old tricks, new dog

i bought my D90 ~3 months ago and since then i've picked up a whole bunch of toys to sustain this expensive habit. i think i'm finally at the point where (start samuel l jackson voice from snakes on a plane...) ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! i'm pretty happy with the equipment i have so far, so i don't anticipate picking up any new hardware in the near-mid future. perhaps some software, but as far as hardware, i think i'm done for at least a year or so. the equipment i have so far is:

the nikon D90: i had been looking at the D5000 too, but i'm glad i settled on the D90. i'm not sure how i would survive without built in auto focus. i used to take a lot of photos with my canon P&S, so one nice new feature in SLR land is the ability to shoot 4-5 exposures per second. plus, tv tells me (when has it ever lied?) that women will treat me like ashton kutcher with this camera. i got a good deal on it from samy's camera, whose in store price was cheaper than anything google found (no sales tax!).

Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR [Vibration Reduction] DX Lens: this is my default lens (though "default" doesn't really mean as much when you only have 2 lenses...) and has served me really well so far. i had thought about buying a sub 18mm wide angle lens, but the flexibility this lens showed on my hike to the wave made me think otherwise. i know that on my upcoming 14-16 mile half dome hike, i won't want to be carrying more than a single lens.

Nikon 85mm f/1.4D AF Nikkor Lens: i'll switch to this lens when taking pictures of people. on the D90 DX sensor, it's has a 35mm equivalent of a 127mm lens and it opens up to f/1.4, yielding some really good bokeh. helps a lot in low light too, letting me keep fast shutter speeds and lower ISO settings.

a tripod: pretty much required for long exposures like this, also for the few occasions when i need to show my face in pictures.

Nikon ML-L3 Wireless Remote Control: i'll admit, i haven't quite gotten my $15 out of this yet, but in theory i can see it being useful for fireworks and light painting photos. really wish i remembered to bring this and my tripod during our recent bonfire in VA beach.

photoshop: well, i've had this lying around for a while, but i never dove too deep into things. i had been inspired by some old aggressive skate magazines to convey motion by stacking several frames on top of each other. initially i had written a quick matlab program to automate this, but i found i got better results using auto alignment/blending and layer masks in photoshop. manually painting the layer masks takes a little effort, so i may look into writing a more robust version of my own in the future.

a waterproof pack for my canon sd700: there are much more expensive underwater packs for point and shoots, but this one is quite the bang for the $34 bucks.
that sums up all my gear. as they say though, it's not the camera, it's the photographer. (although try submerging your camera and see how well that cliche works for you...)