Ok, so you should know by now that I bought a camera, a Nikon D40 (Digital SLR). It cost me a mere $600 for the "kit" consisting of a house and an 18-55mm lens. The equivalent kit I haven't seen for less than $800 on mail order and closer to $1.000 in the stores.

Now, this struck me as a pretty sweet deal, and I think it may still be, but here are a few words of warning, if you're considering going in this direction. The D40 is a scaled down version of the D50, ie. they removed auto focus from the house leaving it up to the lens to do the focusing. Only lenses marked DX (for Digitial) and AF-S or AF-I give you what you expect. Currently the number of compatible lenses is maybe 15.

Also, the accompanying lens of 18-55mm very quickly becomes a serious limitation if you want to "get close", and as such you quickly feel the urge to go out looking for another lens. I'm there already. In particular I've been looking at two (well three, but the last one is way to expensive): a 55-200mm lens priced at roughly $550 and an 18-135mm lens priced at roughly $600. The former would complement my existing 18-55mm lens, the latter would act as a replacement all-round lens with an acceptable zoom.

The things I am considering now is this: Why didn't I just buy the D80 camera with the 18-135mm zoom (default) - it would have cost me a little more, but the D80 has AF (and thus you can use all of Nikon's lensens) - and you can use non-Nikon lenses as well (mind you, they come a lot cheaper!!) and these you're actually able to get your hands on. Appearently Nikon is way back logged when it comes to supplying lenses to Danish stores. I've been everywhere, and the 55-200mm lens is "on the way" and the 18-135mm lens is hugely expensive for some reason (closer to $700).

On top of everything, I've been looking at the same lenses in stores in the US. They're only $300 and $400 respectively, which would make the effective DKK/$ exchange rate a whopping 10 DKK/$ - official rate is something like 5.6 - I know VAT carries some of the blame, but this is just insane.

So should I maybe sell my brand new camera and buy the D80? Or should I just buy the 55-200mm lens and be forced to run around with two lenses? Or get the 18-135mm lens and be satisfied with "only" 7.5x zoom (as opposed to the 11x zoom the 200mm lens offers.. Argh!! And worse still: Am I becoming a photo nerd?!

On a day-to-day basis you often fail to notice just how beautiful a city Copenhagen can be - in select places. I pass by the old city barracks/garrison from the days of cannons and moats on a daily basis. There's a nice little green patch with some nice-looking willows (I think), so today I brought my camera and bagged this picture:



It's a bit blurred because it was a bit windy, but I like it anyway :o) By the looks of things, the weather should improve by next week, so time for me to start practicing some more on shooting crisp and clear images.

Literally. I went 9 hours ahead in time (which took 15 hours in total) and touched down in Kastrup Tuesday afternoon at around 1 PM. The flight was sort of boring, and sadly I didn't get an upgrade to Economy Flex, which meant that I got crammed into a much smaller seat which shared arm rest with the seat next to me - occupied by an American woman of ... well, large proportions.

So I didn't get to sleep, but just sitting with eyes closed listening to a little music did me good. I opted not to go to sleep when I came home and by the time I got to bed, it was almost 2PM, West Coast Time (so, something like 29 hours since i last slept). 7 uneasy hours of sleep later it was back to work.

Now, I didn't get hit by jet lag on the way out (no, Kianna, I just sleep a lot whenever I can!), and today, the second day, I don't feel that I've been hit by it .. but they say it's the 2nd or 3rd day, you get hit and it should be worse going West to East, so maybe I'll get lucky :oP

All in all, I had a great time in the US. It was very nice to spend time with Jesper and his family, and I got to see a very beautiful part of America, that I hope to see again - and soon.