tobycline

FYI: The max ram for the new Mac Mini is NOT 8 gig but 16 gig.

 

http://blog.macsales.com/11292-owc-announces-industry’s-first-16gb-ram-upgrade-for-latest-apple-mac-mini-models

 

(Oops, beaten to the punch.)

<p>You didn't mention Mac or Windows, but if you have a Mac and don't want too much hassle? iPhoto, and it's free.</p>

<p>If you are more in to it all and think you'll grow at photography, invest in Lightroom.</p>

<p>The deep hole of paranoia about backing up photos can run as deep as you want. At a minimum before deleting off the card, set up an external drive with Time Machine, and then grow from there into rotating off-site and online backups. </p>

<p>Most importantly, have fun and make it easy. Any flow you decided on that is too time consuming or complicated will eventually not get done and you'll be back at square one. </p>

 

I too love my D700. I love the hyper focal idea (better trade mark that one).

 

P. S. If it's a great photo you are looking at, Daniel Bayer probably took it ;) Kudos to him on getting so many cycles

out of his 700's while still shooting so much K-14.

I used to cook with frying pans from Walmart. Now I use pans from Target, and my food tastes sooo much better! :)

<p>I heard back from Nikon, but they won't give me a guesstimate price until they see it, so I'll probably try to find an Authorized Photo Service like Shun for repairs. Hopefully that will be a little more affordable than directly from Nikon. Thanks!</p>

<p>How many backups? I say a minimum of two separate ones, because with only one, if something crashes during the backup, you may lose both the original and backup data together. </p>

<p>Backup 1) Time Machine on a four bay raid-5 array. My Lightroom data also sits on this array.</p>

<p>Backup 2) I too use the Voyager dock system and rotate through three bare drives (1 TB each right now). One always stays in the Voyager dock and runs a nightly backup with SuperDuper. The other two are at relative's houses miles away, but get swapped out about once a week when we visit.</p>

<p>Backup 3) I use MobileMe to connect to a USB drive plugged into my dad's Airport Extreme a thousand miles away in Texas. Every time I import to Lightroom, I upload the latest import folder to this drive. I only store photos on this drive, and send them regularly, so the slow FTP upload doesn't take forever (takes care of the EMP and is [basically] free). </p>

<p>I wouldn't worry too much about multiple local backups. Either a drive will fail or it won't, but if a fire or flood takes away the entire house, what good was multiple drives sitting in drawers around the house? Keep one around, and the others away.</p>

<p>A neat trick with SuperDuper and multiple drives is to change the UUID's of the drives to the same ID number. That way, the computer will always think the three drives are the same, and so will SuperDuper. Then, my wife can easily swap a drive into the Voyager when I'm away on business and the scheduled backup seamlessly runs each night, no matter what drive is in the dock. Backups have to be painless and even out of mind, or they won't happen regularly. Multiple drives with SuperDuper scheduling becomes too complicated without a change in UUID numbers. This method is approved by the Shirtsleeves guys at SuperDuper.</p>

<p>For bullet proof backup strategies, read Lloyd Chambers at macperformanceguide.com </p>

<p>Cheers, and always have a SIMPLE backup plan that runs without much/any input from you! [Time Machine/SuperDuper schedules]</p>

<p>I've had the 80-200 AFD for 8 years and it's in great condition. However, the plastic auto/manual focus selector recently broke and came completely off. I can stick the plastic fork into the grove to select auto or manual, but that's ridiculous. My plan, until this happened, was to sell it on e-bay and put that toward the new 70-200 VR. </p>

<p>Should I try and sell it as it and see what I can get for it, or should I pay to have Nikon fix it, then sell it? Thoughts? I haven't heard back from Nikon yet to see what they would charge me for this, so does anyone know what it typically costs to have this fixed? I know this lens is notorious for the cheap plastic ring breaking. Bummer.</p>

<p>iPad is disgusting? That's rich. I actually installed ClicktoFlash on all my Mac's to rid them of all the Flash junk spewed all over the internet. I have the first iPad and won't be getting the second one. If you get one, enjoy it, it'll be great, especially with iOS 4.3!</p>

<p>Bob, glad to hear that it may work out well.</p>

<p>To anyone else: I've been thinking about uploading my photo files to an off-site local, like a usb drive attached to an airport extreme at my parent's house. With my ISP's poor upload speeds, this would be painfully slow, but doable. Is there a way to keep a raid box, like a QX2, somewhere else that I could mirror what I have on a local QX2 via the internet/ftp/VPN? Thanks. Everyone make a Superduper! backup tonight, in honor of Bob!</p>

<p>John, I'm an airline pilot and have to deal with the TSA on a daily basis. You know what TSA stands for? Thousands Standing Around!</p>

<p>I too am glad I saw that WP article because I've been told by city police officers to stop taking pictures of the capital building in Columbus, Ohio. What? I paid for the building, so I should be able to make a photo of it, right? </p>

<p>Know your rights, be kind, and don't let someone tell you no who doesn't have the authority to tell you no.</p>

<p>It looks as if taking photos on the street, especially of buildings, isn't against the law at all, but police officers don't seem to know this. Take it for what it's worth from this <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/25/AR2010072502795_pf.html">Washington Post story</a>.</p>

<p>I am also in the 35mm/Digital camp here. If it must be MF, I'd suggest a Mamiya 7II. As a rangefinder, you can hand hold slow speeds and I would humbly submit that the 7 is the easiest MF to hand hold and travel with. Either way, stopping action will be difficult without ISO 6400 and extremely fast lenses. Enjoy!</p>

<p>My 17-35's AFS motor has squeaked for years, almost since it was new (it's now 7 years old). Does this mean the motor is going bad? Anyone had to replace it and know how much it would cost? Thx.</p>

<p>What is all this talk about chromatic aberration and lateral color fringing? I thought recent Nikon bodies corrected for this -- or am I just a sissy for shooting jpeg?</p>

<p>Eric, time to get a maid.</p>

<p>Yaroslav, for casual vacation shots, slimmer form, lighter weight, and to not look like such a geek, the SB-400 can't be beat, so don't overlook it. At only $120, it's great to have <em>in addition</em> to the larger flashes, when only a little bounce is needed. </p>

<p><em>IF</em> you do get a mac, buy it with the smallest hard drive and least amount of ram that the Apple store will allow. Then, head over to <a href="http://www.macsales.com/">MacSales.com</a> and buy your extra ram and bigger hard drive to save money. Apple often charges too much for their ram and hard drives. You get a bigger hard drive (plus keep the one that came in the computer as a spare) and you can send them in the ram that came with the computer for a rebate, and still come out way ahead. There are instructional videos that show how to change out the ram and hard drive on a Macbook/Macbook Pro, and a 12 year old could literally do it in five minutes. Happy shopping.</p>

<p>Peter, I agree (and I love my 35/1.8 and 18-200 combo) that the best range is wide zoom and long zoom. Throw a 50 in your pocket for the middle, or zoom with your feet.</p>

<p>Xaphode, great job on finding a good sleeper lens and not falling for any marketing hype, but using what you can to make great photos. Unless it's specialized photography or weddings, 2K for a midrange zoom, IMO, just can't beat a 50 or "feet zooming." Enjoy your lens!</p>

<p>I may take heat for this, but oh well. Let's face it, this is 2010. The whole line wedding photogs give about "I want to sell you prints that I have made because of the quality . . . " is seen as saying, "I want to make lots of money off large markups." Honestly, for the people who are budgeting $250-$1250 for wedding photos will not care that the print from the photographer is so much more stunning than the ones they can print themselves at reputable places like Shutterfly. Actually, the difference between high gloss prints that are matted and framed from Shutterfly vs. what is given and paid for from a wedding photographer today probably doesn't justify the marked difference in price -- at least for the budget conscious. Just because you can marke up the price of prints to make money doesn't mean that budget conscience brides need to pay those types of charges in 2010 . . .</p>

<p>Threads like this crack me up.</p>

<p>Bag 1)<br>

OM-2 & OM-4<br>

Zuiko 35, 50, 100mm</p>

<p>Bag 2)<br>

D700<br>

17-35, 50, 80-200</p>

<p>I'm an airline pilot as well, and I've flown with a copilot who did a side gig of renting his own plane to shoot golf courses -- he could underbid the guys who weren't pilots! He used a 5D and 24-105/f4. He shot in boring noon day light to get the shutter speeds. If you want "cosmetic" I agree you'll need a lens with a lot of speed. Have fun!</p>

<p>People are actually supporting the "pro" photographer in a round about way by being upset over a judge's actions on a staged television show? This forum makes me laugh!</p>

<p>You guys are too creative and way over my head. The thread title reminded me of Hamlet . . . </p>

<p>I'd get the IS/VR version.</p>

<p>Hamlet. Act three, scene one.</p>

<p>There will be many who disagree with me, however, I feel that the no-photography rules inside churches place the emphasis on "Holiness" in the wrong place. We are to honor God above all else. Placing restrictions on photography in churches, in my own simple mind, places too much honor on brick and mortar, and not enough on the One the brick and mortar was built to honor. Sharing photos of the inside of majestic cathedrals, especially in Europe, might actually have a positive impact on the those needing a Savior, instead of keeping the beauty of the inside a secret except for those lucky enough to visit in person.</p>