One of the highlights of our summer in Newfoundland was the birds. We saw huge numbers of Northern Gannets, Atlantic Puffins, Razorbills, both Common and Thick-billed Murres and Black-legged Kittiwakes just as a good start. Bonaventure Island off the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec and Cape St. Mary below Argentia in Newfoundland were two of our favorite areas. Here are some very entertaining Gannets from Cape St. Mary. There were several 100,000 birds here nesting at the time. They are very social and ritualistic in their actions and they didn't care that we were observing them from 50 to 100 feet away at times.

Heavenly Father, grant me the courage to continue putting up with all this noise!

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It's the closest thing to an olive branch I could find, honey. We saw eggs and chicks also.

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They are wonderful flyers and their dives for food are really something to see.

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I'm not really into landscape photography but the landscape and the people are a large part of what Newfoundland is all about so here goes! These are shots from an area near Burnt Cape and Raleigh in the north. St. Anthony is the largest town up there I think. The sign photo says a lot about the people of Newfoundland. I called it their version of a "No Trespassing" sign. It really says "please trespass, enjoy yourself and we will trust that you will respect our property and our way of life". Well I certainly do respect them and their land!

We spent most of the summer traveling Newfoundland in our motorhome. It was the experience of a lifetime. Wonderful people who live there and the things to see are amazing. This is a shot I got of an Atlantic Salmon jumping (or trying to jump) a falls on the Upper Humber River near Cormack, NL. This is a cropped image from a Canon 5D MII with a 100-400 EF lens.

I like to use my photos for my 27" iMac desktop and screen saver but they usually show up on the desktop blurred. Does anyone know how to adjust photos put on the desktop so they look like they do while viewing them in Lightroom. I like to use the "fit screen" setting and I use photos cropped to 8x10 so I have a border for things I keep on my desktop.

Look at some of the things Peak Design has to offer. I use their newer camera strap system with the camera attached to the sling, not the lens. I use it over the shoulder and the camera stays comfortable on my back with the lens pointing down. It is also easy to quick draw when a quick shoot is required. The strap is also easily removed from the camera and very adjustable regarding length. They have other interesting products also.

I just had a 2TB WD fail on me. I used it only for photos on an iMac. The plug for the USB broke off the circuit board inside the case as I was plugging it in. I replaced it with a 4TB G-Drive I got from Amazon. I love it. It sits flat instead of like a tower and it is easy to see it is working. I also have a 4TB Seagate to back up the iMac thru Time Machine. It is also set up to backup the photo files on the G-Drive thru Time Machine.

I didn't notice anyone jumping on the new Mac Photos program. I won't either! What was Apple thinking? After a rough start with Lightroom, I am finally really enjoying working in it. If you just go through some of the good tutorials on the Internet and You Tube instead of jump in blind with both feet like I did, getting a good start shouldn't be too bad. It is like anything else, you have to get acquainted with the process first.

Thanks to all of you for the wonderful input to my self made problem. I now fell a lot more confident in what I am doing! Happy Thanksgiving to all.

This is great advice I wish I had thought of before jumping into Lightroom head first. Thank you! I will think about it with every import from now on. In the meantime, I think I am stuck with sorting out the problems I have created for myself one at a time!

I didn't get off to a good start learning to use Lightroom. I tried to learn it while traveling all summer in Newfoundland taking thousands of photos. I now know it is a good idea to learn what you are doing before you do it, but, too late for me! After many hours, I do have most of my photos imported into an external drive folder in Lightroom with backup to another external drive. We travel fulltime in a motorhome so I don't want to get hit with extra data usage to take advantage of the Cloud for storage. I have about 80,000 photos in folders with some folders organized by yyyy/month/dd and some organized yyyy/mm/dd. I like the month spelled out but that doesn't work for keeping folders in chronological order so I want to designate the months using numbers now. Changing to numbered months one at a time is going to be another long, painful task. Does anyone one know if it is possible to rename all of these folders using just one global type renaming rather than rename each one separately.

At Moki Dugway, make sure you drive out to Muley Point. Awesome views of Monument Valley and The San Jaun River goosenecks. Short, easy drive. Also go to Gooseneck State Park. White Pockets is an absolutely wonderful place in the Vermillion Cliffs area. Easy to walk to but the 15 or so mile drive is difficult in deep sand. There are guide services available but I have not used any. Maybe check at the ranch/camp place where the Paria River crosses the highway between Page and Kanab. So many great things to see in this area but most require a lot of effort. Buckskin Gulch to Wire Pass is a great hike but requires planning and caution since it is a slot canyon. Enjoy!

Has anyone tried this Tamron on a 5dM2?

Just leaving Yellowstone going north from Mammoth HotSprings you cross the Gardner River. There is a parking place there called Boiling River. You walk about a 1/4 mile up river to where the hot water from Mammoth meets the cold water of Gardner. People have set up mixing pools there and you can serve yourself to a very relaxing soak. We once observed a large herd of elk cross the river right in front of us while soaking in the river. In the Tetons, check with the rangers for any evening wildlife viewing drives they may be doing. They found us some very good camera shots when we went on one of their evening drives last September. We also got some great shots of Moose right in the National Park campground where we were staying.

That was definitely a very good answer to the question!

Take the 150-600 for sure. We were in Alaska for 3 months in a motorhome and I could only go out to 300. I missed some great shots. I recall getting two chances of a Gyrfalcon on a nest because the nest was too far away. But be prepared for the close shots also. We had a wolf stroll right by our stopped bus. I also suggest you see if you can get a reservation at Teklanika Campground in Denali and drive into it to camp. It will save you a lot of time riding the bus each day and it is really nice there.