I was a little overwhelmed by our new camera when we picked it up from Greek customs two days ago. At first glance, it looked like the flight deck of a 767 to me. Even more ridiculous (in the confines of our small apartment) was our gigantic telephoto lens. I jokingly deemed it more applicable for snipers than cycle tourists.

But, after a little fiddling, and a lot of instruction from Tyler (who has thoroughly over-researched this purchase), I've quickly come to the realization that is no big deal at all! In fact, I love it. I am really excited about getting back on the road with all of the new tools we have at our disposal to capture the world around us.

Our 20mm prime lens is super wide, meaning we can fit a lot into our photos, and dramatically play with perspective in ways our old mid-range zoom couldn't. Where before we would've only been able to capture a small portion of this large graffiti (without standing in the middle of the street anyway), we were able to get the whole thing in the shot, standing right on the sidewalk!

Our new camera is incredible for shooting in low light, and our our wide aperture 50mm prime lens makes it even better. This dark, indoor shot would have been very difficult to capture with our D60; I just snapped this like I would any outdoor shot with our D700. Amazing!

Our telephoto lens is great! It still makes me think of Jason Bourne, and it certainly isn't inconspicuous, but it means we can finally take closeup shots from far away. I've lost count of how many animal photos we've deleted because they were a tiny speck in the frame. Check out this pigeon!

While we were snapping photos, a kind, artsy-looking woman stopped us and said if we really wanted to see an amazing piece of graffiti/art, we should follow her directions. She instructed us to cross the street, enter a campus sort of area, and make our way through the academic buildings. We did, and found this taking up a large portion of an outside wall:

Incredible! My favorite, though, was this:

Tomorrow the general strike hits Athens—I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to practice with our new gear!