have so many Lightroom presets, I can’t always keep track, but K.K. is from Bend, Oregon, so it stands to reason that he knows best how to represent blue sky and evergreens.