Now you know my starting position for choosing a new camera. How does my eventual purchase, Nikon D2h, fit into the equation? There are lots of reasons and I'll start in no particular order.

First, the D2h is arguably the best handling camera on the market today. I rarely hear raves from Canon users for their 1D series cameras. I can understand having shot with one of the cameras on an afternoon. There's lots not to like--not to say there's lots not to like with the Nikon. Regardless, Nikon pushed user interface with its Nikon D2h to the next generation with its introduction. Still, in the end userability is less of a factor than other areas like image quality when choosing the new camera. It's only important when everything else is borderline, disappointing usability is enough to prevent a purchase.

What's next? I knew I had a great desire for a high megapixel camera to create images for my Epson 7600 printer. As much as I wanted to take images that directly supported this wide-format printer, I was already getting by with my D1h using Realviz Stitcher to make effectively large pixel digital files. Secondly, I was not looking forward to shooting hundreds of images a day at a place like Bosque del Apache when each image was 12.2mp. Compared to my D1h, that would be a 400% increase in digital darkroom resources. The impact wasn't going to be pretty. The liftspan of my 400mhz PowerMac G4 was near its end but knew the 1.2ghz upgrade processor I installed last year could reasonably last another year or so. I was doing okay with the current D1h files. Here's the problem. Hoping to get the same life out of a new CPU as I did with my older 400mhz G4, I knew I needed to send about $3,000 bucks to keep a system viable for three or four years. Was I ready to buy such a computer right ater purchasing a Nikon D2x? No, I wasn't. $3,000 dollars for a CPU right after spending $5,000 on a camera didn't set well with me.

I was stuck. I knew I needed a new camera but the introduced offering from Nikon--the D2x--was going to force significant resource expenditure on a new computer CPU in additon to the camera. I was looking at a $8,000 payout which wasn't making me happy. So, with great interest, I watched Nikon reduce it's price on the D2h by 40%. I was attracted at getting a significantly better user interface with good quality images without having to change my digital processing resouces. I correctly knew I would hardly notice the CPU burden when changing from the D1h and D2h. In other words, getting the D2h would require only the camera's $1,999 purchase verses the D2x cost of over $8,000.

How did I settle on the D2h when earlier in the year I specifically didn't think it could fill my needs. What was going on here? Here's my thought process. First, cost is a major factor. Like most self supported photographers, cost is a huge issue and the $6,000 dollar difference between the D2x and D2h definitely was holding my attention. Okay, cost wasn't everything. Imagery was still an issue. The critical factor was whether the D2h could fill the needs of fitting a 20 inch tall panoramic image printed with my Epson 7600 as noted earlier. Using straight linear math, the 2.74 mp D1h at 15 inches could just almost mean the D2h at 4.1mp could print 20 inches. This just barely met my most important imagery requirement. Notice I'm not saying anything about needing to provide high Mega-Byte digital files to stock agencies. I don't shoot stock so that's never a factor. I shoot for me and my most stringent requirement was feeding my Epson 7600. So, after almost a year of gnashing teeth, a significant price reduction on Nikon's part, and a couple days playing with my cousin's camera to confirm its usability, I finally put the VISA down with Robert's Imaging to buy the D2h.

How are we doing so far? I've had my D2h for almost 8 days. I've taken it on a three day trip to the California Central Coast to shoot gulls and elephant seals. I shot two mornings of landscape style photography at a couple of my favorite places. Quite a lot of use when you consider I've been back to work two days. Here are my thoughts once again in no particular order.

First, the camera usability rocks. It's a fairly quick transition from shooting the D1h to shooting the D2h. There's very little to relearn. It took some time for me to set my standard custom functions like deactivating auto-focus on the shutter button. But, over all I have very little to complain about. Here's what I do have problems with. Since I use the AF button to activate auto-focus, I use those back buttons all the time. The standard landscape button near the top of the camera looks and feels exactly like the AE-L button. Also, Nikon repositioned this button to the same radius for the thumb as the AF button. This sounds great but I continually and unintentionally tried to lock the exposure instead of starting auto-focus by pushing the wrong button. It'll take some learning to get around this one. In the verticle mode, you have to position your thumb slightly lower to get to the AF button than you did on the D1h. This isn't nearly as big deal as my first complaint since there aren't any other buttons to accidentally press when fumbling around for the button. Next, the CF door is way to small. After the troubles people had using their fat fingers to retrive CF cards on the D100, you would think Nikon would get back to the same opening as they had with the D1h. For some reason, they didn't. I'm not sure if Nikon used anthroprometric examples that were tiny Japanese Nikon employees when designing the D2h but even I with my average sized hands have problems pulling CF cards out of the compartment. And, that's it for problems. Nothing else, nada...

Those are my only user complaints. The rest are too minor to bring up at the risk of being called a whinner.