A Walk In The Park With The Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED

With time and a Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED in my hands, I decided to pay a short visit at a park around my vicinity. Recently purchased at a surprisngly affordable price during my recent trip to Chinatown on the 29th of Jan this year, this is my only lens equiped with AFS for fast and silent autofocus and VR for slower shutter speeds. It has a plastic mount, not metal, but it seems well contructed and has the advantage of being light for a telephoto! All very useful points for a telephoto lens indeed! My early experience with this lens is that AF is fast and accurate, images are sharp all round and its flare resistant especially with the supplied hood on. The only downsides are its tendency to underexpose a little at the telephoto end and contrast is good but not vibrant, both which are easily rectified in camera and photoshop respectively. At this price, its many plus points which gives a higher success rate per shot are already worth the reason to get this lens. At this price range and class, it has no competitors in my humble opinion. I hope you enjoy some of the trial pictures taken with this lens.

Chinatown Streetshoot

The Chinese New Year is fast approaching and the streets of Chinatown are teeming with shoppers, tourist and photographers alike, soaking in the festive atmosphere. I ususally do not feel comfortable in crowded areas, especially around this time of the year in this part of Chinatown, but it was still manageable, as it is still quite a couple of days before the Lunar New Year. I actually went there twice with 2 friends on 27th(Sun with Rachel) and 29th(Tue with Trevor) to have dinner at the abundant mouth watering and gastronomically savoury delights at the various roadside stalls, eateries and restaurants. Of course being photo hobbyists, we did go there to take some pictures of the biggest yearly event in Chinatown, which is the Chinese Lunar New Year. Chinatown is a place with good food to eat and great photo subjects to take, beautifully blended in a marriage of contrasting old world charms and modern convenience and technologies. More pictures can be viewed on this walkabout by fellow blogger Rachel, who has some great pictures of her own here.