I am the proud owner of a brand new Nikon D200 SLR camera. I have been a photographer since I was in high school, and have enjoyed using all of my Nikon cameras (the N2000 - my first ‘real camera’ and more recently the N80). But, I have to tell you that my latest purchase has been soooooo worth the investment…(and believe me it was an investment!) The Nikon D200 is truly a solid camera. It has all the bells and whistles you would expect from a top of the line 10 megapixel digital SLR camera - loads of variations on camera settings, built in flash, long battery life, excellent image quality, etc. I will say that since I have it coupled with a Nikon AF 2.8 28-70mm zoom lens, it is pretty heavy to tote around. But the quality of the photographs I’ve been getting out of it far ‘outweighs’ the heftiness of the camera. Another thing I love about it is that there is absolutely no lag time between when you press the shutter and when the picture is taken. I had previously used the Nikon Coolpix 800 - a very early digital model - and that was a great frustration of mine…constantly missing ‘the moment’ due to the camera’s lag time.

For anyone serious about getting in to digital photography, I highly recommend the Nikon D200. Take the time to read over the lengthy guide book and take out your camera and experiment with all of the different settings. I also suggest you work with it in ‘Manual Mode’ so you can get a better feel for all of the different aperture, shutter, ISO, white balance settings it offers. You can do double-exposures and interval timed shots, too - which not all digital SLRs are capable of.

This is a great camera!