Newbie here... What should I buy?

[travismp]

I am brand new here (see first post action) I want to get myself a christmas present of a new camera. My entire budget is $1600 for camera, lens, tripod, bag, 2 batteries, and memory.

If you had to start from scratch and had a budget of $1600 what would you buy? I will mostly do landscape and family stuff.

Thanks all.

[Frog]

d40x with 18-200 vr.

[travismp]

Frog thank you for the reply... I found from B&H a D40X that comes with a 18-55 and was thinking about getting the "Zoom Telephoto AF VR Zoom Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S" Lens.

Is that a big deal to miss the 55-70 range?

[deckcadet]

Nope, not at all! It's a step forward or a step back depending on the lens. The 70-300mm VR is an excellent lens, with great optics, very effective VR, and is overall an extremely versatile lens. I always suggest it when someone has a budget bigger than required for a 55-200 VR but not enough for a 2.8 lens.

It was leaked at the same time as the 105mm micro VR, but not announced for a few months afterwards. A friend of mine who is a camera reviewer heard from his contacts that Nikon had held off on the release to make some additional tweaks to make the image quality truly exceptional. From what I've seen, they did a good job.