About
About joshDubya
I like taking pictures much more than I like writing about myself, which is why I decided on a phlog instead of a regular blog!
But briefly, I’ve grown up in three different countries across two continents, and recently I moved to my fourth country, China. I’ve traveled to 21 countries, and one of my biggest regrets is not having gotten into photography earlier, since all the beautiful sights exist only in my head up till recently!
I love snowboarding, poker, video games, playing with my dogs and reading.
You can read a bit more about why I started this blog, or how I got into photography in my first post.
About my gear
Currently, my main setup (baby) includes:
- the Nikon D80 dSLR body
- AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF DX VR
- Nikon SB-400 speed flash
Update Feb 2008:
- my baby bought me the awesome SB-800 flash unit. AHHH thank you!!
- she also got me a truly sick camera specific backpack. It’s ORANGE too!! woohoooo
- I just got the Sigma 10-20mm lens as well, can’t wait to try this baby out!
- miscellaneous purchases: cheap but decent ballhead and tripod from China, gorillapod from Joby,
I absolutely love this camera and lens, the pictures that I make with them are amazing. Although I haven’t tried out the dSLRs from the other brands, I am nevertheless becoming a full blown Nikonian :-).
My secondary camera is the Casio EX-Z600Exilim, which is a great compact camera that I can bring around almost everywhere. Update: blah it broked. 
About the 18-200mm VR Nikkor
I’ll keep this brief, since there is such a wealth of information about this lense online! My first lense was a Tamron 28-200mm F/3.8-5.6 XR, (which I “suggested” to my sister when she was buying my gift 
)
When I first rushed into the world of SLRs, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would pay upwards of $300 for a lense. My old camera packages were cheaper than that! The lense was only $150ish, and it had decent reviews. I tried it out for a while, but I couldn’t get very sharp pictures with it. The 28mm minimum focal length also felt a bit limiting.
I did more research and came across some reviews for the Nikkor 18-200mm VR, particularly the one by Ken Rockwell. I was hooked, and immediately ran out to buy it. It would’ve been tough to get a bargain in Shanghai, but this page helped a lot. So far, this lense has been worth every jiao of its 6800 RMB (US$871) price tag. The price is just a little cheaper than in the US and there were plenty of units available! Don’t go to the tourist traps, like Oleg says. I checked out the price on Huai Hai lu in downtown Shanghai today and they were going for 9000 RMB.
The lense is immensely flexible. Check out this post to get an idea of what the lense can do, especially on both ends of the focal length range. In short, I absolutely love this lense, and although I’m tempted to get some proper macro lenses, I expect I’ll use this lense for >95% of my photos for many many years to come.
That’s all I have to say for now, I’ll keep this section updated as I get more comfortable with the lense.
Lifelong Learning
The more I get into photography, the more I realize how little I know…
Many many things inspire me, but one of the things that inspires me most are people who take the time to share what they know, and moreover, inspire others just by sharing their personality and love of life. I will write more about this later, and I’ll include learning resources which I’ve found helpful, and people who have inspired me 
About the site
I use WordPress to run my blog, and Gallery 2 for my photo gallery. To make them work together, I use WPG2, and I modified the Leto Prime theme done by Alwyin.This website and all works contained therein are Copyright (C) 2007-2008 by Josh Dubya. Pictures may be used freely for non-commercial purposes, but linking back to this site will be appreciated =)
For commercial use, please ask me!
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