I did it! I bought a new camera. On November the 6th I bought a Nikon D2H. It was in March when I had a first look at this camera and I was deeply impressed. All I ever missed after migrating from a Nikon F100 to a D1 was back. The D2H has the same or nearly the same viewfinder of the F100 - big and bright and the camera is even faster. What took me so long to buy one? The answer was simple: it´s price! Costing around 4 times as much as a D70 I simply can´t justify to buy one. But now that´s changed: With the upcoming D2X it seems that Nikon tries to get rid of in stock D2H. The dropped the price in a region where I can´t resist. I traded my D1 which I bought used nearly 2 years ago and got it.

Sure I would like to buy a D2X but it is by far to expensive. And when I would buy a D2X I know that I have to spend another 2.-kEURO for a new powerfull computer and big CF-cards. The D2H is definitly good enough for almost every application and at the current streetprice it´s a bargain.

Does this camera change my photography? Unlikely, but maybe I will use flash more often because i-TTL really works. I tested i-TTL on a friends wedding with a borrowed D70 + SB800.

But now the picture of the month november: just a Great Tit? Seems not very impressive because you can find them nearly everwhere and they are not very shy either. But to see something and to capture it are totaly different things. Just try it and you know what I mean. These fellows are extremely fast and the won´t pose for you. The ultrafast AF of the D2H + AF-S 2.8/300 ED combo helped a lot to get the image. I did this kind of photography before and it´s the ultimate speed test for "men and mashine". I had success with my D1 too but now I have a lot more keepers. I took around 500 images within 1.5 hours this morning of Great Tits, Blue Tits and Nuthatches and over 50%! were in focus and not blurred because of subject movement. As I shoot manual wrong exposures were never an issue but focus was. Now it´s by far better and the AF-performance of the D2H gives me real confidence when shooting fast action.

The image isn´t cropped or otherwise changed or enhanced. It looks really beautiful in fullsize where the claws are razorsharp.

settings: M-Mode, 1/500@f2.8, 200 ASA, WB auto -3, Gitzo tripod