His point, which is 100% the correct viewpoint, is that I could achieve the same thing for a fraction of the cost if I used two lenses for the range I would get in the one lens. My point, however, was it's an all-in-one lens, and I wouldn't have to swap out lenses every other second.
But yeah, Kurt's right, and I will simply have to wait till the lens I want is in stock (it's insanely out of stock at the moment) and till it comes down in price a bit. So there you are.
I've been working a lot with Ken Rockwell's site to help me learn about the world of digital SLR photography. It's not as easy as buying a camera and leaving it in Auto all the time. If you wanted to do that, you could spend a fraction of the money and get either a compact high-zoom or a point-and-shoot camera.
That's not to say I'm a photographic know-it-all. I don't always make the shot I want. I do mess with my White Balance and my Exposure Compensation as I shoot in order to get the warmth I want in a shot. I try not to use my flash because I don't like what it does to my photos. To that end, I've bought an external flash so I can bounce it off the ceiling and achieve a warmer result for times when a flash is required.
My favorite article on his page is this one. I pointed my husband to this page and told him to change all the instances of "wife" to "husband." Hee hee!!
Mr Rockwell makes an excellent point on his site, however. It's not the camera that makes the shot; it's the person behind the camera. I know that for a fact because I made some really cool shots with my Kodak high-zoom camera, and I've made some rotten shots with my fancier Nikon D40.
Amazingly enough, Mr Rockwell has made some pretty vocal enemies in cyberspace. He is a professional photographer who prefers film (apparently most serious people hoping to be published prefer film as its resolution is much, much better than what digital can offer right now; the folks who use digital are either in the media or working in sports photography and need to submit shots immediately), but he doesn't fall for the hype that surrounds the sale of digital equipment. He tries his best to debunk a lot of the hype for us mere mortals, and for that I am grateful.
What gets me is a lot of people are going in for character assassination of this guy. He doesn't get paid a dime for his site; he just put it up a few years ago for his own use and to share with his friends. All the equipment he reviews is what he's actually bought. He isn't sent advance prototypes of equipment to review, and he isn't paid for his reviews. For me, this makes him much more credible because I know Nikon isn't paying him to give a good review.
Mr Rockwell prefers Nikon digital SLRs, although he also owns a Canon point-and-shoot that he absolutely adores. That's just his opinion and one I happen to share.
But because he puts out his opinion online for everyone to read, he gets slammed down in forums for being a "pompous ass." One forum that I visited even warns amateur photographers that if they listen to what Mr Rockwell has to say, they doing the absolute worst thing possible. And that's the part that I don't get. So what if you don't agree with him or like what he says?? Does that give you the right to start calling names?? Just stop reading his site!
I don't agree with everything my online friends say. I've disagreed with my good buddy Art more times that I can count. But I don't think that gives me the right to call him names, whether he's my friend or not!
What happened in our society that began to make it okay to slam other people? Criticism is a healthy thing and a right of Americans. But character assassination is not okay. Calling someone bad names because you disagree with him is not constructive criticism; it's cowardly and uncalled-for.
Sometimes it feels to me like our nation has turned into a big school playground, where the bullies are calling names and taunting the weaker kids, and everyone else is standing around and allowing it to happen.
And it's the big, loud-mouthed bullies who are getting airtime. It makes me wonder how ugly the world is going to be when my daughter and my granddaughter are my age.