The Nikon D200

It has arrived!

After a wait of about two weeks, my Nikon D200 has finally arrived in the mail. It was in relatively good condition, besides for the common grip pealage beginning on the right grip. Spent the day taking some shots with it, and it really is a fine camera.

So, what does 360 dollars on craigslist get you?

Lets see...

A Nikon D200, in good condition, with 20,000 or so shutter clicks.

The original box, and included strap.

An 8GB CF card.

An aftermarket battery grip (which only has a shutter release; no control wheels unfortunately), and two extra non nikon batteries in addition to the one battery included. No charger was included with the purchase.

But there was a catch, as there sometimes is when your buying used, site unseen products. The owner failed to state any issues with the camera, but i seemed to have found one. A focus issue.

Quite simply, it won't auto focus. When I got the camera in my hands I noticed it was in manual mode. Threw it in auto-S, and tried my nikon 50mm f/1.8 on there. It wouldn't focus. Checked the settings, and turned on the setting for it to focus when the trigger is down halfway... so it focused, and worked as it should, for about 4 minutes, then, out of nowhere, it went back to not focusing. I tried it with and without the aftermarket grip, and still no go. It won't focus in af-s or af-c, with neither the af-l lock button or the trigger. The contacts are clean between the lens and the camera. tried a hard reset, nothing. have yet to try a lens with a built in focus motor; hopefully at least that would work.

The in-focus light still comes up in the finder, so I'm curious what the issue is. The owner has been emailed and asked what the deal was. I'll report back if I receive an answer as to if they were aware of the issue. Otherwise the body is a charm. Feels very good in the hands and should be a fun shooter, even if I'm forced to use lenses with focus motors built in. If its a lose connection or possibly just a cheap part replacement I may pull the body apart and make a guide on the repair of it.

So with the first legitimate post on Photo OTC, you see one of the greatest issues with great deals; there is sometimes a catch. Either way though; for 360 dollars for a D200 with a shot autofocus motor, you can't really go wrong there.

Below are a few of my first photos with the camera; YES, that is a DMC Delorean, tricked out with a flux capacitor and all the gear needed to hit 88MPH. Just one of those shots that your glad you had your Camera with you to catch; there it was, just driving by. I had one great opportunistic shot ruined by it being out of focus; thats the issue with manual focus and modern viewfinders; its sometimes just a LITTLEEE bitttt off, and it throws the image off. or you have it perfect, but by the time you click its already off by a bit.