But, if you shoot sports professionally, as I did for over a decade, Nikon's 70 -200 f/2.8 is worth its considerable weight in gold!

The FAA set a no-fly zone around the BP Gulf Oil Spill during that crisis. Only possible reason was to protect BP from the negative publicity photos would provide. And there's no excuse for the no-fly zone near the Arkansas Tornado damage area, other than their need to have absolute control! As to Texaseve's concern about photographing someone's loved one killed by the tornado, that is a legitimate news story, and therefor, a 1st Amendment issue. No, drones are only an air safety issue, and not much of an issue at that.

Your problem will be to isolate your runner from the pack. Use your 40-150 mm and try to take a series of shots as they approach your position, zooming out as they get closer, so as to keep them approximately the same size in your frame. While shots that include lots of runners will provide context, you want to see your runner as clearly and individually as possible. This Sunday in Pittsburgh, good chance it will be overcast, so you may need a higher ISO to keep your shutter speed high enough to freeze the action (not actually all that tough with a distance runner coming at you). I shot many a cross country run with my 70 - 200 mm at f/2.8 and a DX sensor, but you will have a lot more runners in the way. If your camera is all right at follow focusing, just keep firing away and edit out the garbage. Lots of luck.

Papa Joe said: "I don't see where the subject matter should differentiate the price. If you have a 'set' figure for say, an 11 x14 of 'people', then it should probably be the same for the scenic photo too, shouldn't it?"

Yes, a portrait is made on assignment. There should be a fee for shooting the subject, then the price for prints purchased! Your landscape is "on spec" (speculation). You may shoot hundreds without having anyone offer to purchase a print. There is a lot of time and cost involved. More often than not, the purchase is of a print made "on spec", so you have to recover the cost of prints not sold as well as prints that you sell. In this particular case, someone has asked you to make the print to sell him, so your costs are a little different. In any event, working with a pro shop to have the print made, the price quoted above of four or five times your cost to make the print, would appear way too cheap!

I used Optech for years photographing sporting events. Standing for hours six days a week with two cameras hanging on Optech straps - one with a "normal" zoom and a flash, the other sporting a 70 - 200 mm or longer leans. Love 'em!

Searcher wrote: "In the third column I have tried to show the relationship between stops. The numbers are loosely based on the area in square mm of the aperture of a 100mm focal length lens.
The numbers are severely rounded. It can be seen that f/2.8 which has an aperture of 1000sq mm is twice the size of f/4 which has an aperture of 500sq mm."

I just want everyone to understand that these areas relate only to a 100 mm lens. (You did include that information, but I felt it needed more emphasis.) Excellent information!

“I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” James Madison

In the case of the policemen who checked up on the man photographing his Grandsons in the park, it was their duty to know who was there and whet they were doing. They were polite and respectful and everything was done correctly. In the case of officials in a public facility demanding a permit of anyone who shows up with a camera, they are overreaching! Photography is either permitted or not! (Except, if the photographer is taking special liberties. In some cases that can mean setting up a tripod.)

Before digital, my film budget to shoot a wedding was between $300 and $400. Viva Digital! And if you're being paid what a wedding photographer charges, they better not be "snap-shots!

I've put a lot of pictures on CF cards; then reformatted and did it all again the next day. I had one or two failures several years ago, which consisted of one or two images that could not be retrieved. I was advised to dump the offending card (which I did) before it cost me more images.

By known brand cards from a reputable dealer, and when and if you have a problem, trash them. Always carry spare formatted cards.

Oops! I'm having a problem with my keyboard. What I meant to say was that Amheta was correct, resolving power refers to the number of lines per millimeter the lens can project on the film or receptor surface, using a specific industry standard test target. It is but one of several criteria used to evaluate lenses. The number will be less the farther you are from center of the image. And it does not relate directly to what you might achieve in a real photographic situation, but it does give a numeric value to compare different lenses. And, yes, everything else being equal the lens with the higher number is a higher quality lens.

In the real world, most people buy based on reputation and don't know what resolving power any particular lens has. I own a dozen or so lenses in different formats and have no idea what their test numbers were.

Corect

Terminology: A Light Box is a box with a backlit translucent top on which you would place slides or negatives to view and sort or edit them. A Soft Box IS a (usually cloth) enclosure of a photographic light with a translucent surface to diffuse the light as it illuminates the photographic subject.

A light tent probably will do the job on these coins. If reflections are still a problem, cross polarization may be needed. If the camera lens is causing a problem reflecting off the lens, using shift on a view camera, or a shift lens on an SLR (Nikon has made one) is the answer!

Photo "enhancement can bring about surprising reactions. A colleague a decade plus back, the first of the wedding photographers I worked with to go digital (Kodak "guts" in Nikon bodies) had a client who really liked a certain group shot, except someone of import had their eyes closed. Was there anything he could do about it? He explained how he could photoshop in the eyes from someone else in the photo.

Then he inquired, "What color eyes does he have?"

"Well," she replied, "you'll know when you open them, won't you?"

Good luck with your client. Don't do anything beyond cleaning up and simple skin retouching without their permission.

You should have done most of the work "in the camera"! Taken shots and posed your subject in a variety of ways, naturally, and to minimize these less than perfect aspects of her physical being. (I have a granddaughter - beautiful woman - with a "lazy eye"; there are a number of ways to pose her so it is not apparent.) You can then present these variations in poses and let her pick. DO NOT start changing her appearance in PhotoShop, unless requested! And then there should be an extra fee.

Does the SB 700 match your camera? Nikon has a very sophisticated flash system and you can't make full use of it unless the flash has all the capability of the camera, and vice versa. That would be the only reason I would pay the extra dollars for the newer, "improved" SB 910.