New lens is a Sigma

After considerable trials, I finally have a new lens for my Nikon. This gets me past the limits of the Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens it came with and puts me up to the 210mm range, meaning it almost equals the 10x optical zoom of my old Sony Mavica CD-1000.

The Mavica’s optical zoom was near legendary as point-and-shoot cameras go, and I’m glad to have something that can get me into that range again since I enjoy dabbling in macro photography.

Endless thanks go out to scorpio5361, the best Taobao seller ever and a really good guy in general. It’s hard to imagine a seller going to the lengths this guy did to make us happy.

Originally, we ordered an unbranded long lens that covered 70-300mm, a rather huge range. The lens was shipped through an express (快速) local carrier to arrive the next day at noon. The delivery boy was shifty-eyed and refused to let us open the package before signing for it. We soon realized why, when it rolled out to reveal a poorly-packed lens with a busted cap and a mount plate so smashed that it could not twist into my camera.

We called the seller up and he was nice and said to return it and he would give our money back. Problem was, he was on literally the other end of the city — a 40-minute train ride plus 20 minutes of walking time. I went out to see him on Friday and he was stunned how it was smashed and said the package it arrived in was not the one he sent it in. He took it to his friend, a repairman, who said it was beyond salvageable.

He offered to return our money, but I said we just wanted a similar lens if he had one, and I would pay the difference. That is when he pointed out the Sigma telephoto lens, which he was selling at a considerably higher price. He said he would give it to us in its place and refunded us 50 yuan.

The package arrived the next day, and the delivery boy, again shifty-eyed, refused to let us open it despite his boss telling us we could open it. It was packed much better, and I opened it up and snapped it on my Nikon excitedly. The aperture worked, the zoom worked, but nothing could make it focus. I read service manuals and everything to see if it was stuck in some kind of “no-focus” mode. We called him up and he said head back to his shop and he would teach us how to work the lens.

We went in Sunday morning; he could not show us how to work the lens because this lens was broken as well. Someone slammed it so hard during delivery that the lens no longer moved in or out when turning the focus dial. This time, the repairman could save it.

The seller footed the 100-yuan repair fee out of his own pocket and vowed never to send another parcel through this courier ever again. Not only was I stunned at how nice this guy was, but I really felt bad for him. In the quest to make his customer satisfied, he lost one lens, sold another at too low a price and lost 1/5 of its value getting it repaired — not to mention the money he gave those asshole couriers.

This guy is incredibly nice and extremely trustworthy, and if you ever need to buy a lens from someone in Beijing, then I would recommend him. Next time I want a lens, I will check his shop first — I will just make sure to pick it up in person rather than let the couriers smash it.

Having had the lens for a day, I have to say it is really nice, but I need a lot of practice before I can handle it the way he does.

It is manual only, so only the fully-manual camera mode can work with it. This means you have to set the focus, aperture size, shutter speed, ISO setting, flash strength and exposure level all by hand and re-adjust it for each new shooting location. I had handled a few of these in some of the tweak modes with my Nikkor lens, but generally avoided the 100 percent manual mode.

It is difficult. I can tell I have a lot to learn about how cameras work, and using this lens will be a very educational experience for me.