bob_flood1

After posting, I recalled a good map I found for our trip. Go to http://beartoothhighway.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Wayfinding-Map-JPEG-June-2-2010.jpg It marks most stop-spots along the road. Also, take whatever food you think you'll want - there's nothing along the way. The store shown on the map had horrendous prices for minor snacks and restrooms my wife and I refused to go into.

IMHO, you can't spend enough time in Yellowstone - love that place. But allow one full day for the Beartooth Highway. It's about 70 miles of mountain ridge from the northeast gate of Yellowstone to Red Lodge, MT at the other end of the highway. There will be lots of seasonal waterfalls at the roadside, particularly at the Yellowstone end. The alpine views, the valley below and the mountains across the valley have enough photo ops to keep you busy. Mountain goats are a good possibility, and small stuff - gophers and chipmunks. The chipmunks are surpizingly good panhandlers - they must have human contact only a few months a year, but they are fearless around people. I have a T-shirt from that trip that reads "Real men don't need guardrails" - you have been warned! There is good lodging in Red Lodge and some nice restaurants, too. Red Lodge to Glacier is almost a full day's drive, depending on where you stay in the Glacier area. We stayed in Kalispell, which has much to offer in the way of lodging options and every restaurant you've heard of. At the time we went last year, rooms inside the park were no longer available. Have fun - I'm jealous.

I can identify - I've been leaning on a cane for 20 years after an auto accident wrecked my left leg and hip. I used an old (1990s vintage) Manfrotto aluminum tripod that could support the weight of three cameras if I had a way to mount them - strong as a tank and only a little heavier. Then, on a trip in Yosemite, my wife offered to move my tripod and camera while went to our car to get something, and was horrified at how heavy it was. A month later I received a Manfrotto beFree carbon fiber tripod for my birthday. I haven't used that old aluminum tripod since. Plenty strong enough and amazingly light. However - there's always a catch, isn't there - the new tripod isn't a tall as the old one. With all legs fully extended but with the crank-out neck not extended, the camera body isn't up to my eye level, and I'm pretty average at 5 ft 9. I can extend the neck, but I don't like to - never have (never seemed steady enough). I have the Manfrotto gimbal head that I use for wildlife and auto racing - it's uncommonly heavy for a head, but I really like it and I like its price even more. With that head mounted, the camera just about gets up to eye level. The weight of the head isn't a bother. It's easy to carry, and I can't hike much distance any more so its weight isn't an issue - in addition to a bum left leg I no longer have feeling in my feet - it makes walking on uneven surfaces a real chore. (BTW I'm 71)

There is a set of lakes/ponds in a semi-circle on the northwest side of downtown Copenhagen. We stayed at the Ibsens Hotel - about a block from one of those lakes (nice hotel, not cheap, but that's the way it is with hotels in Copenhagen). We didn't eat meals at the hotel - we ate while out and about. The hotel is also a couple of blocks from a train station where two major rail lines in the city cross - a good place to get rides to different parts of town. We used a cab only twice while we were there, once to meet friends at a restaurant in Nyhavn because we were running late, and to get from the hotel to the cruise ship when we were leaving. Otherwise we took trains and walked. I had difficulty with walking as much as we did - my legs are pretty much wreckage after a few decades of arthritis and a couple of accidents, and walking on uneven surfaces is difficult for me - cobblestone streets are not my friend. Nevertheless, I'd do it all again. The Rosenborg Castle was within walking distance from the hotel for me, so it should be pretty easy for just about anyone. A lot of the attractions from The Amalienborg Palace (north) to the Christianborg Palace (south) are within walking distance (for MY walking) from the Kongens Nytorv train station. There's also a train station in the area of Tivoli Gardens and the original town square. Copenhagen Card - the canal tour is well worth it, but the card includes the cost of the tour only if you take the tour from their Ved Stranden facility (near the Christanborg Palace). The tour can also be boarded at Nyhavn, but the card won't cover that cost. The boats are made to fit the canal width and the height of the bridges - one bridge is an especially tight fit. They can be fitted with a glass shell in rainy weather, but even if the shell is on the boat, the back end of the boat isn't covered, which is better for photography. Mind you head - not ducking when the boat operator says to could ruin your whole day. I bought a travel book about Copenhagen at a local Barnes & Noble. The book had a very good map of the city, made of a laminated material that was much more durable than paper. I don't recall the title and I don't see it near where I'm sitting at the moment. The internet is a big help. Doing a search for things to see in Copenhagen and NEAR Copenhagen will yield a wealth of info.

Downtown Copenhagen has lots of historic sites. Rosenborg Castle can be toured, and it is maintained in a 1600s environment, including the throne room. It was succeeded by Christiansborg Palace, which is huge, but today it houses the Danish Parliament and the office the Prime Minister, plus many (maybe all) federal agencies. On the same grounds are the royal stables, and they are an interesting place to wander through (we walked in - no entry controls of any type). Only a part of the stable complex is still used for the ceremonial horse and carriages. The Amalienborg Palace is the present day home of the Queen and the rest of the royal family. The changing of the guard at noon each day is worth watching. Adjacent to the Amalienborg Palace is the Marble Church - beautiful inside and out There'a canal boat ride that tours around the waterfront area - it's not expensive and a good tour. The advice about Nyhavn is good - very picturesque and lots of restaurants. Tivoli might be interesting to your grandson - it is the inspiration for Disneyland. Do some Googling about things to see in Copenhagen and NEAR Copenhagen - with 3-4 days, you will be able to travel outside the city. Friends of ours took the train north and crossed over to Sweden for a one-day outing. And there are other castles in the countryside. Something to consider: after doing your internet homework and identifying places you want to see, check out the Copenhagen Card. It can be purchased with a valid period of 1, 2, 3 days maybe more. Once purchased, it will get you into many (perhaps most) attractions at no additional charge, but what was most valuable to us was it gets you onto the subway and buses at no charge and without needing to buy a ticket. If asked for your ticket, showing the card is all that's needed, and that's a huge help. Getting the correct ticket for where you want to go on the train or bus can be complicated, and there are meaningful penalties for being found with the wrong ticket.

The need to pick a date is not your friend, but the relatively small distances come to the rescue. Growing up in Vermont in the 1950s, the rule of thumb was to plan for Columbus Day as the peak. With warmer days here in the next century, aiming a bit earlier is more appropriate. However, the summer temps and rainfall influence the onset of the fall color, adding an uncertainty to a plan that cannot be escaped. The good news is that if you aim at the end of September and beginning of October, there will be high quality fall color SOMEWHERE in Vermont, and it's only about 150 miles from north to south. So plan to be mobile, and you'll find the color you're after. Locations: I'm prejudiced in favor of the Manchester area (where I grew up), but everywhere will be good. Route 100 is excellent. Google for locations of covered bridges - they look great surrounded by maples in the fall. You'll find quite a few around Bennington, and my favorite is in West Arlington in front of Norman Rockwell's home. The village of Woodstock is picturesque as you can ask for. Outside Manchester, the town of Dorset looks good in fall colors. Between Manchester and Dorset, there's a long-abandoned marble quarry (oldest in the US, I think) that photographs well. Just be careful not to fall in - it's really, really deep, and the water will be amazingly cold. It was our swimmin' hole when I was a kid. Don't hesitate to take gravel roads - there's much to find. Crowds - if you can, avoid weekends, especially around the popular towns like Woodstock, Manchester, etc. I envy you your trip. Maybe I need to make some plans of my own.....

If you'd like to keep the versatility of a zoom, the Nikon 16-85 mm VR lens can be had for less than $400 on the used market - places like Adorama, B&H, KEH, etc. It's a very good lens, and the extra 2 mm at the wide end are quite useful - most zooms like this are 18-?? mm, and the difference between 16 and 18 mm on a DX body is significant. If you get one, plan on leaving the lens hood OFF the camera when you shoot at wider angles using the flash. At 16 mm, the flash will cast a shadow of the lens hood into the field of view.

I'm with Shun on this - my 300 AF-S has never squeaked, but two other AF-S lenses have (a 16-85 mm, 10 years old now, and an18-135, 11 years old), but neither have malfunctioned in any way. I bought my 300 AF-S from KEH because I liked the idea of buying a used lens with a warranty (6 months). Perhaps that warranty could be a deciding factor for you, too.

This has been an interesting discussion! Mr. Vongries - I agree with your view - I do carry a phone because my wife doesn't like the idea of me being unreachable. A big part of that is the extinction of public telephones caused by the cell phone - if you don't carry your own, it's very difficult to find a public-use phone nowadays. And I carry a real camera, too. Nothing fitted into a cell phone will ever be able to compete with the capabilities of what we all call a real camera. Mr. Darton - I will quibble with your statement that the still-only camera is dead. It not only exists, it's thriving. It has just grown an appendage called video. That appendage is largely ignored by still-only photographers. It may be correctly called a still+video camera instead of still-only, but it's a still-only camera to those who ignore the video (like me). JDMvW - That 1902 Sears catalog also had cameras for sale. Very different from today's cameras, but cameras designed to allow capturing an image for display later. That hasn't gone away. Still cameras will continue as long as there are people who value and will use the still image. I have photos I took in Ireland, Norway, Denmark, and New York City on my walls, and cannot see any way or reason to replace them with videos.

The camera era will come to an end when Apple/Samsung can put the photographic capability of a high end DSLR with interchangeable lenses into a cell phone and get people to pay $3400 for it (plus lenses, of course).

I shoot a D610 and a D7000, both of which take a pair of SD cards. I decided to test my assortment of cards to see which might offer the best capacity for "machine gun-type" shooting of wildlife. I counted the consecutive frames I could shoot before the camera hit the full-buffer slowdown, and timed how long it then would take for the buffer to clear (i.e., for the green light to go out). I did this recording 14 bit raw in slot 1 plus jpg fine in slot 2. I tried 30, 45, 60, 80, and 90 mb/s Sandisk cards, and I got the same result using all of the cards in both cameras. The faster cards didn't help - the camera was the limiting factor - all of those different speeds are faster than the camera can take advantage of. While this might tell me I don't need to buy anything faster than 30 mb/s in the future, that would only be true if I never buy a camera that can use faster cards. I suggest buying for the future - stick to 30 mb/s or faster, but I recommend buying the fastest cards you can easily afford. There can be a down side to buying a card that is substantially faster than was available at the time the camera was introduced - it has been a while, but I have seen posts in the past from people trying to use the latest, fastest card in a several-generation-old camera and encountering problems (my guess is that a much faster card leads to timing issues in the read and write processes in the camera, but that's just my estimate).

The shutter counts on the two cameras had to come from extensive use of burst mode at high frame rates for quite a few years, and the shutters are still alive. Given the mechanical wear and tear that the mirror mechanism undergoes, plus the heat buildup in the sensor that Dieter pointed out, one has to tip the hat to Nikon for building a truly robust digital SLR.

Let me add an afterthought. I can see where the anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that registration isn't really going to be necessary. But if registering your gear isn't going to be much of a hassle, why not? It would eliminate any question. But I think there's a potential trap door. If you register your gear, be sure to register everything you take on the trip. Imagine being asked at Customs about your gear, and you happily present your registration forms, except that there's no form for the new lens you got just before leaving on the trip. That could cause the Customs agent to zero in on that lens as a potential foreign purchase. So I strongly recommend that if you do register your gear, include every item you will take. If you are undecided on whether to take a specific piece, register it, too - there can't be a penalty for having an extra item on the form that you never brought with you.

In 2008, a trip to Alaska involved travel in Canada, so I went through the registration process and took the right forms with me. No one ever asked to see them or questioned me about my backpack full of cameras and lenses. After hearing that the system still existed but was being ignored, I didn't bother to register anything in advance of our trip last summer to Canada. Again, my backpack full of gear attracted no attention at all at the border coming back. So when we flew to Copenhagen for a cruise back to NY in September, I again skipped the registration process. This time I took just one camera and 2 lenses, and again, no one at US Customs gave them any notice at all. Coming back from Canada last summer, we re-entered the US at a remote crossing in Montana (near Glacier NP), and I wasn't expecting a major Customs process at such a small crossing. The return to NY (by cruise ship) involved Customs at the dock in Brooklyn, where I suppose I might have been subjected to more scrutiny, but there was none.

We haven't heard from the original poster with details about the upcoming trip, so I'll add a couple of ideas in the dark. I asked about the nature of the trip because, if the trip includes a cruise (river or ocean), I strongly recommend taking the 70-300 for shots from the ship. Whether you can rest the camera on a railing or use a monopod rested on the deck depends on how much engine vibration transmits throughout the ship. You can test it at the start of the cruise by resting the camera on a railing to take a shot and then examining the image on the LCD. Don't just assume you can use a railing etc as a support - make an informed decision. Rain covers - you can carry several OpTec "disposable" covers in a pocket, and I enthusiastically recommend them. Take gear that you are familiar with - don't buy a new camera and try to learn it while on your trip. That will cause you to miss shots you'd have gotten successfully with the old camera. Take whatever wide angle lenses you have used so far - if you like them at home, you'll like them on your trip, too. However, having said that, if you have a lens you use a lot but it handicaps you at times (e.g., f-stop limit), consider getting a replacement that mitigates the handicap your current lens has. If a slow f-stop hampers your indoor shooting with a lens, it will be even more frustrating on your trip. My wife and I just completed a 14-day cruise that started in Copenhagen with a half dozen stops in Europe before crossing to New York. I took a second camera body, but it stayed in the room on the ship. I didn't take it to have a backup on me at all times - it could replace a malfunctioning camera once I got back to the room, and that was adequate for this trip. So I didn't cart 2 camera rigs around all the time, but I still had a spare. I also made extensive use of the 70-300 from the ship - got some wonderful shots entering and leaving the ports, and some of the Orkney Islands as we sailed by. I even got a decent bird shot near Scotland! I didn't carry the 70-300 off the ship - my kit lens (24-85) was all I carried, and it was equal to what I wanted as a walk-around lens. Have a great time.

I think the recommendations will hinge on how you plan to travel - cruise ship, river cruise, rail pass, rented car? Also, do you have a second camera? I cannot imagine being 2 days into the trip of a lifetime and have my only camera quit on me - I always have a spare of some sort.

I have to second Shun's point - moving from DX to FX isn't just about buying a new body - it involves new lenses, as well. You've already sold your D7000, so you are committed to buying SOMETHING, but buying a D610 (I have one and love it) also commits you to FX lenses, and that will cost you more than the camera body. I upgraded from a D7000 to a D610, so I can say with confidence that the 610 sensor offers a significant improvement over the 7000. But the autofocus is no better - no worse, but no better. For shooting wildlife (or anything else that requires quick decisions and rapid camera response), the 610 will do no better than the 7000. That's one area where the 7200 or 7500 will definitely offer improved performance. The 7200's sensor is obviously a major step up from the 7000, maybe not as large a step as the 610, but not far off, either. The 7500 (haven't tried one) seems likely to offer a bit better low light performance (compared to the 7200) and a bit faster shooting rate. Whether the single memory card is a show-stopper is a personal decision (I agree with the post saying it isn't important until you have a card fail, and then it's everything). But I shot for many years with single card cameras before dual slot cameras came to the market. Since you have an assortment of DX lenses that you seem to be happy with, I recommend skipping the D610 and buying a DX body. I usually recommend buying for the future, meaning get the latest if it fits your budget. All 3 DX bodies you are considering represent the leading edge of the product line in various ways, but I see one with a clear advantage. I'd skip the single card 7500 and save money by buying the 7200 instead of the 500, and put the difference in price toward a used AF-S 300 f4 lens and a 1.4X teleconverter to improve image quality and get longer reach for wildlife-type shooting. Keep the 55-300 you have to fill in the range between the 16-80 and the 300. Of one this you can be confident - no matter which one you finally choose, they are all good cameras and will offer you the ability to get great shots - none of them will be a handicap.

Aarhus was an excellent experience. We flew to Copenhagen where the cruise would originate, and spend a few days there adjusting to the time change (9 hours different from Las Vegas). We didn't see as much of Copenhagen as we had hoped because it rained constantly while we were there. I walk slowly because of my leg issues, so we got wetter than most getting around the city. Nevertheless, we had a great time there. The great surprise was that the weather cleared for us in Aarhus - we had a very nice sunny day (a few showers in the distance was our only weather). We explored the area on foot with friends, and found a nice small restaurant on a side street for lunch. The young lady who waited on us was remarkably patient with us and very helpful, a high point in our memories of the city. I got to shoot what I had hoped to - a lot of the old city. Because of my slowness, there wasn't time to see both the old city and Den Gamle By, so a choice was made by the four of us to stick to the old part of the city. I had a huge time!

My wife and I will taking a 14 day cruise starting Sep 9 to celebrate our 50th anniversary. We'll spend a couple of days in Copenhagen before boarding the ship, and I have a pretty good plan to see things of interest to both of us. This is not a photo trip (just got back from Yellowstone, Beartooth Highway, Glacier NP, and Waterton Lakes - THAT'S a photo trip!), but I'll be taking a D610 with 24-85 kit lens and a 70-300 (mostly to photograph coastline from the ship). The cruise's first port is Aarhus, the oldest city in Denmark (as I read on the internet), and we'll have most of the day to wander in the town. I've done some online homework about Aarhus, but I'd like to see if the collective experience of this forum can add insights the internet never will. An important factor for me is my handicap - I walk poorly, which means slowly. I don't hike miles and miles, but I get around enough (just frustratingly slow for my wife). I've identified a couple of cathedrals I'd like to shoot (we'll be there on a Sunday, so I don't expect to shoot inside them). I've also learned where to find the oldest houses, and the riverfront shopping/restaurant area that should provide some opportunities. Bearing in mind that I can't walk great distances (and that we need to get back to the ship BEFORE it sails), does anyone have any specific recommendations for cityscape, street, and architecture spots in Aarhus that we should make an effort to include? Bob in Las Vegas

TSA announced they will phase in new screening requirements, but not ban electronics from passenger airplanes. New airport rules will mean separate screening for iPads, e-readers and other large electronic devices What's missing from the announcement is whether cameras are included. However, people who have gone through the TSA's Trusted Known Traveler pre-check will be exempt from the new screening requirements.

Another option - noise reduction software. Google acquired Nik software and then made it available free. It can be found here: Google Nik Collection The noise reduction part of the software set is called Dfine, and it does a pretty good job of reducing image noise. It's certainly worth a try since it's free.

Part 1 - 2 bodies: carrying 2 bodies is, IMHO, the best approach when expecting to photograph wildlife. Changing lenses means missing shots, so having your 18-140 on one body and your 70-300 on the other will allow you to lift the camera that has the lens you want and get the shot. That's the good news. Part 2 - long lenses: this is where we find the bad news. A 70-300, even on a crop sensor body, will frustrate you with too little reach. It's an everlasting truth for wildlife shooting that no matter how long your longest lens is, you'll find circumstances where you want a longer lens. The 70-300 will be useful for landscape shots from the cruise ship, but during the "tour" part of your trip, you'll find too much of the wildlife is farther than 300 can handle very well. If getting a longer lens is simply not an option, then I recommend that you practice shooting with techniques suitable for a 600 mm lens, and then cropping the images you get to see what you think of the results. You can at least learn how much cropping you can stand using your current hardware. If getting a longer lens is feasible, there are 200-500 and 150-600 lenses available at various cost, and any one of them would be an improvement over your 70-300 on the trip. But if you decide to get such a lens, get it soon and practice. Shooting longer lenses requires more refined techniques - don't try to learn how to handle your first long lens on the trip of a lifetime. Get the hang of it before you go.

It seems to me that manufacturers have everything they need to produce a mirrorless crop or full frame body except a viewfinder. An optical viewfinder, by definition, updates at the speed of light; a mirrorless body would need a viewfinder fast enough to please sports and wildlife shooters to avoid being tagged as a niche camera. Having an electronic viewfinder that has high enough resolution to meet professional and enthusiast wants and that updates fast enough to not handicap the sports/wildlife crowd is a key feature - and doing it at a price people can afford may be the real-world limitation for Nikon. Perhaps the technology exists to build the "pro" mirrorless system today, but not at a price that can compete with DSLRs. As for the future of the F-mount, it seems practical for Nikon to design a new mirrorless body with a shorter flange distance and introduce some (a few) lens lenses to go with it, but also introduce an F-mount adapter to allow current owners to use their current glass. That would take pressure off Nikon to build a large assortment of lenses for a new body right away. Nikon certainly should have the ability to make such an adapter, one that could have the D3xxx/D5xxx limitation - only works with lenses with an internal motor. Nikon alone has a long history of keeping old lenses usable as new cameras have been introduce. It would be quite consistent for them to do so with a mirrorless system. I am encouraged that this could well happened - if Nikon is designing and building a new system that will make F-mount lenses obsolete in the future, I don't see why they would have bothered to introduce the E AF-S lenses. There's one other aspect to the EVF development path - it may have been ongoing long enough that Nikon may have also been designing a large set of new lenses for a mirrorless system, including developing manufacturing capability, for a long enough period already that they might just bring out a new body with an impressive assortment of new lenses all at once. I think speculation should become an Olympic sport. Perhaps we could call it conclusion jumping.

I agree with rodeo_joe - the Tamron SP VC 70-300 is a really good lens. My niece has one and it delivers very nice images. Nevertheless, from all I read, the 55-300VR is a good lens, too. I suspect its construction isn't as robust as the Tamron - perhaps you should factor in how gentle or demanding you are on your equipment.

OK, fly into Fairbanks, take the riverboat and then the train to Denali. Your 18-200 should suffice for this part. Denali: if you take a bus, either the Kantishna Shuttle (a school bus that takes literally all day) or a "tour" on a nicer bus for a 2-4 hour tour with a specific focus, that's when you'll find a 200-500 most valuable. You'll see wildlife in the park, and much of it will be at a distance, making the long lens very nice to have. When my wife and I went, I had the Nikon 80-400D on a DX body, and it wasn't long enough! But when wildlife is what you want to shoot, no lens is long enough. Flightseeing: you won't be able to maneuver a 200-500 inside the plane (even the 70-300 wouldn't work), so your 18-200 is the go-to lens for this. I recommend that you pick up a collapsible screw-in rubber lens hood that's relatively wide, and use it in place of the 18-200's hood while on the plane. Put the rubber hood in contact with the window glass (but don't press) to cut out interior reflections. Pressing too hard will transmit the engine vibrations into your photos. Whale watching - this,too, is where the 200-500 will prove valuable. If your 70-300 really disappoints at 300, then it will let you down on this trip, too. But it might just be enough and save you getting the 200-500 if you don't plan to get very far into Denali. 300 could be adequate on a whale watching tour (they are pretty good at finding the whales and getting fairly close - within the state laws - to allow some decent shots with a 300 on a DX body. Then again, do you have ambitions to get a 200-500 for future use? To get into shooting wildlife or sports in a bigger way than you have so far? Then getting one for the trip may be the right opportunity. When we cruised Alaska, I was shooting film, and I took a 28-200 lens. From the ship, 200 was adequate, so I think your 18-200 on the DX body will be quite satisfactory. If your activities in Denali won't really offer a lot of wildlife opportunity, I think your 70-300 on a crop body might be enough to keep you happy. But there's that question - are you looking for a longer lens for wildlife shooting after the cruise? This trip could be the justification to spend the money and get that 200-500. FYI: don't plan on taking a tripod to use on the ship. There won't be room for it on deck when the ship is near an attraction like Glacier Bay - everyone on board will be on deck vying for space at the railing on the same side of the boat. However, if you'd like some camera support, a monopod will work and won't bother other passengers. Just don't put it on the ship's deck - rest it on the top of your foot so that vibrations from the ship's engines won't ruin your shots. Also, once on board, ask one or more of the ship's photographers if there is a spot you can get to that's lower on the ship (closer to the water) for shooting places like Glacier Bay. You might luck into a secluded spot for viewing things. If you will be in Denali in the second half of August, the shrubbery that covers the valley and some mountain sides will have turned to fall colors - it's amazing to see. There are few aspens in the park, and only near the entrance. Further into the park there will only be fir trees, and they disappear about 15 miles in - the tree line is only 3,000 ft because of the subarctic climate. But the ground cover has a fall color season and it's beautiful. Have fun.