I got my dream lenses today! Got the Nikkor 18-200mm VR versatile lens and also the the Nikkor 105mm macro VR lens. Yes i know, i know you're prob thinking thats waaaay too early to upgrade but hey i worked hard last month and i feel like a bit of a splurge amidsts the economic recession lol. I ended up 'trying to sell' my old (or should i say newly bought but no longer useful lol) 18-55mm and also 55-200mm lens to some friends.

When i opened up the new Nikkor lenses i was more eager to try out the Macro lens and i gotta admit i was really suprised...macro photography is harder than it appears! For those of who think that 'macro photograpy' and 'closeup photograpy' are the same thing...man r u kidding yourself. For macro i found that u needed excellent lighting, really steady hands (in some cases a tripod was a must) and a very good understanding of aperture and shutter speed in particular. My first few macro trial photos had very small aperture settings; consequently this limited my depth of field ...so only a small portion of my subject (say a flower or a fish) turned out sharp within the focal plane. This is a bloody pity as i took a photo of a great big wopping monster moth that was attracted to my glowing pc only to find that his head was not in focus! goddam it. that would have been a good photo hehehe So yeah atm, im still trying to learn macro...

As for the 18-200mm lens i did find that it was far more versatile due to the wide focal range but i did notice something strange with it: the Vibration reduction (VR) mechanism is quite audible when switched on and also the main focusing ring feels quite rigid when focusing in and out - I dont knw if this is normal or whether it's due to the lens being so long and therefore a cause of friction.

As for my intuos4 tablet...believe it or not i havent opened it yet from the box! well i have opened up the cardboard portion but havent unwrapped the inside covering. Im still waiting for the airbrush tip to arrive which was meant to be included with the intuos4 delivery. For those of you who want to buy online please please avoid using the company 'ASYS COMPUTERS' to buy your gear....they r now 2 months late delivering one single frickin airbrush!! and not only that u cant phone them and emails take yonks to answer. They r cheap yes but customer service is next to nil. >:T

When i recieve it ill start my next art piece which will be my first digital painting exercise ever! mind u i've only painted 3-4 times in my entire life on real canvas or paper and mind u i seriously suck at it. But then again that was years and years and years ago! Im feeling creative lately and hopefully my skills have improved a lot since then. My artwork is going to be something on prince of persia since the video game inspired me very much to create a tribute piece - at the moment it's most likely going to be the prince fighting one of those rock warrior gods. But then again it's still early and i may choose to change my mind in the end. Who knows i could end up scraping prince of persia altogether for something different and more simple. we'll see....

Finally i like to also thank everyone for their continued support, daily views, comments and visits to my DA home page as i have finally reached over a 1000 home page hits!!!! - including over 7000 deviations views ! My art piece 'Totoro - Dark Version' (see below) became the most commented and most +FAV piece overnight wen it was posted! Thanks to everyone for viewing and commenting on it! much appreciated. Although that piece is the last vector piece for now (since vector is long and laborious for me!), i will continue to upload more photos and start learning digital painting for my future art. I just need to find more time amongst my hectic job as a dentist! arg.