An idea zooms into sharp focus

Here's something I have been thinking a lot about lately: getting another lens for my camera.

Photography can be a pricey hobby, especially if you use Nikon cameras, but Sigma makes nice third-party lenses for Nikon, and those seem more reasonably priced.

A week or two after my mom died, I got a check from her insurance company. It was a bit more than the $800 or so I had expected. And all the funeral costs were paid years ago. So I have been thinking about what to do with that money, and I thought about my camera.

I fondly remember a few years when I used a 28-200 mm zoom lens on my Minolta Dynax 800si camera at work. That was a very handy lens to work with: It could handle both wide-angle shots and telephoto shots (as long as neither of them are very extreme). I enjoyed using that one.

But the Minolta was a film camera, which meant we had to develop the film in chemicals and then make prints using more chemicals. In 2003 or so, the company wanted to cut costs and started thinking about the cost of all those chemicals vs. digital cameras. No chemicals. That's about the same time we started laying out the paper on our computers. Maybe a little before, maybe a little after. It's been a while already, and I forget.

At any rate, they persuaded me to switch to digital to allow us to stop buying chemicals. Chemicals that smelled. Chemicals that we had to mix ourselves. Chemicals that got depleted and had to be replenished. Hey, we're a small-time operation with a small-time budget. This was an economy move. We were spending a lot of money and time on photo chemicals and lots of time in the dark room, developing and printing film. Believe me, never for one second have I pined for the good ol' days when I played with chemicals in the dark room.

But I did--and still do--miss that Minolta camera. Especially that lens. They remain together, in a filing cabinet near my desk. Once in a while I look at it. And at times I think about it. Like when I have to switch from my 18-55mm zoom to my 55-200mm zoom. And back again. Or when I wonder which lens I ought to pull out of my camera bag.

Wouldn't it be cool ... to have two cameras? Yeah, probably. But it would also be a headache. Which one am I taking along? Decisions, decisions! More bulk. More stuff to worry about and schlep around. Maybe that's not such a good idea.

But a tele/wide-angle 18-250 zoom lens? That could work very well.

Here's one other photo-related thing I need to think about: a new tripod.

My main tripod is a Vivitar model I purchased back when I was working in downtown Milwaukee. It was first hooked up to a Minolta SRT-101 camera. That tells you how old it is--nearly 40 years. It isn't in very good shape now--it's hard to convince the legs not to collapse on me--and when I go to a place like Best Buy and wander off to the camera department, I eventually look over the tripods.

Hmm, I think to myself, I really ought to get one of those someday.