I have USAA. Called them years ago and asked about a rider for my photo equipment (as well as hunting gear). I'm a photographer and a hunter. They said it was covered under the standard policy so I assume that is still the case. If I ever have a problem, I'll argue with them then but I've never had a problem so I'm not too worried. They have to be the best insurance company in the world. Those of us who have served are very fortunate to have them around.

The bottom one is much better. Nice touch!!

Technology is amazing!! I spent $1000 on a Nikon scanner for 35mm slides years ago. It has 4K bpi. It's wonderful but has been overtaken by technology to the point that I can get pretty much get the same resolution with my desktop printer/scanner.

I have been turning my hardcopy slides into digital but it's a long slow process.

And as Kodak found out (belately), it's consumables, consumables, consumables!!

If you're just starting out in photography, I recommend you purchase a relatively inexpensive camera with the basics. Interchangeable lenses, programmable exposure control, etc. As you get used to that and are satified with your results, upgrade to Nikon, Canon, or Pentax higher end camera. (I'm a Pentax freak myself and have been since I was in high school). But they all have the same features, bells and whistles. It ends up not being the camera but the photographer. Enjoy.

By the way, buying a camera is like buying a computer: you buy it and it's outdated. So buy something with the capability you want, use it, and the upgrade when it's really obsolete.

Ref the above about TSA and airline emplyees--I've never lost anything out of checked luggage or anywhere else when flying. I always keep my eye on things going through the scanner for carryons. I've got over 1 million miles on airlines in the last 40 years so I can speak from experience.

The mono or tripod won't be used on the airplane so check it. Always, always carry on delicate gear. Camera, lenses, etc. Buy a backpack designed to fit in the overhead (buy two if you need too and pay for the extra carry-on) It's cheap relative to the gear.

To dcampbell52--hah, try going from Washington to Boston in 3-4 hrs. on a train. Try 10. But I still enjoy it more than air travel. As someone said above, it's enjoyable to just sit there and enjoy the country side. Europe is so much smaller than the US and they have had passenger train service much longer than we have. The have the rail infrastructure. Leave long haul passenger service to the airlines and haul freight via train. Look at a long haul trains out west with 4 engines hauling a mile long (or longer) trail of cars and figure out what weight they're pulling. Think about it and it's kind of amazing.

From a technical perspective, I would disagree with your premise. Light is light regardless of the sensor and its spectral sensitivity. But it's not worth the discussion unless you want to really dig into it.

I agree with the above. NEVER EVER check your expensive camera gear. Years ago I bought a camera backpack that I use when I travel (which is about 2X a year). It's heavy and bulky but I carry it onboard and it's designed to fit in the overhead. If you've ever watched the guys handling your luggage you don't want them handling your camera gear like that. You can check the misc. BS but don't check the important stuff. That's an absolute rule with me.

Also, before Kodak stopped producing the Carousel projector, I bought about six bulbs just so I had a supply to last me a while (of course, none have blown out since).

Haven't read all of the above but years ago, I bought a high quality Nikon scanner that has since gone out of production. I think there are scanners that are better and faster today. My criteria at the time was high quality rather than speed. Bottom line is that I screwed up in cost versus quality. My suggestion is pick the ones you really, really want, have them scanned at where ever and print them on a high quality printer or display them to your family on a TV.

I haven't read all of the advice you're gotten but I would suggest that given today's scanner technology, you can get acceptable results using a decent scanner. If have some slides that you want to print to a high quality (eg: 16x20), a higher resolution scanner is available at your local photo store.

I've probably got a couple of thousand slide that I'm slowly scanning. It's time consuming but I can scan them at 50-75 at a wack. I also inherited my mother's collection of Kodachrome slides from around the world which I'm scanning. The good news there is that the color dyes in Kodachrome is good pretty much forever.

I believe its about 4000 dpi so resolution is not a problem.

Years ago I bought a Nikon something or other for 35mm slides only. It holds about 50 or so slides, scans them, and puts them in a file on my computer. I believe Nikon discontinued that scanner but you might be able to find a used one. It's durable and produces very high quality digital files (about 60MB in size) and with PS you can do about any sort of image processing that you want. The limitation is the file size but storage these days is cheap.

It's a nice town. Been there a couple of times. Picturesque to say the least.