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bob_flood1

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  1. Unless the zoom feature is important, I suggest considering the 300 PF plus 1.4X and 1.7X teleconverters. I use this kind of setup to get 300, 420, and 510 mm capabilities with excellent image quality. I have sacrificed the convenience of a zoom, but have found I rarely miss a shot because I'm changing the lens setup.
  2. bob_flood1

    Alaska

    How are you traveling, and how much time do you have? For non-landscape shooting, the old Kennicott copper mine complex in McCarthy could be interesting, but it's off the most direct route from Tangle Lakes to Valdez. That's where how you are traveling and how much time you have become important factors. How do you plan to get from Valdez to Anchorage?
  3. Visitor Centers. The rangers get information from each other and various visitors to the park all day long. Bears, moose, elk etc are creatures of habit. If they found good eating at a particular spot today, there's a high probability they'll go there again tomorrow. This approach works better in the morning - animals that return to the previous day's spot and are disappointed, or that exhaust the desirable food, will wander off as the day goes on.
  4. If 500 or 600 mm is longer than you want right now, Sigma and Tamron both offer a 100-400 mm lens with stabilization. I suggest you search for reviews of both. I agree that the older 80-400D (screw drive) is to be avoided these days. Mine is a very good 80-300, not much of a 300-400. I shoot with the Nikon AF-S 300 f4D, a version older and heavier than the PF, but really good optically. I use a 1.4X TC to get 420 mm, and a 1.7X TC to get 510. Not as convenient in the field as a zoom, but awfully good optically.
  5. With only 500 clicks since 2021, it's clear that you don't rely on the D500 routinely, so I concur with the suggestion offered by Mr Halliwell. The ultimate on/off switch is a battery removal. Carrying a couple of extra batteries when you take the D500 out allows you to power on and off when you want. If the camera operates correctly when powered up, that old saying about "if it works" seems to me to be the applicable rule.
  6. Companies also take out "preemptive" patents. Nikon's patents for 400 and 600 mm PF lenses may be their move to prevent a competitor from patenting such lenses. This new patent may be the result of research into a new sensor that turned out to not have a current application, but Nikon sees an opportunity for it in the future. Companies patent new ideas for a wide variety of reasons, and many are not related to plans for a new product in the near future.
  7. bob_flood1

    A Z9 Oops?

    The plaintiff in many (maybe most) lawsuits is chosen by the plaintiff's lawyers less for their "blame" or "guilt" in the matter and much more for their ability to pay. Nikon can submit a brief to the court claiming that, having licensed the software in good faith, they are wrongfully accused and the company that licensed it and accepted money for that should be the defendant. Whether that is successful depends on the judge - there are way too many cases where a judge, for reasons unknown, has allowed a lawsuit to proceed as filed. If that happens, it becomes Nikon's decision to estimate whether they can win in court, and whether it will cost more to win than to settle. Quite often, a ruling to include a bystander as a defendant gets overturned on appeal, but all that costs money and poor publicity, since most of us humans tend to think "guilty until proven innocent." There was a company that manufactured child safety seats for automobiles, and after the seat failed in a number of accidents, the parents sued the manufacturer, who, by that time, was penniless, and the supplier of the raw plastic from which the seats were made (a large corporation with money). The judge allowed it, and the plaintiffs won a huge judgement. On appeal, the plastic supplier was removed from the lawsuit and all liability.
  8. The idea that Canon would abandon the DSLR market and all the existing owners of their DSLRs doesn't surprise me at all. Canon has a long history of moving on to new hardware ideas and turning their backs on the hardware owned by their customers. There have been several changes in camera body/lens mount/focus systems since the 1960s in which Canon's new design would be completely incompatible with legacy lenses. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Nikon has gone to great lengths and undoubtedly considerable cost to make sure that their product line contains bodies that can use legacy lenses. I don't know of any other manufacturer that has been so adamant about making sure a 50 year old lens of their making will work on a body manufactured today without modifying the lens or using an adapter.. For Nikon to now abandon the F-mount and the large population of Nikon users with legacy lenses would require a rather dramatic change of personality. That, of course, doesn't mean they plan to introduce new DSLRs - they can maintain their tradition simply by continuing to manufacture at least one body that uses the F-mount. But I also see a relatively easy pathway for Nikon to take new features (hardware and software) that have been developed for the mirrorless systems AND that can be easily adapted to work in a DSLR as a way to introduce new DSLR models while putting all their research and development money into the mirrorless hardware. The difference (to me, at least) is that Canon has shown no loyalty to their existing customer base while Nikon has been diligent about keeping their customers' lenses useful decade after decade.
  9. Ed's advice is very good, but only helps if you have access to AC power. Another approach is a 12 volt charger. I have a couple of 3rd party chargers that have an AC plug that folds down out of the body of the charger. But each charger also comes with a 12-v car adapter so it can be plugged into a port in an automobile. The brand I have is Premium Tech, and both have worked just fine for around 10 years, including in several European countries.
  10. "Nikon didn't make the batteries some other companies did. Why couldn't these companies make better batteries than those they make for Nikon?" Since the development of lithium batteries, there hasn't been any breakthroughs in energy density capabilities, which means that no one's lithium battery can store more energy than someone else's lithium battery of the same volume. In that situation, better battery life would have to come from better energy usage and battery management, which is not a battery function - it's a camera function. The only way to get longer battery life in your camera would be to fit a larger battery, which, of course, can't be done. Various manufacturers can also offer products of varying quality - if Nikon is using the best materials, then third party batteries can't store more energy, but they could store less. That's one risk when buying a third party product. Based on what I have read, that doesn't seem to be the case - differences among the manufacturers actually look more like variations from the mass production line than inferior design or materials. Nikon batteries do have some circuitry that connects to the camera and allows data to transfer between the camera and battery. Nikon doesn't release it's autofocus designs and software to other lens makers, forcing them to reverse engineer their lenses to work with Nikon bodies, and I expect the same is true for batteries. So another factor in battery performance will lie in how good a job of reverse engineering each manufacturer does to get its circuitry to work with Nikon bodies.
  11. bob_flood1

    A Gift

    "I reiterate that although O-rings are a common and good solution on many cameras, they may not work on the FTn meter, which uses two batteries, and has its positive contact on the side, not the end. Although that side contact is common to the chassis of the meter, including the screw-on cap, the label and painted threads make poor contact with the end, and there is no spring on the cap. A conductive ring on the top battery is reliable, but without that you may need to use tinfoil or the like to get good contact with the side terminal." A learning experience for me! I have a couple of Nikkormat FTNs, and each uses a single battery in which the hearing aid batteries work well. And the O-ring idea has also been a success. But never having owned an F with FTn meter prism, I defer to your expertise. I've never heard of a design with a flat, circular battery using edge contact, and am not sure how it would work, but facts are facts, whether I understand them or not.
  12. bob_flood1

    A Gift

    If the light meter still works, there's a battery issue. A meter from that era used a mercury battery. As an alkaline battery is used, it's voltage drops. Devices that use alkalines are designed to cope with the decreasing voltage and still function as intended. Mercury batteries produced constant voltage, which is why they were so popular among camera manufacturers. Using an alkaline in place of a mercury battery in a light meter will cause constantly changing voltage and therefore constantly changing inaccuracies. Zinc-air hearing aid batteries (Wein batteries) also produce constant voltage. I used them in my Nikkormats before I went digital, and I got anywhere from 1 to 3 months from each battery, depending on my camera use. A package of 5-6 of the hearing aid batteries cost me $4.95US back them, so the battery expense was negligible. The bonus is that hearing aid batteries are available in just about every pharmacy everywhere. They are generally smaller in diameter than the camera's mercury battery they replace. I found an O-ring in a local hardware store's assortment of O-rings that was a great fit in the battery compartment to keep the hearing aid battery centered in its compartment. As others have said, you got a great gift. The Nikon lenses are excellent, the Soligors not so much. Send the film to the Smithsonian, get some 21st century film, and go shooting! Have fun.
  13. Something to add to the "test within 72 hours" issue - to avoid quarantine, the test must conducted by a lab approved to do the test BY THE STATE OF HAWAII. Just because the lab is approved in your state doesn't automatically mean Hawaii has blessed that lab. I know people who arrived in Hawaii having been tested by a lab approved in their home state of Utah only to find that lab was not approved by Hawaii, and they were turned away.
  14. First, get travel insurance. The move to relax restrictions might well result in an upswing in virus cases (it has in other countries), and may lead to re-imposing restrictions. Insurance to cover any commitment that can't be cancelled certainly seems like a good idea. Be sure to get in writing (print?) and understand your hotel cancellation policies. Trying to see more than 2 islands in 10 days will make for a disappointing trip - between travel time and packing/unpacking, it will cost you most of a day to change islands, so the more islands you go to, the less time you will have to see them. Kauai is the most scenic for my nickel, but everyone has their preferences. The Napali Coast (we did an evening dinner cruise along the coast) and Waimea Canyon are both excellent. The lighthouse at Kilauea isn't open every day - check online or with your hotel for their schedule. The famous big surf in Hawaii comes from the north and is a winter phenomenon - the surf will be smaller and come from the south and southeast in the summer. The surf will still offer good surfing, and the beaches on the southeast side of Kauai will be very active up to the time school starts. The area around Princeville is good, too - the mountainside overlooking the community gets the most rainfall per year on earth - lots of waterfalls up there. Maui - nice hotels along the west coast around Kaanapali, north of Lahaina. The famous Road to Hana has hundreds of corners in around 40 miles, a number of waterfalls that may have swimmers, and good coastal views. We found one and only one restaurant in Hana - we found a hot dog stand on the beach and ate there. Be cautious driving back in the afternoon. Lots of people who live in Hana work in the Kahului area, and will be driving home at speeds that can be quite frightening (they drive like they own the corners). We didn't do much on the Big Island - my wife wanted to stay at a "destination resort" on one of the islands, so we stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa and didn't see much else in those three days. Oahu is interesting. The beach at Waikiki was busy with lots of surfers. The shape of the bottom makes the waves rise and break rather far out from the sandy shore - my 300 was inadequate for getting surfer shots I liked. The Arizona Memorial is unique. The battleship Missouri is docked nearby on battleship row on Ford Island - the surrender was signed on the Missouri. So the ship and the Memorial are the start and end of WWII. Dole has an enormous plantation about halfway between Honolulu on the south shore and the island's north shore. They offer tours and exhibits - mildly interesting. The famous surf beaches are all on the north shore (Banzai Pipeline, Sunset Beach, etc), but the surf in July 2014 was as flat as my pool. Around the corner on the northeast side of the island is not tourist country - it's local residential. But it's beautiful, with an abundance of kids playing the surf, an interesting shoreline, etc.
  15. Wayne's recommendation of a catamaran has another benefit. If motion sickness can be a problem, the dual hull design of a catamaran rocks less than a single hull boat.
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