Great Images!

Fort Pulaski is a wonderful place to visit if you ever go to Savannah.

I agree with CHG_CANON. What are you going to do with a dedicated light meter? You can download free light meters to your "smart phone" as well if you just want to get an idea of lumens, luxes, EV values. I have a Sekonic meter that I rarely ever use and find the light meter I downloaded is pretty much what the dedicated meter reads.

https://www.photoworkout.com/best-light-meter-apps/

I feel bioteacher's frustration and why they vented.

I had a problem with Adorama a few years ago - two lenses for Canon DSLR. I tracked it to Atlanta and then saw it being returned to the store (about ten days watching it all the way down and all the way back). I contacted the service department via Chat and asked when they would ship it again. The reply I got was stunning - they wouldn't as any returns would go back on the shelf with no exceptions. I would have to order the same lenses from them again to get what I wanted 10 days earlier. BTW the return was based on UPS' website explanation of the label either missing or smudged (but they had the tracking number?)

I then asked for a refund (credit back to my CC). I ordered the same two lenses from B&H the same day Adorama said they would not reship the lenses I already paid for. I paid expedited shipping this time so I could have them in two days versus 7 or 10.

Now I have two charges on my card and a month later we either had to pay the full bill or pay the one from B&H and hope that the credit was forthcoming from Adorama. I asked Adorama for a refund ASAP - they have the money and the lenses. Not Fair!

The other part of the story was I bought these through Amazon so brought them into the fray. They said I should contact the vendor and I said I already did that and nothing was happening. I said I bought them through you (Amazon) so you should resolve the issue. They wanted 48 hours so i gave them that time. When I contacted them again they wanted an additional 24 hours. My threat to both Amazon and Adorama was I would turn it over to the CC company and let them handle it. Well, Amazon came through within the next 24 hours.

Using a CC for purchases are usually a good form of insurance from foot dragging merchants.

If you have a touch screen try the Bamboo Ink and work directly on the screen.

#1 is a bracket to hold a flash and umbrella/soft box that you would mount on a stand.

Use your phone to shoot through the telescope. Try an adapter for your telescope to your phone.

https://www.amazon.com/Celestron-81035-Smartphone-Adapter-Discoveries/dp/B07J2GGFQB/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=smartphone+adapter+for+a+telescope&qid=1604839254&sr=8-5

Will Alexa fix dinner in the near future?

I totally agree with that. That is "my approach" as well. Why copy and then delete when a move accomplishes both in one stroke. Why format when it isn't needed unless the file structure is so screwed up that it calls for a format.

Too many rumors and scare tactics abound.

Who is Ken Wheeler? An engineer for a memory card company?

I would have to say the age of the camera versus the newest iPhone (although the iPhone 12 is around the corner?) makes a huge difference. I am guessing the software in the phone analyzes the scene a lot better than the software in the older camera (introduced 12 years ago)? And the software in the phone probably enhances the scene before saving it as well.

My old Samsung Note 4 made the dingy dark blue carpet at my grandson's pre-K school look like new. This was not reality but certainly made things looks better. I recall that day vividly as I compared the photo I just took with the carpet I was standing on. It was "unbelievable" but it looked "Great".

That's what I advocate too! Gitzo 3540XLS with RRS BH-55 - a walk in the park.

Amicalola Falls


Up the back way to the falls


Down the stairs to see the falls

I have rotated images on the computer before, put them back on the card, and viewed them on the camera. The image size on the camera is reduced (weird looking) but still there. Take the card back out, reorient the photo back to the way it was, stick it back in the camera, and it is like it never changed in the first place. It must be Magic!

This really isn't difficult - the software on the camera expects things the way it was programmed to be (K.I.S.S. logic). Even if you put the images back on with different names and in different folders, the pictures are still there until you delete them, format the card, or whatever. You just won't be able to view them on the camera screen. Put a spreadsheet on the same card and the camera won't know what to do with it but the file is still there.

I believe you have to 1) put the images back in the directory structure that Canon uses and 2) use the name format of the image as Canon names them.

So on the root of the memory card is DCIM. Under that folder is your daily files (or however you set your camera up) as NNN-MMDD. Under the daily folder are the photos of that day with the prefix IMG_NNNN

DCIM\NNN_MMDD\IMG_NNNN (where N is an arbitrary number?) MMDD is month day

I just did an experiment by taking a few shots, moving the daily folders to my computer, formatting the card back in the camera, copying the daily folders back to the card at the root and couldn't see them on the camera. Popped the card back in the card reader and put the daily files under a new directory I created called DCIM - back in the camera and could see all the pictures.

Next experiment was renaming the picture IMG_5418 to IMG_5418-hello and could not see that photo on the camera. Back to the computer and remove "-hello" from the image name and back to camera and now the picture is seen. Renamed 5814 to 6000 and the picture could be seen on the camera.

Last experiment was folder renaming from 135_1014 (today's date) to 700_1014 - this worked in the camera. Renamed 700 to abc and it didn't work in camera. Renamed abc to 135 (the original name) and it worked again in camera. I am not reiterating all the steps between camera and card reader hooked to computer as all the renaming is of course done on the computer.

Simple solution is abide by the manufacturer's naming convention and it should work.

I bought two 4 TB WD drives a few years ago. I took both with me to download photos to on a trip to Thailand two years ago. Good news is I backed up photos to both drives every evening and the memory cards were formatted and ready for the next day. Bad news is one of those drives crashed on the trip home so do protect your hard drives when traveling the best you can. I thought by carry on, they would have been fine but I thought wrong.

I bought a new drive (same make and size) at Best Buy a day or two after we got home and had it duplicated overnight (several hours). Last year in Maui I just downloaded the photos to the internal SSD and left the mechanical drives at home. Less weight and less worry. Moved those files over to the mechanical drives after I got back home.

Lots of great affordable tech these years but there are still risks in everything we do. Minimize that risk the best you can.

On another note I found my old Sony MiniDV Handycam movie camera in my closet a few weeks ago and had to buy a charger/power adapter to see the old movies (some of the people have passed since I used this years ago). Now I wanted to move the mag tapes to disk but how to do it?

Luckily I still had our old PC tower in a closet upstairs (XP vintage) and it had a Firewire card that came standard and Sony only uses Firewire (that I know of) to copy mag tape to the hard drive. Unfortunately I could not find my Firewire cable from my previous system so I had to buy a new cable. Thank you Amazon!

Eighteen tapes (each an hour long) of video tape was around 14 GB of disk storage and I was able to copy all that to a memory card to transfer to my newest laptop with all the external drives hooked up via a USB hub. That took a weekend to remember to change each tape out and start the transfer. I need to break those files into smaller scenes. GRRR! Great tech comes with its own challenges.

Wholeheartedly agree with this. I bought several of Scott Kelby books, Rick Sammon, and a few other authors that I cannot remember (old age disease) when I started getting a little more serious about photography. Back when Borders was in business, it was nice to go to the photography section and look through all the books available and buy 2 to 3 at a time. There are tons of YouTube videos from starting out to pro tips with almost every genre of camera and subject at your disposal. The best teacher is always experimenting with your camera(s). Shoot every day with new subjects and learn as you go.