Nikon D200, Cheap camera, Haggle for a bargain

The title really says it all!

A short while ago I found myself in Bluewater in Kent, walking past what used to be Dixons – is it Curry’s Digital now? Anyway, I have been thinking about getting a new camera for a hwile now, and so on the off-chance I walked in and went to the counter. The conversation was brief, and to the point:

“Hi, I’m interested in buying a Nikon D200 camera, but I’m not interested in paying the shelf price for it”
“ha! OK, what did you have in mind?”
“Well, I’d have thought a good 10%…”
“Hmmm… well I can’t go quite that low, how about I remove £60 from the price?”
“Hold that thought – I’d like a moment to think about that”.

As it turns out, no-one else was able to come close to that, and a quick trip to the Apple store where you can log on to the internet proved that even Pixmania, KelKoo and other online price comparison sites couldn’t match that.

So, I bought it 🙂

I guess the moral of the story is that if you don’t ask, you don’t get, but of course you shouldn’t go into a haggle believing that just because you want to pay nothing, the shopkeeper will give their stuff away.

So, I’ve been using the camera for a few days and I am very, very impressed. I love things like the automatic ISO adjustment – it’s the last thing I think about doing, so I now let the camera do it for me. I know, those purists and pro’s out there will be slating me, but actually, the results are quite good! The camera feels a bit heavy, but solid. There is an overriding feeling of capability when you hold a camera like this, and with a decent lens (I am still loving using my Sigma 18-200mm) you can’t really go too far wrong. I bet there are dozens of features I’ve not yet found, but it’s a great piece of equipment to spend time exploring.