First Things First

As the title says, this is the neophyte's guide, not a guide for a neophyte.  Not only is this a neophyte's guide, but also it's a guide from a neophyte to all other neophytes around.  Neophytes like me, for whom digital technology is pretty much an unexplored forest. 

However, I'm not entirely new to digital.  In fact, I do own a very small digital camera (a small Lumix, sitting here next to me, largely unused unless I want to sell things).  Also, I have a scanner and a printer and have done some scanning of slides, taken with my film gear.  In fact, I do use it to post items in my other blog, one devoted to my Leica M4-2.

Despite being such a film user, I had been contemplating the purchase of a digital body and conditioned it until Nikon came with a full-frame camera, so I could use my wide-angle glass.  It seemed an impossible, distant proposition when I decided over it in 2004... but they were smart in taking their time.   While their first full-frame, the Nikon D3, was simply out of my reach, their second, the Nikon D700, was not as distant... and I made the decision to buy one. 

Which I finally did.  On Thursday, November 6, 2008, I simply went and ordered a Nikon D700 body from us1.photo (a fairly good retailer, offering a good deal on the D700 body).  Shortly afterwards, as a lot of questions started crowding in my head, I came upon the idea of this blog, in which I plan on writing about my experiences with this camera, its complicated menus and the variety of customized functions (I've downloaded the manual from Nikon USA and I'm overwhelmed every time I look at it). 

Will I succeed in understanding what this camera can do?  Not at first.  It took me a year to grasp the controls of my Nikon F80 (a grey version of the celebrated, now discontinued, Nikon N80), but at least learning to use well my Nikon F100 was a lot easier, and considerably faster was my transition into the Nikon F5.  With all this "expertise" under my belt, using the "film side" of a digital camera shouldn't be too difficult.  

I'm not posting photographs for now, but I may yield to the temptation as a way to kill time before the camera arrives.  In the meanwhile, having upgraded the shipping, it should be arriving on Thursday, Nov 13, one week after the day I ordered it. 

Let's see how I cope with the wait...