I've bought two older lenses from eBay sellers in Japan. Just like buying from US seller - no customs, no duty, the lens is delivered by USPS. But for common items, I'd stick with US sellers. The prices will be about the same.

Clear skies in Arizona this morning. I took this photo with Nikon's AF-S 200-500mm lens and 1.4x TC. Screw-on solar filter (95T) is from Thousand Oaks Optical. JPEG straight from camera.

Mercury Transit @ 700mm, ISO=200, 1/200sec, f/11

(Download)

I also have a D7100 and the 200-500mm lens. I bought a used, good as new, Nikon TC-14E II instead of the III version. The older II is optically the same and is compatible with many more older lenses. I paid $250 from an eBay seller.

The TC works fine with no noticeable loss of sharpness. I've been using it a lot lately for a hawk nest that is 450 feet from my front yard. 500mm with cropping was just not enough magnification to get good image quality. I really need the 700mm that I get with the TC. But for less extreme magnification requirements, I find that 500mm with cropping is just as good as using the TC.

So if I don't need 700mm, I usually remove the TC. Sharpness is not the issue. With the 1.4x TC, my f/5.6 lens is now f/8 requiring higher ISO or longer shutter time. And at f/8, the autofocus on the D7100 is somewhat limited. AF still works great but you only have the center AF point available.

Never saw "dilemna" before. According to Google Ngram Viewer, it has not been in common usage since at least 1800. Usage is so low, it might just be a misspelling of dilemma.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=dilemna%2C+dilemma&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdilemna%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cdilemma%3B%2Cc0

NIK will probably work with Paintshop Pro X8. I was able to get NIK apps installed with PSP X6. PSP is compatible with most plugins designed for PhotoShop. PhotoShop plugins are files with an "8bf" extension.

Read this article to see what is involved.
http://akvis.com/en/graphic-tips/add-plugins/paint-shop-pro-photo-plugins.php
I was able to use their Method 2. On my computer, I found the NIK plugins had been installed in the folder "C:\Program Files\Google\Nik Collection". I added that path to the PSP plugins, restarted PSP, and the NIK apps are available as PSP plugins. They seem to work but I haven't tested all of them yet.

Mercury batteries were bad for the environment and they were phased out 20 years ago. The Wein cell is a zinc-air battery which has the same 1.35 volts as the original mercury battery.

My Minolta SRT101 came with a mercury battery to power the light meter. I have used the Wein cell, and the light meter is just as accurate as with the mercury battery. I assume the Wein will work in your LunaPro also.

I think can do this. For the D7100, you can assign "My Menu" to the Fn button. You then define up to 20 functions in My Menu which you can select after pressing Fn.

The slightly older DMC-ZS40S is available new or refurbished for about half the cost of the DMC-ZS60K. Do you really need 4K video? And it's 1.3" thick.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOTTLZY/ref=psdc_330405011_t2_B00KW5OKU4

This is a good site for looking at the physical dimensions of different cameras.
http://camerasize.com/compare/#456,208

My shirt pocket camera is a Lumix LF1, about 1" thick.

I'm not sure about A77, but A6000 has a similar problem with placement of movie button. Check your manual for a menu option to turn off the movie button. A6000 has an option to only enable the movie button when the mode dial is set for movies. That fixes the problem with accidental movies.

I bought a used Nikon camera and lens in EX condition. About the same price as eBay and with 6 month guarantee. I couldn't see anything used about it. Good company.

I think you just need to move the eBook file to the iPad. As long as you have an app on the iPad to open that file format, it should work.

I've only tried pdf files. I use the free program "Dropbox" on both PC and iPad to move the file. Once the file downloads to the iPad in Dropbox, I click on the file then select Open With and Copy to iBooks. The file is now permanently on the iPad in my iBooks library. I assume other eBook formats would work similarly.

Nikon uses a very conservative estimate for the number of images remaining on a memory card. I've heard of photographers getting 50% more than Nikon's estimate. From your experiment, it appears they use the same conservative estimate for both types of raw files. In practice, you will get many more images using lossless compressed format. It'll also save space on your hard drive.

I have one of the Canon AmEx rebate cards and it is not redeemable for cash. But you can sell it if you really need the cash right away. List on UHH Classified. Somebody will certainly pay $325, maybe more, since the card is just as good as cash.

The 18-140mm is the best value among Nikon's various 18-xxx lenses. It's the lens I use most often on my D7100. I bought it refurbed directly from Nikon for $240.