Would I buy a pink camera or any other colour other than black? No!

Would a pink camera sell? Yes!

I recall being in another forum a few years back in which there was a discussion of what would be the best camera for a beginner. The one asking the question eventually made a decision but commented that she would only buy it if it comes in pink. How the colour is supposed to result in IQ was and remains a mystery to me.

Basically colour seems to sell. Keep in mind too that colour is expensive. You're looking at an extra production run for each colour you feature and you end up with an inventory nightmare too stocking the different colours. The makers won't be making them in colour if there were no market for them.

English has its roots in England so Oxford, not Webster, is usually the authority when it comes to spelling and such. In Canada we tend to use Oxford though of course we have many American dictionaries too. Living in the middle, between England and the USA we tend to often accept both versions of a word and we don't make a big fuss about it. Language is an evolutionary thing and is often dependent on the culture that has adopted it.

One thing I've always observed when it comes to American English is that it is the language for those who do not like to write or perhaps for those who find it difficult to spell. We say colour, you say color, we say cheque you say check and so forth. I guess by chopping a letter here and there from your words saves you energy when typing and it makes the spelling easier to remember.

That's excellent advise. I have a bottle of sensor cleaner that has lasted me ten years already and still has lots left. I have a lens cleaner that's about as old. When you divide the cost by the number of years you have the product it's really cheap. If you try to save a penny and something goes wrong, that can be a lot more expensive.

That is true. I recall reading abou memory cards a few years back. The message was that there are only two or three manufacturers of memories and memory controllers. The many different brands on the market come from none of those manufacturers. The ones who make mamory cards buy memories and controllers from one of the three. They do not always buy from the same ones and they do not always buy the same model each time.The bottom line is that it doesn't matter what brand you buy, you have no way of knowing what's actually in the card and who actually made it.

I don't usually react to speling errors. I create typos myself so how can I be critical when someone else does? However, in this case I feel compelled to speak up. Language is something we are gifted with so that we can communicate with each other as clearly as possible. Whether the word is censor or sensor, it was possible from the context to garner meaning and thus to know what was being communicated. So a correction wasn't really needed.

At the same time to correct someone is also positive. Language is a collection of sounds and words whose meaning is agreed to by us all. So in this case one can argue that the writer was doing someone a favour by offering up a correction. That kind of assistance helps us to always keep our language relatively pure. So the correction should be appreciated.

Where I have a problem with this posting is the response to the one offering the correction. I think that the sarcasm about the spelling of Nazi is unwarranted and below the belt.

So we have three players here. Let us forgive the one who made the typo, we all make typos sometimes. Let us thank the one who offered the correction for it helps some of us improve the use of the language. And let us feel sorry for the one who feels the second correction was out of line. They serve a useful purpose too, they make the rest of us look really good.

here it is ...

http://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/products/250/Nikon_1_J5.html

I was in a public park on a moon lit night. The moon was full and there was a bit of a haze that created a lovely effect. At the edge of the park were huge hundred year old pine trees. The scene was magic. So I set up my tripod and my camera aimed towards the moon filtered through the trees. I fussed for a while to get my exposures right (this was in my film days) using a hand held meter. Finally I was ready and I took the picture using a cable release.

Looking around I seemed to have attracted a crowd which is usual when you're using a tripod. Suddenly one brave soul came up to me and asked what I was doing. So I patiently explained pointing to the lovely scene and explaining that I was taking a picture of that scene. The questionner thought about that answer for a while and then screwed up his face trying to understand. Finally he asked "but how can you take that picture without a flash? It's dark outside."

Another time I was in a ravine that was somewhat dark from the tree canopy. I looked under a log and found a little cluster of mushrooms that looked like something from a Disney cartoon. I set up my macro tripod that goes straight to the ground. I set up mirrors to get some sunlight under the log. Then I mounted my bellows and my macro lens on the camera and placed them on the tripod. More fussing adjusting mirrors and establishing exposures I was finally ready and I took the picture. Once again all this activity attracted a crowd, I would never believed that there were that many people in the ravine that day. They too asked what I was doing so I explained.

In the end that picture cost me an hour. First there was the set up and the fussing and then it was letting everyone peek through the view finder to see the picture. Today it's easier, I can show the picture on the camera immediately but that wasn't possible in those days.

Yesw I have several bodies. I have an old D70s that I loan to kids who want to learn photography. I have a D200 with an 18-300 mm lens that I use just for travel. There is a D800 that is my macro camera, the resolution gives me a lot of capability in macro. And there is a D3 which I use for pretty well everything else.

if the screw in device says 55 mm and the lens barrel also says 55 mm it will fit.

I would go for a metal lens hood. If you ever drop the lens or the camera accidentily, a metal one offers better protection.

For delicate things I tend to always use a tool that is designed for the job. I have a lens cleaning kit that has its own cleaner. I have a sensor cleaning kit that has different chemistry and brushes. I think this is the wise way to go. After all lenses are expensive and replacing a sensor is even more expensive so it's not good to try to save a buck or two by cutting corners.

Some years back I found two Nikon lenses from the seventies at a garage sale for five dollars. Eagerly I carried them home excited to see how they performed.

Well, I mounted one on one of my DSLRs and couldn't understand why it wouldn't focus. After some fiddling I remembered that these weren't autofocus lenses. Blush! Then came exposure, the aperture didn't set either but then why should it? That lens was made long before my DSLR.

I thought about this and realized that it was different in those days. The right hand held the camera and controlled the shutter while the left hand held the lens, set the aperture and handled zoom. I then spent time practicing a well known procedure and in time relearned how to handle a manal camera and lens.

Are we better off with all our automation or were the "good old days" better? I wonder if our new budding photographers could handle a manual everything the way we did and whether it actually matters. I agree that in some respects those were frustrating times and yet at the time they seemed perfectly natural. They are frustrating today because our cameras now do just about everything for us.

Jim Bob ... I took an optomistic view of the future I'll admit. At the same time I find it hard to argue with you too. Often people ask me how I get those "amazing" pictures and could I teach them. Well, that is the wrong question. What they are really asking is "what button do I push to get your level of quality?" Whenever I do try to explain their eyes glaze over and they change the subject. There is a general dumbing down in our population and, sadly, I have to admit too that I also own a few point and shoot cameras because the weight of my DSLRs is starting to become oppressive as I continue to age. I guess in the end all we can do is wait to see what happens.

Yah, modular is already here in stuff like cars. But why stop there? How about modular from different manufacturers? I shoot Nikon but I'd love to attach the odd Canon and Sony gadget to my camera too.

Alas this isn't going to happen I think. If the business were modular the industry won't be able to sell us new cameras all the time since all we'd then buy is bits of cameras. Still, it's a nice dream.

I still have my first DSLR, the D70s from Nikon with two lenses. I still have it because I like to loan it to aspiring young photographers to help them learn and grow. At the same time that camera only made me happy for about a year. I was used to professional film gear and though the camera was amazing, it didn't cut it in terms of my expectations.

My second camera was a D200 from Nikon. That was my step up in a quest for a professional body. It made me happy for two years after which I started to get frustrated. However I still have that one too in its own case. That is my travel camera with an 18-300 mm lens and a built in flash.

My third camera was a D3 which I still have as well. This one was the answer to my dreams. Finally I found a camera that not only met my expectations but also exceeded them.

That's where things stopped for a while until the D800 came along. I do a lot of macro work and the D800 with its amazing resolution was the answer to my macro needs. I could wish it focussed faster and it would be nice to have the ISO go beyond 6,400 but that's not essential since I have lighting technology too.

Now I am wondering if I'd go for the new D850. For the moment I say no. I upgrade when I have a serious issue I need to solve. Until then I stay with what I have. My only two remaining problems are a faster focus when I am shooting around six to eight frames per second and a higher ISO since I often do events where I can't use a flash indoors. However I have workarounds for both.

I see no value to upgrade my technology just because some manufacturer tells me I can take better pictures. Image quality is generally the photografer not the technology. At the same time as I evolved in my photographic world I was always encountering issues I needed to solve in order to reach a new level. And it has always been some of those specific problems that eventually got me upgrading.

At the same time I probably will stop now. My two remaining issues are not preventing me from advancing. Perhaps when the D850 is on the used market having been replaced by something else I might consider it, but probably not.

For whatever it's worth, I also have a workshop. In that world every new hammer and plane and chisel is the key to becoming an amazing woodworker. Well like in the camera business, that is not true at all. I acquire an occasional tool to make me more effective or to streamline a project I am doing or to give me functionality that will improve what I do. So needless to say I rarely buy another tool either.

My take is to think through whatever your challenges are and then find workarounds for them. If the issues don't go away that way, consider a change or an addition to your technology. But personally I don't think one change or two is enough considering the cost of high end gear, a new camera needs to seduce me not only with those two solutions but also offer me two or three more things I can't do at the moment. Without that an upgrade is not cost effective.

I should finish by saying I do the same with my lenses. Each lens has a specific purpose to solve a specific problem or challenge. That has gotten me a good variety of lenses which has then helped me achieve more challenges.

No, I never used an instamatic but I did live with one a lot since that was my mother's favourite camera. I had a medium format (620) camera with a little bellows when I started taking pictures. In the sixties it was already about thirty or forty years old and it had belonged to my father. The images tended to be well exposed and crisp. In the early seventies I then went to an SLR and I've never turned back.

It was an interesting start. It didn't take long for me to realize the differences between consumer brand cameras and high end ones. I also became aware that even the modern 35mm gear came in different qualities though generally image quality was dependent on the film selected and how flat the camera held the film and the quality of the glass. The early eighties began to produce really amazing optics and cameras in general though compared to the cameras of today, they were rather primitive in those days. But that was the decade when computers started designing lenses leading to ever better glass. It was also the decade of integration when electronic functions became integrated into little chips. That step gradually led to all kinds of camera automation. I used to also be a lot tougher too from all the excessive exercise I had from carrying the gear around. The lens barrels and the camera bodies in the SLR were still steel at the time.