Nikon D90 - Death of a Beloved Camera

My heart sank last week in Kamal-tal. 

I was taken a few family pics next to this lovely lotus pond in Naukuchiayal, Uttrakhand, when my Nikon-D90 suddenly stopped working. A strange growl inside the camera and then silence. I tried removing the 18-105mm lens, battery, memory card, rebooting time and again on different settings...but nothing would work. On the panel was an adamant "Err" message that just refused to go away. 

Back in the hotel, I looked up this problem on the net. There were numerous videos that explained how this error message would turn up even in the more advanced Nikon cameras. The mirror had jammed. It had got stuck at a midway point on a slant, blocking the aperture. Some of these self-help videos has a fix where a screwdriver's nudge would make everything click back in shape. There were also numerous shorts which simply showed the problem without offering any solutions other than 'if this happens, go to the service centre'.

Over the past 15 years a lot of memories had been captured in this sturdy, beautiful camera. I had purchased it from Akihabara, Tokyo,  in 2009 along with with a pair of binoculars ahead of my trek to the top of Mt. Fuji. Initially it had been a pain - especially on hiking trails - lugging around 1.5 kg of equipment (body 703g + 18-105mm lens 420g + bag). However the quality of photos made it completely worthwhile. So it stayed with me through innumerable family functions, treks, portraitures (Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8D), school functions and social events. 

So back in Noida, I looked up the nearest Nikon service centre and handed my D90 in. A few days back the service engineer called back to say that the problem had been solved - there had been an issue with the gears connected to the actuation motors. The repair cost me over Rs. 4000.

Is it time to let go? 

The last time I had a similar problem was in Japan, with my Canon G9. It was a sturdy-looking   pocket-sized, flip-screen camera which had died on me within a  year a purchase. Luckily it has still within the warranty period and I had taken it to the service centre and got it repaired for free. To be on the safe side, I had sold it at Wonderex-Tsukuba and got a fairly decent price for it.

There is no Wonderex in India and I don't have much hope of getting a good price for the old D90 body. So the question now is - what should be my next digicam? 

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REFERENCES

Nikon D90 mirror stuck - https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/74780/nikon-d90-mirror-stuck

Err - https://nikonites.com/forum/threads/error-shutter-release-button-mirror-stuck.13236/

Prime Lens - Back to Basics

A kit lens makes you lazy. This is the first thing you learn when you step out of your comfort zone in photography.

I have been photographing with an 18-105mm lens for more than 10 years now and thanks to the convenience of zooming in and out, I had all but forgotten the basics of photography. I knew I needed to get back to the basics, to detox, to relearn, and a fixed-focus 'prime lens' seemed the best way forward.

The ones I could afford were shortlisted to the Nikkor 50mm 1.8 lenses which came in two types 'D' and 'G'.  The 'D' was a older version without an inbuilt focusing motor, and it came for less than half the price of the 'G'. Since I was using a camera body that already had a motor the former seemed better value for money - especially when it came at an an extra discount during the recent Amazon Sale.

So last month, I set aside my kit lens for the first time, and twisted into its place a brand new 50mm 1.8D. The Nikon D90 now felt like a strange new animal - lighter, faster and sharper than ever before, and yet completely unfamiliar. Despite clocking nearly 50,000 'shutter actuations' on the D90, I realised that  knew very little about the nuts and bolts, the basics of photography: focal lengths, F-stops and apertures.

They say the 50mm lens shows you the world the way your eyes see it, by "rendering images that closely match the true perspective of the human eye". Sounds nice... but when you look through the 50mm lens for the first time you feel like a horse with blinkers plodding through a tunnel. The world shrinks. Instead of just zooming you now need to use your feet and composition becomes a bit of a struggle.

The 50mm lens is also a bit puzzling with all its numbers and dials packed into a tiny ring. So here is a collection of links that has helped me re-learn photography -

• Sudhir Shivaram tutorial - https://youtu.be/WXdAX0No2hM
• Mark Levoy - Lectures on Digital Photography - https://sites.google.com/site/marclevoylectures/home
• Steele Training - DSLR focus tips - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4bQc36r5ek&feature=youtu.be
• Why wide-angle lens should not be used for portraits - https://www.diyphotography.net/gif-explains-changing-focal-length-impacts-portrait/

• Exposure Triangle - cheatsheet - https://www.hamburger-fotospots.de/kostenloser-download-foto-cheatcard-fuer-fotografen.html

Understanding Exposure and F-Stops:

• Expert Photography - https://expertphotography.com/understanding-fstops-stops-in-photography-exposure/
• Dylan Bennett (2012)- A Simple Explanation of F-Stop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmNIouLByJQ

And just in case you too are weighing the pros and cons of a prime lens, these might help -

• Comparisons - The Nikon Guy -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU9YfNgoBLU
• https://photographylife.com/reviews/nikon-50mm-f1-8g
• https://improvephotography.com/34639/nikon-50mm-1-8d-vs-1-8g/
• https://versus.com/en/nikon-af-nikkor-50mm-f-1-8d-vs-nikon-af-s-nikkor-50mm-f-1-8g