spectacular, but shouldn't the left side be at the top ? :)

also these?

http://list25.com/25-most-dangerous-roads-in-the-world/5/

perhaps a walk would be less risky (sit down before you watch :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcczjFRcVcU

Everything is a compromise of weight / bulk/ mobility vs. stability / potential image quality. For example (stating the obvious?), for minimum weight and bulk, and maximum mobility then shoot handheld - but of course image quality may suffer with movement or noise if high ISO is required.

And mobility on the shoot is much more of an issue with birds in flight (to quote a miserable local photographic society judge who I didn't agree with) 'birds on sticks are easy'.

My compromise is a carbon fibre tripod and length of velcro onewrap! (Velcro Onewrap should get the Nobel prize for a 'third hand' - don't use cheap substitutes, as they are often rubbish. I have NO links with Velcro BTW, just a user.) I've then got a good tripod, with a workable monopod if I strap the legs together with Onewrap, and extend one leg only. There are also tripods available which can optionally be configured as a monopod but the only one I found at the time was aluminium and relatively short. I also have a very compact carbon fibre extension for the centre column so I can stand upright in monopod 'mode'

Choice of head does matter - a ball head is not so good on a monopod because the camera can 'flop' sideways as well as move vertically. My compromise is to use a good ball head, and carry a manfrotto monopod head which only has vertical movement. Gimbals are best all round but again bulk/ weight needs to be considered.

Watch out for total weight of your camera and lens outfit - a FF camera with long lens can weigh more than lightweight tripods and heads can support.

A suggestion - borrow if you can, or buy a reasonable tripod and monopod cheap off ebay and experiment. You can do a lot of that in the back garden without traveling miles. Once you make up your mind which suits best then shell out and get a good one. I went through 3 tripods before I made up my mind and didn't buy cheap for the first one so it cost me a bit to find out aluminium was too heavy with all the other stuff I carried - sold on ebay for less than 1/2 I paid for it :( I also ended up with 2 tripods because a good 'full size' tripod won't go with carry-on with most air travel so needed one small enough to go in the checked bag. The smaller tripod is also useful when hiking because of weight/ bulk but you will need a centre column extension if you want to use as a monopod.

have a look at the HyperDrive ColorSpace UDMA3. I've been using the udma2 for some time and it is boringly simple, does virtually nothing but allow auto copy of files once selected, and just works. When you return home just plug into your PC and it acts like any other external HDD for copying off. Not the fastest thing on the planet but does allow automated transfer of all files from a Canon SD card (and CF but not tested that) I just plug card and power in the evening and leave it running until finished. IMHO reviews on amazon don't do it justice.

Suggest you get the empty device and put your own disk in. Although it doesn't confirm if SSDs work I have a 250GB in mine and it works just fine.

Currently available on amazon.com in USA or from Hyper web site for $250 (+ the disk you install) - dunno about EU but I got a friend to post over to me in UK.

I also used my samsung phone with an OTG card reader that also took a USB memory stick at the same time and copied from card to USB directlu using a file manager until android updated to 4.4 or later and made copying files to the external SD such a pain. It still works but is a bit of a flog to overcome the Android 4.4+ SD card protection (not Samsung but Android) Whether your iphone or android fan it would almost be worth a cheap android device - especially if it has v4.3 - just for the OTG SD card copy facility. For later versions only if your willing to mess about with overcoming the protection (easiest way is to root the device and re-enable 'no protection' for copy to SD card - but that negates any warranty if its a later model.

the optical affects of tubes or close up lenses have been well covered here and can be investigated further with a google search.

If you are experimenting then I would suggest either will be ok in many conditions.

However the two biggest issues I have found once I got even mildly serous about macro was distance to subject and depth of field.

I think a 50mm lens is way to short - it could put you so close to a subject that lighting becomes almost impossible, or if the subject is live then it will have moved as soon as you approach. I finally (yea right) bought a 100mm macro lens. Withing a year I traded in for a 150mm and at times even 150 puts me too close. I also have been lucky to get a used Canon 500D close up lens for my 70-200m zoom. Pricey new, but this lens attachment has two elements and gives excellent optical results. However as has already been mentioned a close up lens greatly reduces the focal distance to a subject - great for close up but maximum focusing is minimal.

Perhaps even more of a handicap is depth of field with close up work. A quick google of DoF tables for close up shows even at f8 a magnification of x0.35 DoF is only 2.5mm and at x1.0 magnification 0.56mm! It is still only 4mm with f22 at x1. given the big fall off of aperture with extension tubes, plus small apertures on the lens to get some DoF, exposure (and lighting with a short lens like 50mm) with become a big issue. Small DoF affects high magnification whether you use close up lenses, extension tubes or bellows, or a macro lens. While out of focus backgrounds are great when doing portraits, wildlife etc its not so good when the out of focus is just 1/2mm back from the focus point of the subject itself. So at this point, as you get more hooked on macro you need to invest in stacking software where you take multiple refocused images and stack them to get overall focus in the final image.

So I make the following suggestions: get a close up lens that with give you up to x0.3 magnification - a relatively modest investment to experiment with (unless you get the Canon 500D close up lens, which I wouldn't until I was satified that a cheap close up lens is giving workable distance to subject and DoF with subjects I was interested in).

If that whets your appetite for this fascinating branch of photography, then got for it with a macro lens. Look and test 100, 150, 180 or 200 at that time so you hopefully reduce your purchase to a lens that meets your meed. Finally if into extreme close up then look at image stacking which can be done in Photoshop or with specialist software such as Helicon or Zerene and others. If you have a suitable Canon or Nikon Helicon offer an android app which will work out the number of images, and then take the multiple refocused exposures (maybe also Iphone but haven't got one so don'r know.) The images can then be stacked in Photoshop.

BTW this is another excellent example of 'computer assisted time wasting' as you get actively involved in post processing multiple stacked imaged - but then again post processing many images leads along that path :)

There are some really detailed explanations of how optical stabilisation in lenses works, some highly technical. My simplified version is - In Optical stabilsation lenses there is a group of lens elements which are locked when IS is off, and free to move when IS is enabled. The IS electronic mechanism moves the elements to preserve alignment reducing and even eliminating the effect of camera shake. If there is no shake then the electronics can create a feedback loop which still moves the elements - sort of hunting for shake. The net effect puts movement in rather than takes it out. This is particularly apparent on a long exposure.

So the normal advice is only use IS (VR on Nikons) when hand held.

Turning off IS only works if you have a good tripod of course. Also maybe 10sec delay would be better? I did some tests on my setup (6D, manfrotto CF tripod) with a 10" android tablet (as much easier to see movement than the live view screen) and it surprised me how long it took for the camera to settle when i pressed the shutter button.

Depending on camera and smartphone there are a number of simple wireless shutter releases, if your smartphone has IR sender. I use the free DSLR remote by Bitshift on a Samsung smartphone and it works just fine with just 4 big 'buttons'. There are also some much more elegant smartphone options but I found simple worked best for me.

if its any use, I have a simple utility that was on a photo CD called picshow.exe. Its has a few files including autorun.inf. It plays all jpgs in a pictures folder. Just tested on a USB drive on W7 x64 and works just fine providing windows is set up to autorun a usb on insertion. If not just run picshow.exe It has no settings just displays photos full screen on about 2s interval.

If you want a copy email me and I'll send you a copy

I have the Tamron 150-600 (V1, a V2 has recently been released) and use with an EOS 6D and sometimes with my backup body, a 100D

I don't know how it compares with the Canon 100-400 or the Sigma 150-600, but I think its a great lens. I typically use it for birds and at airshows where the zoom range and max zoom is really useful. Also it means that if trying to travel light (a relative term :) I can typically get away with 3 lenses - the 28-105, 70-200, 150-600.

Some observations - if using a 7D the effective focal length is x1.6 or a whopping 240-960!, you will need a monopod/ tripod or use a high shutter speed even with image stabilisation to get sharper images. I tend to use a monopod as its less cumbersome to carry and use and less likely to be kiced by passers by in an airshow crowd.

Confirming a previous comment, a x1.4 converter won't autofocus with my 6D or 100D - both need an aperture of f6 or better and at 600mm it is f6.3 to start with.

Interesting comment above on cropping 600mm view from 400mm image - never thought to test that but hey, the 150-600 is a lot cheaper and I'm very happy with the results I get, easily enlarging to A3+ (19") on Epson R3000 even after some cropping.

Don't know how it works in your neck of the woods, but mostly get from a locan specialist Canon camera store. There is room to argue about price, but the benefitis of testing the actual lenses outside using a monopod, and the great pre-and after sales service more than make up for the slightly higher price. Perhpas your local store may allow the same pre sale testing of the models you are interested in?

Here are a couple of examples both at 600mm, both cropped. The kingfisher is at f/6.3 the Vulcan and Red Arrows at f13. I shoot raw, extract jpeg for a quick look (using the free 'quick jpeg from cr2'), typically apply lens correction and colour balance (if reqd) in ACR, and post in Photoshop. Use Topaz denoise if required, resize to 360ppi to match printer output, and sharpen with Nik.

if your interested in 'traditional' hard rives, look at this.

http://lifehacker.com/the-most-and-least-reliable-hard-drive-brands-1505797966

Based on detailed analysis by Backblaze guess which hard drives I buy :)

And if you want backup on the go that works just fine with Android phone/ tablet, then Sandisk Cruzer USB 3.0 256GB is very cheap on Black Friday deal on Amazon at the mo. (convenient but also easier to lose of course :)

As a retired IT professional and very much amateur photographer, typically when I ask an important technical question I want to know the 'what' but often also the 'why?' So hope my reply was not a parental lecture but a suggestion backed up with my own testing and the tools and methods I used to help me make a decision. Also tried a bit of British humour but perhaps that didn't translate too well :) (you'll also notice the British spellings highlighted by US English spell-checker as suspect - but lets NOT get going on that topic 'cos life is far to short, and who cares :)

I'm always somewhat surprised that people pay 100s or more often often 1000s for their photo gear and want to pay next to nothing for the memory cards.

If someone wants cheap get something unbranded from ebay. Go on the holiday of a lifetime or be photographer for a wedding and add spice to your life by finding out it the card still has stuff on it when you get home. (I once spent many hours recovering just 20 or 30% of the images from a friend's crashed card after an wedding anniversary crossing the Atlantic on the QM II - it wasn't that I couldn't locate the images, just so many were corrupted)

Alternatively buy a decent branded card from a reputable supplier.

For what its worth as a comparison, a 36 exp roll of branded 35mm film on amazon uk is about £4 or 0.20 per frame including dev costs (dunno about $ as the £ is a bit of a movable feast at present :)
A Sandisk extreme pro 16 or 32GB micro SD with adapter card will fit just about any micro/ SD gadget including a camera is £22 (32GB) and will hold thousands of max res jpeg or even a few thousand max res raw (depending on camera sensor size.) even if only a few thousand exposures, and you only ever used it once, it is fractions of a penny per frame.

For me its a no-brainer - buy cheap and add some 'will it, won't it' excitement to your life or buy high quality cards from a reputable supplier and take that uncertainty out of your photography.

If you want to save money on cards get the lower spec Extreme (or similar spec from other well established manufacturers) rather than extreme pro as it is about 1/2 the price, but remember read speed is convenient when transferring to your computer or whatever, but write speed is the key to reducing wait time when using hte camera.

Before I 'standardised' on Sandisk extreme or extreme pro I bought several small capacity good quality cards to test. I used an application called Crystal Disk mark and set it up to test multiple serial writes of the size of a raw on my camera (no point testing write of a 1kB file if your camera produces 20MB!) The results on read were reasonably consistent but the difference on write was often dramatic.

I did some further tests with an EOS 6D with the various cards and different versions of the class 10 Sandisk cards. On continuous exposure the 6D is said to be capable of 6 frames per sec (as I recall). The test was to see if the camera processing/ camera buffer/ SD card combination had any effect on the number of frames taken before the camera must flush the buffer to card before it can take more. This is important if you do continuous shooting when filming wildlife (or grandchildren who seem more unpredictable than wildlife :) The target was a clock with second sweep hand (so I didn't have to record time - just look at the frames :)

I don't have the results to hand but what I did find is that cheap cards brought the camera to a standstill when it wrote the buffer to card, while the good quality, class 10, high write speed cards had significantly less effect. ie when the buffer was full the camera must flush the buffer to card, but came back on line (red recording light went out) MUCH quicker. I also found that the maximum continuous frames for my 6D was about 18. Additionally I found the latency between pressing the shutter and the picture being taken was not as good as the Canon spec suggested (press the shutter for the first frame on an exact second point and check the time on the frame. The time difference is the latency.)

As the card is such a vital part of the photography process, for EVERY new card I purchase I test read and verify end to end with h2testw.exe. I have never had a failure of good quality cards.

My conclusion - the high write speed cards were faster than the camera processing, and therefore would never be the bottleneck when working.

If you shoot jpeg, stable subjects, and a few frames per hour than write speed really doesn't matter, although quality of card always will. I am not saying for one minute there aren't good quality unbranded cards out there. Just for the price difference I can't be bothered to hunt them down. Also there are a LOT of fakes, so buy from a well known supplier or someone with plenty of good feedback would be my sugestion.