| > Will you elaborate on why it’s a travesty? Genuinely curious as a newer photographer still discovering the best online resources. Rockwell is rather opinionated, and that rubs some people (including me) the wrong way. As a nascent photographer, I found his page and he convinced me to get a Nikon D40 with a rather breathless review compared to the outmoded D50. In retrospect, the D50 would've served me better since the existing AF-D lenses were less expensive than AF-S counterparts and a better deal for someone who didn't know what he was doing...and they could, you know, auto-focus if you had a screw drive. But AF-S lenses were the future and you shouldn't get AF-Ds for your DX camera because that's dumb, just get the 35mm f/1.8 DX instead... But I owe him a bit of a debt of gratitude, too. When I was gifted the 50mm AF-D and it didn't autofocus on the D40, I learned the joy of manual focus photography. I picked up a 24mm f/2.8 non-AI for a song a year or so later and have really enjoyed them ever since. (In fact, I upgraded to the D7000 so as to meter with AI/AI-S lenses.) I do not take any pictures anyone else couldn't take, but there is something that I enjoy about sensing the process differently: zooming with my feet, the robust engineering of the all-metal lenses, the occasionally dreamy quality of being out of focus. It doesn't come with the chemistry of film or the tactile feel of working with negatives, but it's better for me than an all-auto process. |