We’re not talking about Christmas 2007. We’re talking about today and today, the Pound is weak, the Euro is weakening quickly and the ECB is too worried about inflation to stimulate the economy.

Again, no one has told me of a better option than the US Dollar.

The US needs to get used to the thought that this status we all lived in during the past 60 years is over now. It was created artificially after WWII. But the rest of the world woke up and wants to have a piece of the cake as well.

Naturally the country which had the most before, will loose the most in during this time of transformation.

But I guess we’re getting a bit of topic.

Not yet. But for a foretaste of what’s to come in the Eurozone, look at Greece, where Euro membership has been so beneficial to the economy, locals have started demonstrating their happiness by machine-gunning police officers.

Good luck!

- The UK is not Europe.
- The Euro doesn’t have the trouble the British Pound or the US Dollar has.
The Pound started to have troubles in the middle of the year, whereas the US Dollar is troubled now for more than over a year. Have a look how much value the Dollar hast lost in the last 2 years. Than compare that again to the Pounds history. You will be surprised.
Actually Christmas 2007 more Europeans than ever before went to the US for the Holidays. Why? Because it was (and to some degree still is) dirt cheap for them.

And yes the dollar is really weak. And it will become less and less important. It already lost a lot to the Euro, and will continue to do so. But even more important, it will loose, as any other western currency, to the RMB and the Indian Rupee. As these countries will take a more active role, as they already have.

Did you know that the US is borrowing 20 Billion US Dollar from China every single month? Did you know that if the Chinese had put all their Dollars over night into the open market, on top of the financial crisis, the western world as we know it would have ended?

oh, but yeah, you’re right “US No1″.

Good luck. You’ll need it.

Actually the D700 might become the camera that will the produced and sold for the longest time, any SLR ever got produced.

Yes, I know I’ve done it again and the pseudo-economists will tell me how I’m wrong and that the U.S. is in eminent danger of an apocalyptic breakdown and a bunch of other poppycock, but the truth hurts sometimes.

And, as I stated in a previous post and NO ONE answered, if you think the Dollar is fundamentally weak despite the trillions poured into its coffers over the past few months, simply name a currency whose currency is more fundamentally stronger and why monies have not flowed there.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/d40slr/discuss/72157612134528853/

“Rumours are that Sigma are looking to introduce an HSM OS (In Nikon terms: AFS and VR) version of the 70-300, and that’s why the previous versions have suddenly dropped in price.”

I don’t have any other info. Sorry.

oh well, at least I got my 14-24 before any price bumps hit.

- since I’m considering buying a 70-200 zoom lens for full frame Nikon in coming months, I was comparing side by side reviews of every option available (Nikon, Sigma, Tamron) and even the expensive Nikkor didn’t meet my expectations
Nikkor has noticeable softness and chromatic aberrations at corners, image distortion, not delivering the expected quality of very expensive Pro lens, etc
Sigma has spherical focusing issues, not delivering well focused images in many situations
Tamron has tendency to misfocus, sometimes front, sometimes rear, making it unreliable for high def photography (at least that review reported that, I didn’t check this specific issue on other reviews, but sometimes a team doesn’t check with high precision the issues another team does, thus not reporting it but still there)
(Sadly the best performer 70-200 f2.8 seems to be the Canon’s)

- So the question is: is there any rumor about a new Nikon (or 3rd party) 70-200 f2.8 ?
- Or even a slower 70-200 zoom ? performing well in terms of IQ, focus, etc?
- Another option (zoom model) that could work and I didn’t consider ?

Thank you very much, and sorry again for this out-of topic question.
PLEASE remove it, or move it, if you feel it is wrong to write it here.