Sneaky camera marketing

As much as I admire Nikon's products, their marketing is beginning to get a little irritating. I use a Nikon D200 most of the time and it's certainly a great camera. One of the great features I use frequently is the ability to fire off 9 bracketed shots (up to 1 stop apart). When I'm photographing houses this gives me plenty of material to work the HDR magic. In fact I even use it when there's no intention to use HDR techniques - it's a lazy way of ensuring that I have the perfect exposure: one of them will be right ;-)

When I'm firing off 9 shots, it's necessary to keep my finger on the shutter release. A few times this has resulted in some camera shake, or at least movement in between shots. In the old days, cameras had a universal screw-in fitting in the top of the shutter button for a remote release - cheap and easy. But these new-fangled D200 digital cameras don't: they have an electrical socket elsewhere on the body. The gadget that Nikon sells to plug in there is an "MC-36 remote cord" - an overly fancy gizmo that has an LCD screen, lots of buttons and (apparently - I haven't worked it out yet) allows me to set a delay timer, an interval timer and the number of shots I want. Great stuff, but I just wanted to trip the shutter remotely. So I have to have all this other stuff that I didn't need. And I have to pay 222.49 Euros (about US$306) for it!

To my mind that's just plain silly! Sure there are cheap knock-offs available on eBay. I could even have searched for a second-hand MC-30 (the older version that IS just a shutter release). Come on, Nikon! That's just taking the piss!