Hey all.....a few years ago when my son was born, my dad gave me his D200 along with the 17-55mm 2.8 DX lens as a hand me down gift. Not really being into photography at the time, I thought it was cool, but just another thing to learn. Eventually, I got hooked on photography and it's been my main hobby ever since and I still have the D200 till this day.

Well 2 weeks ago, a friend asked me to shoot his wedding, which I agreed to. Wanting the best possible pics, since I had never shot a wedding before, I wanted the advantages that the D700 has over the D200 especially in the low light environments of reception halls, so I asked my dad if I could borrow it along with his 14-24mm 2.8 and the 24-70mm 2.8 and SB900 flash, which he agreed to. Shot the wedding and I held on to the camera for a week till I saw my dad again.

On Saturday, I went to drop it off at his house and he tells me that he saw the wedding pics on Facebook and that he thought that they were great.....and that the camera, BOTH lenses, flash, remote shutter and Expodisc were mine to keep! I could NOT believe it and thought that he was joking....but he wasn't. I initially said that I couldn't take it, since that was thousands of dollars worth of equipment. My wife's jaw was on the floor, since I had been raving all week how awesome that camera and lenses were and wasn't looking forward to giving it back LOL

He said that he's not into lugging heavy equipment around anymore and is completely satisfied with his Leica M9 and that he knows that I'd take good care of it and would use the equipment to its fullest potential and that he felt that I deserved it.

Well, that's the story, I'm the proud owner of a mint condition D700 with some high quality glass to go along with it! My dilemma now is what to do with the D200. Mind you, I'm not a pro, just really into taking pics of the kids, nature, landscape (I live in scenic Hudson Valley in Upstate, NY), macro and portraits. I don't think that I need a backup, so I could either probably make some good coin in selling the D200/17-55mm 2.8 in a combo package, or pay it forward and gift it to a friend that's interested in photography, since I received it as a gift myself.

Also, I know that many of you came from the D200 or DX camera up to the D700 and wanted to know how steep the learning curve was. My dad's gathering all the manuals that he has for me so that I can begin to read up on it.

Thanks for "listening".....I'm a happy camper! :-D