john_remington2

<p>You've gotten more advice than you probably bargained for. There's not much I can add, except that I'm envious of your wonderful opportunity. I am very fond of the UK, most familiar with London, many friends there, great family memories, and thousands of photos taken there.<br>

Please post your UK travel portfolio on photo.net so we can see what you decided on! Cheers and good luck.</p>

<p>I have used both Macs and PCs, and both are just machines. They break. They screw up. You will never persuade the smug Mac acolytes that they are paying through the nose for the myth of superiority, stability and virus invincibility. I have recently built a PC (I am hardly a techie, and it was simple to do) for less than $3500 with Intel Core i7, 12 GB DDR3 RAM, total of 3.8 TB of HD storage, 64 bit Vista OS, and 24" HP LP2475w LCD monitor. Photoshop CS4 runs in 64 bit mode on this machine. 64 bit Photoshop is not supported on Mac OS X. You can't buy an equally spec'd out Mac, but if you could, it would run you about $10,000. Vista 64 is a solid OS, don't let the Apple marketeers convince you otherwise. (That's not to say that Vista is absolutely great; Microsoft did not do a good job with its rollout). But you have to decide: do you want a cost-effective reliable high performance system, or do you want to tithe at the Church of the Immacintosh and worship at the altar of St. Jobs? Don't buy a Mac, Dell, HP, etc. Invest a weekend and build your own Vista 64 machine.</p>

<p>Depends on what you already have. I'd have the 24-70 2.8 L and the 70-200 2.8 L in the bag over the fine but lesser 24-105. That said, the 24-105 is a good everyday keep-it-on-the-5D lens. Consider the inexpensive and light but excellent (and mostly forgotten) 85mm 1.8 prime (~$350) for portrait photography.</p>