For older computers a solid state drive (SSD) can change your life! My PC is 6 years old and I got an SSD about a year ago. I went from about a 5 minute boot (and for all of my apps to start) to 17 seconds. Really. It takes a bit of time to install and setup Windows on the new drive, but totally worth it. You can get a 256 GB SSD for under $100 now, and your software will be much more responsive. Keep your original HD for extra storage too. Once you are on an SSD you will never go back!

I have been a photographer all my life, and I think I just decided NOT to photograph the eclipse. I live at the edge of totality and am going to drive to the center. I will only have a little over 2 minutes to experience it, and I don't want to be fiddling with my camera at that moment. Instead, I'm going to experience the eclipse without distraction, and I'm pretty sure that there will be a lot of photographs from others <g>.

The advice has been stellar here. One thing I can add is that when shooting indoors, I rarely use a flash. I go to a higher ISO that allows me to get a reasonable shutter speed. The photo I've uploaded was shot at event this weekend in an almost dark room while everyone was watching a video. I went to ISO 5000 and yes, it is soft and a bit noisy, but better than firing a flash during the event! Unless you blow the image up large in a print, the noise isn't bad. And this has NO processing yet, just as is.
ISO 5000
70mm
1/40th at f5.3 (a little slow for 70mm, but I was sitting and was able to stabilize my arms)
VR on

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This forum is pretty amazing - great suggestions. I would recommend one more and that is to do some real controlled testing. Do a full series of shots adjusting aperture, exposure, and ISO. Experiment with manual focus. If you have a camera store that sells used (I do in St. Louis), you might be able to borrow a prime lens for a test too and see if that gives a better result.

And as others have suggested, you might be focusing incorrectly. Wide angle lenses are hard to focus because the field of view is so large and your viewfinder is small. The D3300 has the Live View that allows you to zoom in so you can check your focus. Here is a good article that explains how that works:
http://www.dummies.com/photography/cameras/nikon-camera/nikon-d3400-dummies-cheat-sheet/

A lot of the cloud storage systems like dropbox have storage limits that seem great, but for a photographer they can be maxed out quickly. Look for a truly unlimited amount of storage like Crashplan, which costs $5 a month. Install the app, set the backup drives and it will back up at night and you will never notice it running.
https://www.crashplan.com/en-us/features/

Lit beautifully. Well done.

I worked in a camera store for years, one of the local chains here in St. Louis. This is back in the 1970s after I got out of high school. Even then there were mail order stores that advertised in all of the mags, and there were some local stores that discounted more than others. Nothing was more frustrating than to have a customer come in, talk shop for hours, play with all of the equipment and then disappear and you knew that they bought cheaper after spending all of that time. One guy had the nerve to come in with his new camera and brag about the price. The manager threw him out!

So two things - yes, support your local camera shop and expect to pay a bit more for the service and the privilege of handling the equipment. It is well worth it. And if you DO decide to buy online, DON'T take advantage of your local shop by spending their time and playing with their stuff.

If you don't want to take a full tripod, maybe the Joby Gorilla would work. Small and lightweight, and not a full-sized tripod, but would work in a pinch if you needed some stability.

My wife and I spent 2 weeks in Italy a few years ago, and my best shots were out in the countryside. Tuscany is as beautiful as you imagine, and around every corner there is something fantastic.

The car is a great idea. They drive very fast and pass indiscriminately! So really be aware of everyone around you. (Google Driving in Florence!)

The small towns away from the big tourist areas are fantastic, the people are wonderful, and the food is great. Lots of great churches, small museums and fantastic architecture.

I agree with most of the people who replied that you don't need the tripod unless you want to take some very low-light shots. My favorite shot was taken before dawn overlooking the town of Seggiano, and I couldn't have gotten the shot without the tripod. So I think that is a tough call. The good thing is you have a car, so you can ditch stuff that you don't want to carry at that moment.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nda0cl5g3cng0ac/seggiano%20at%20dawn%20-%20ready.jpg?dl=0

Especially in the cities like Florence or Rome, do NOT leave anything in the car that is visible. We didn't have a problem, but I know people who did. We kept stuff hidden and we were OK. But I wouldn't leave an expensive lens in the car regardless.

Also, upload images nightly to a service like Dropbox, and you can get a low-cost internet plan now that won't kill you. If your camera does get stolen, the images will be more important to you later than the gear!

Good luck!

Lisa, there are a lot of sites out there that do just what you want and are either free or very low cost.
https://pixieset.com/
https://en.zenfolio.com/
https://www.shootproof.com/

And many others. You should be able to find one that works for you.

Good luck!

One thing to consider is the background. Depending on the effect you are going for, you can learn to control the focus of the background (bokeh) by experimenting with the distance to the subject and the aperture. A wider aperture will give you a softer background, which can be very pleasing in portraiture. The problem you will have with some inexpensive lenses is that the aperture won't open wide enough to allow for a pleasingly soft background. Look for a lens with a fairly wide maximum aperture such as 1.4 - 1.8. Of course, set the aperture when you are shooting by taking it off Auto.

I would suggest a non-zoom (prime) lens around 50-85mm and max aperture of 1.4 would be great. Sigma makes and awesome 85mm 1.4. An older manual focus Nikon such as the 85mm 1.4 would give you beautiful results.

I know a lot of photographers that never do anything with their shots except store them on a hard drive, and I think that is sad. So here are a few ideas:

Print them and hang them in your office, family room or den. If you are really good, hang them in your living room!

If someone you know really likes your work, print them and give them as gifts.

Post them on social media or do a nice website. You can offer them for sale, but don't expect much unless your work has broad appeal.

Small galleries often are looking for artists to show their work. I did this a few years ago, and did some nice framing and such. Had a blast, didn't sell a thing and would do it again. I have a small business and hung them all in my office and I get a lot of compliments.

Thanks for the comments. This looks like a fun forum. Glad I found it.

No brand that I could see. It was kind of in an old industrial area in northeast Missouri.

This was an abandoned gas station I found recently.

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