Although this is mostly an IT blog, one of my hobbies is photography and the two fields are getting ever-closer to one another.

I’ve just picked up my latest toy – an AF-S Zoom Nikkor 80-200 f2.8 IF-ED lens for my Nikon cameras. It’s second hand, but it’s a really good lens, bought from a professional photographer friend who has switched from Nikon to Canon.

Actually, for the last few weeks I’ve been getting very excited by a new DSLR camera body from Nikon that I’d really like – the D200.

Like all Nikon DSLRs, the D200 uses an APS-sized (DX) sensor, as Nikon do not produce a body with a full-frame image sensor and seem to be relying on us all upgrading to DX lenses to make the most of the tiny image sensor (it seems to me that more professionals are defecting to Canon, leaving Nikon with just consumers and prosumers like myself); however the D200 offers a number of improvements over the D70 that I bought just over a year ago with a 10.2 million pixel image sensor, ISO range from 100-3200, improved autofocus, remote cable release and a massive 2.5″ LCD display.

Sadly, I’ll have to wait a while for this as, at about £1299 for the body only, I’d need to sell both my F90x and my D70 – and secondhand values are really not very good at all.

Oh well, I’ve finally managed to upgrade my most-used lenses to Nikkor models, the D200 body will just have to go on my wishlist.