Stop! Thief! and dispatch my D300

Last week flew by and so I don't have much to report. My efforts to Shoot! the Day came to nothing, the weekend before last, as I managed to contract a stomach bug which left me in northern France but totally incapable of doing anything, I spent the whole of Friday trying to sleep it off in the front seats of my car while the sun beat down overhead. Saturday, I recovered, but struggled to take pictures whilst leading a convoy of ten cars across the fields between Abbeville and le Touquet-Paris-Plage. The french villages were stunningly pretty with stately homes peeking out between wrought iron gates, but all the while I was following TomTom on shortest route, and watching the RX-7's trailing behind me. Our speed meant that this was a spirited drive rather than sight-seeing per-se, much to the annoyance of one old boy in a Skyline (he's in his early twenties!)

Anyhow, I digress, as the reason to post today is not because of photos, but because of cameras. I've taken the plunge and bought a D300 off Ebay, to put to rest my failing battle with stock quality and Alamy QC. The problem, and the reason for no new photos today, is that the seller has not contacted me since I won (last Tuesday). I am hoping that this is not going to end in tears, but the chunk of money I paid by PayPal is looking more and more at risk.


A Thames Valley Police helicopter searching the fields
near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, UK 3/5

I've had a few scrapes with Ebay. Once I was conned by a hijacked account, in the days before such things were expected, and lost a grand, and I've had some small things go astray. Since then I have bought a good deal of my photographic gear from shops in the UK, and in the far east, via Ebay, and not had a problem. Both my main Nikkor lenses came this route and saved me well over £300 on UK retail. Whether this is a real saving when you consider the lack of UK warranty is debatable, but that's the trade-off for getting great gear on a budget. Ironically, this new purchase is from a UK individual who bought a UK camera in February from Jessops (and will supply the receipt) and so I was paying a little extra for the warranty.

So I took the "Buy it Now" option and paid a fair price. I had already emailed the seller asking about the origin of the camera and I received a prompt reply which gave me confidence, but since, nada...zip...

Watch this space, I guess...

EDIT: And this space is now full. The camera arrived today and appears in perfect working order. So QC, let's see what you make of this...

P.S. Had to order a new memory card, 2Gb won't get me very far with this one!

P.P.S. Now I'm very very excited...D300 review