vrankin

<p>Download Photomatix, pop a bracketed series in, and you're ready to boogie.</p>

<p>My wife and I talked for many years about someday owning a convertible, and I always loved cars from the thirties. When this retro Chrysler PT GT showed up on the front row at our local Dodge dealer's lot in 2006, it seemed a perfect opportunity. We shared 126,000 fun miles with it over the next few years, traveling far and wide under the smear of sun block.</p><div></div>

<p>That could be a poem, Walter.</p>

<p>BTW, I went to the gym this morning, too. Cheers, to good health!</p>

<p>It's still below zero here, so I've resorted to taking photos around the house. Two silk flowers in our sun room seemed to be having a dialog today. If it were a cartoon with two frames, I'd put talk bubbles in with this: 1st frame, flower on right: "Should we go for it?" 2nd frame, flower on left: "Nah, don't think so."</p> <div></div>

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<p>In the future you might think differently about post processing, and wish that you had made all of those wonderfully-taken files in full size, 14 bit NEF. It's still not too late. Shoot raw+jpeg and save the raw for later. Memory is relatively cheap. However, lost opportunities to improve on images later, could be costlier.</p>

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<p>Suggestions above are evolving to bigger and bigger outfits to carry. I'd still consider the Nikon Coolpix A (with APS-C sensor and great lens) as long as a majority of your shooting can be accommodated by a wide angle prime.</p>

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<p>The Nikon Coolpix A checks a number of your boxes, yet lacks zoom or viewfinder. Image quality is really exceptional for a compact. It has a D7000 APS-C sensor and processor. The 18.5mm focal length is 28mm FF equivalent. WiFi requires purchase of an adapter.</p>

<p>I've been hanging around commercial fishing docks this past week. The seagulls in this photo had just followed this trawler into harbor from a day of fishing.</p><div></div>

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<p>I started out in 1968 with a $30 lightly-used Voigtlander Vito C and clip-on light meter. At f/5.6 it could make a very fine image, if I guessed the focus distance right. Starting in 1972 as a photo store manager selling Nikon, Olympus, Mamiya professional and Pentax, I got to try out a lot of cameras in the field. One afternoon with a customer's Hasselblad 500C and 80mm lens was memorable. I worked in a basement darkroom from 1969-1998, then went digital. Today, about sixty cameras have all come and gone, and I just carry a Nikon Coolpix A. When the price dropped to $399 it called my name. I'm back to a minimalist style of photography, so getting along quite well with it so far. A quality little piece, it is! But if I had it all to do over again, I'd have gotten one quality camera and kept it, rather than spending a lot more money in the end on inferior outfits.</p><div></div>

<p>Rick, what a wonderful lighthouse tour! I'm a lighthouse docent on Lake Michigan's western shore. You've beautifully captured that austere way of life, now gone. Thanks, for posting this wonderful set!</p>

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<p>No. 3</p><div></div>

<p>No. 2</p><div></div>

<p>We only got around an inch here on Lake Michigan's western shore. These three were taken on a beach walk yesterday afternoon.</p><div></div>

<p>On Flickr, the DF is ranked No. 33 out of 181 Nikon cameras according to upload activity. That places it in the top sixth, after a relatively short time.</p>

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