The Nikon 24-85 vr is the reason I have never bought a Nikon 24-120 f4 vr. Its that good a light weight walk around lens. Keep the Nikon and buy yourself a wide angle if you feel you really need one.

I shoot both the d700 and the d810. Except for the difference in mps, the quality of their shots are similar. Both are great in low light. I can afford to replace the d700 with a d750 or d610 but to me it wouldn't be worth it. Canon produces good equipment, but I am a Nikon guy and would always stay with Nikon.

Hi Bruce.

I think we are probably in agreement. Using fx lenses on dx cameras will probably provide better pictures because most fx lenses have better glass. using dx lenses on fx cameras can cause loss of usable mm of the lens, which shows up as aberrations on the print. So using dx lenses on fx cameras is not the best way to go.

There are no disadvantages from using full frame lenses on dx bodies, however using dx lenses on fx bodies is a downgrade.

Beautiful captures.

We sold our d300 and a couple of lenses. We were left with a couple more high quality dx lenses. So we bought a d7200 mostly for product shots at home. What we found is that the d7200 compared quite nicely against our d800 and d810. The quality of the d7200 is as much as most people will ever need. So I have to believe the d7500 and d500 would also do the job. Some of our best shots were taken with a d70 and Fuji S2. Glass and technique are what separate impact shots from snap shots.

yes

I also have a form of neuropathy which affects my ability to walk and stand up. I'm now 73 but worked part time until I was 55 as a down hill ski instructor. My balance was extremely good but it started to go bad at about at age 65. Fortunately my wife doesn't seem to mind helping me when I can't do things like pick up things on the floor. Today I tried to put food in our dog's dish and ended up on the kitchen floor. I try not to go outside this time of the year because Minnesota is nothing but ice and or snow. So far the only drugs I now take aside from B-12, baby aspirin, vitamins, and Metformin. However between the Metformin and a heated mattress pad, I've almost eliminated the nightly pain in my feet. The problem seniors have is that were not going to get any younger and our only hope is to find ways to deal with our problems and not give up the things we love.

Prior to helping manage gasoline tank transports, I actually delivered gasoline to filling stations. My worst shift was Friday late nights. This was before vapor recovery systems were installed at stations and tank truck equipped with vapor recovery. While unloading into the store's tank, gasoline vapor would be released from stand up pipes and if the wind wasn't blowing in a safe direction, a vapor cloud would concentrate around the station. Too many times customers would get out of their cars smoking. Worse yet was the occasional drunk who would walk up to me and try to lite a cigarette. My only recourse was to stop unloading until I though it safe enough to start unloading again. The same thing happens at gasoline spills while trying to clean up the spill. Some people are really stupid.

It's a great shot to start with. As already mentioned straighten up the trees, crop out most of the vegetation. To me the cows are the subject of the painting. For me, that's the difference between a snap shot and a picture. Nice color and sharpness. I'd like to see what you do with your shot.

Sorry Jerry, but I can't stand the show. I've seen a couple of episodes and was really turned off by the concept of driving around in pickup trucks to show pictures of tornados. Then again, I've been in three. One while in a basement, one in a convertible car, and the worst one was while camping in a tent with my family. If the stars of the series weren't in their armored cars, they wouldn't be smiling while it was happening.

To answer your question, we do have pretty good standards here for insulation. The last house I built had six inch walls, six inch insulation in them, one inch of styro on the outside, and tyvac over that. The ceilings had 24 inches of fiberglass insulation with double and triple pane windows. I put two inches of styro under the concrete basement floors and two inches outside of the two inch poured basement walls. I had two furnaces, one was wood and the other was propane. The house only used about 500 gallons a year of propane and was often so hot inside I had to open one of the six sliding glass Anderson doors. Building properly is more expensive, but pays for itself in less heating and cooling costs.

Ya its cold here in Minnesota today. The difference between being in the house and going outside is over 100 degrees. Yesterday when I had to move the seven inches of snow that fall overnight, it was just six degrees. Wearing two pair of sweat pants, insulated boots, ski gloves, and a Russian style Red/Green cap, I was able to stay on the John Deere with a front end loader for two hours. I finished the job. Sure glad I didn't wait until today or tomorrow. Today the high will maybe be -10 F and tomorrow for temperatures around -25 F. Schools were announced closed for a two day period. I don't ever remember hearing two day cancelations before this. The bigger problem is the wind chills that are predicted for today and tomorrow of about 50 degrees below zero.

the 300 is an excellent lens.

Hi Jerry
Its even more important now to use conduit to protect the wire. Since your doing a surface bury, any amount of soil compacting can cause the wire to stretch and either brake or the copper to stretch. Stretching of the copper will cause hot spots in the narrowed parts of the wire. Without using conduit, mice, gophers, or other varmints will enjoy chewing on the wire covering. This causes at the least low level voltage drain, which you pay for on your electric bill. Worst case especially when the ground is saturated with water, electrical shock to your family and friends. Use a large enough size conduit to make pulling the stiff 20amp uf cable through. It should be large enough to allow a foot of cable to be feed back into the conduit in like a S curve. This will give the run some length to stretch in case of ground settling or heavy equipment running over the line.