Camera advice sought - years since last photo. activity

[gorney]

Hi, this is my first post here. Please accept me.

The last time I took any 35mm photographs was over 20 years ago in high school. Recently after becoming interested in and seeing great photos of the decrepit capitals of developing nations, I want to shoot downtown Kingston, Jamaica, a place I've been numerous times. Ultimately I'd like to see if I can get some of the results in a magazine.

A wedding photographer friend that I went to that high school with tells me that the Nikon N90 body is a good body. Yes? No?

Regarding lenses, what would be some good choices? Budget is about $500-600.

Thanks for any advice.

Mark

[Liz]

Welcome Mark! You must be having a great time coming back into photography - and your interests are perfect - downtown Kingston.....I'll look forward to seeing your shots.

I know nothing about the N90 Nikon so I'll let others give you advice on that - however, I will say you have a lot to choose from. Others will be able to give you some intelligent advice! You may want to post this in either Helpfiles and/or Nikon forum.

Liz

Hi, this is my first post here. Please accept me.

The last time I took any 35mm photographs was over 20 years ago in high school. Recently after becoming interested in and seeing great photos of the decrepit capitals of developing nations, I want to shoot downtown Kingston, Jamaica, a place I've been numerous times. Ultimately I'd like to see if I can get some of the results in a magazine.

A wedding photographer friend that I went to that high school with tells me that the Nikon N90 body is a good body. Yes? No?

Regarding lenses, what would be some good choices? Budget is about $500-600.

Thanks for any advice.

Mark

[another view]

Welcome Mark! The N90 (and later N90s) is a great camera although it hasn't been made for several (almost 10?) years. Actually a lot of people preferred it over the top of the line F4 that was out at the same time (late 80's/early 90's).

I guess the question needs to be asked if you want to shoot film or go with digital. Nikon has announced that this is the last year that they will be making film cameras (other than possibly the F6 at about $2k) because there are so many people going digital. The D70s is a great one to look at in terms of "bang for the buck", and memory cards have gotten a lot less expensive too - for example 1 gig cards which will hold about 200 jpeg images for well under $100.

If you do want to shoot film, look for a deal on a used F100 in good condition. You can probably find one for under $400 and it's a great camera - many improvements over the N90 series, and they're still made today. I was getting back into photography several years ago and had never used an autofocus SLR before. I first bought an FE but replaced it with an N8008s which came before the N90. It's similar in a lot of ways, but the F100 is many steps above both of them. The F100 won't leave much money left for lenses, but the Nikon 28-105 is a really good choice for starters. Add an SB28 flash (used) for under $100 and you've got a really good setup.

[gorney]

Hi, I definitely want to do film on this project. Thanks for the info! Mark