I am VERY happy with ProDPI out of Colorado. VERY reasonable price, EXCELLENT quality, and SUPERB customer service. There is always a human to talk with!

I own the full array of f/2.8 FX lenses along with several primes. The 28-300 is my go-to lens on my D800 for sheer ease and versatility. Makes superb images.

Speaking of PSE 11, I do not own it, (happy with LR and CS-next), but I am wondering if it has the Clarity and Vibrance sliders that are found in Lightroom? (I do photo tours and like to make PP recommendations.)

The Dell U2410 is an awesome monitor. Calibrated to Adobe and sRGB. Worth the price. I own two!

I do a lot of photography in Alaska. WRT "blown out" highlights, I tell my clients: 1. Consider what the subject is. If I am shooting an eagle with a cloudy background the sky may easily look blown out, but that is not what people are looking at. 2. Consider what is in the picture. If sun is reflecting off snow on a mountain peak, maybe it is just plain white! Eyes are drawn to light areas in a photo, so perhaps try to minimize areas in your photo that would tend to be overexposed and offer little to the composition of the photo. (For instance, sky?) Expose for shadows, develop for highlights. (And shooting in RAW gives you a LOT of leeway for recovering so-called "blown out" highlights.

In my humble opinion, wide angle lenses move things away from the camera, so one looses detail in the photo. I think by moving things away, a wide angle suggests you get closer to your subject. Personally, for landscapes I prefer concentrating on selecting smaller aspects of a big landscape to bring forward good detail. I concur the 24-70 is an excellent combination of wide angle and zoom potential that will give you lots of options in selecting subject and creating composition. (And while I own all the 2.8 lenses, I am often shooting with my 28-300 for the sheer versatility and ease.) Often less is more, in a photo. IMHO.

I wont even do business with Adorama anymore after so many run arounds from poor customer service. I also feel compelled to say, their extended warranty service through Mack Camera is the worst I have ever experienced.

The easiest/quickest way that I compensate haze in post processing is judicious use of the clarity and vibrancy sliders in Lightroom.

Thank you for this thread! I want to save this whole page.

Good point ... the small things in this big state make a great complement to the sweeping vistas

When you buy the best it only hurts once.

Having had some of my photos sold by iStock, I will say I see very little return in way of commission. I do not bother with it anymore ... it is not cost effective for time spent: the photographer gets the short end.

I have been very happy with ProDPI at www.prodpi.com They offer a wide variety of products, prices and quality are excellent, and there is always someone you can speak with on the other end of the phone, which is a real plus, imho.

The investment in upgrading to Lightroom 4.x is well worth the $, and I hear LR 5 is going to be even better!

Having done business with both for years, I now swear by B&H exclusively.