New car obsession. Nikon D800, 28-300VR

On a photographic note: the T stop of the 28-300 is much lower than the f stops would suggest, requiring higher ISO. If you want to know the difference between the two, I suggest you come back later for today’s article 🙂 What you can’t see art this size is that this was shot at ISO 1400 – yes, there’s some fine grain if you look at 100%, but guess what – it could have been ISO 50 for all intents and purposes on the web. Downsizing large images (even if noisy at the pixel level) averages out the luminance noise and leaves you with a much cleaner print than you might think.

A mark of today’s blind consumer society: I was attending the launch for the new BMW 3 series locally; overheard was a conversation between two other customers:

Person 1: “It’s so huge inside!”
Person 2: “Really? Doesn’t seem much bigger than the old one to me.”
Person 1: “But it must be, the salesman said so!”

There’s a moral to this story: firstly, don’t believe everything you read or hear: go and verify it with your own eyes, especially if you’re going to be spending your own hard earned money on it – more so these days, since inflation seems to have had a very visible effect on the pricing of goods. Or maybe it’s the aspiring middle class, or both. If something is fit for your purpose, then go ahead and disregard what others – especially those with a clear bias, like salespeople – are trying to tell you. That’s the whole benefit of choice! Remember: this applies equally to anything, be it luxury cars or cameras. 🙂 MT