Wonderful news. Enjoy the New Year to the maximum.

A basic note. All RAW images start out as color in the camera. Once loaded into your post processing software, you can convert the images to B & W. There are many software options for this. I primarily use LRClassic for the majority of my post processing work.

I think one advantage of mirrorless cameras is the capability to choose a monochrome setting and with the view finder being electronic, then the user can see the scene being photographed in monochrome. If I recall correctly, with a DSLR you can select a monochrome setting and see a Black & White image in Review mode, but not prior to actually making the shot.

Wildlife photography is always a chance of not finding your bird or animal. I am glad that you found a few eagles and herons on this trip.

Plan to come back to the NW in May/June and head to Seabeck on Hoods Canal (about 90 west of Seattle via Tacoma/bremeerton. ) There will be plenty of eagles then.

The right comparison would be a previous version of a 50 mm f1.2 to a new Z version 50mm f1.2. While all 1.2 lenses are going to be larger than an f1.8 version, I suspect that the Z versions are still a bit smaller.

I suggest that you can also go to You Tube and search both flash photography and B & W Flash Photography subjects. Recently, I did a search about using High Speed Sync flash photography and found many videos on the subject that were very helpful. There are many flash photography topics that you could find helpful in addition to all the suggestions already posted.

Then, it is a matter of practice and exploring.

I I think these were about mid '70s models and were extremely popular as the muscle cars of the '60s used too much higher priced fuel.

I went to a fairly large USPS office on Friday and it was swamped with folks, many mailing/sending multiple packages. Most of us don't have a clue to the volume the USPS is handing this time of year. Overall, we are getting letters/cards in a day or two after the post mark dates.

I think USPS is doing a terrific job overall.

Why would any post in this section belong in the attic, whatever the attic is???

You have a very handsome big Golden. We have had a number of rescue goldens but most were in the 60-70 pound range. More recently our boy is 40 pounds Australian Labradoodle. All black and a real character.

Since you have some contact with the folks who have the original, could you ask if you could go to their location and take a cell phone picture of the print? Or ask them to take a picture of the print and send it to you. The results may be better than trying to edit this image.

I think we are going to need to adapt to more technology in restaurants. It is more difficult to hire folks to be waiters, so kiosks will help meet the need of getting orders to the kitchen. The other alternative is to charge higher prices on the menu to enable restaurants to hire the necessary staff. But would we also complain that the prices just increased 25%.

Option: decide to take you business to higher priced restaurants from the start.

This sounds like a great trip. Hope you have many folks interested in joining you.

I just did a very quick google question about polio. Between 198 and 1955 there were a number of polio epidemics in the US. On average 15,000 cases of polio occurred each year. Dr Salk and others did research between 1952 and 1955 to create the vaccine. Some cases were mild while others result in paralysis and some people wee put in iron lungs to help them breathe.

Polio is dangerous and unfortunately more people are decided not to vacinate, and we will probably see an increase in the number of cases again.

I love these Junipers with their gnarly, twisted trunks and shapes. Nice images.

My most used lens is an Olympus 12-100 f4. With post processing features today that help deal with noise an f4 lens should be fine. Just bump your ISO as needed to keep a needed shutter speed. The other suggestions to go out to a local location and practice with a series of ISO, f-stop and shutter speed combinations is a very good idea.