I bought the Inateck FD2002 Docking Station from Amazon for about $36.00 and it does a great job cloning one drive to another. If the drives are the same size (as yours are), it will copy exactly from the source drive to the target drive without having to format the new one. If the new drive is larger, then you should format it in order for the computer to recognize the extra space on the new drive.

I only have Nikon cameras, but the free program, Picasa, gives the shutter count (as well as all the other info). It's a great, fast editing program from Google. I use Lightroom for almost all my editing (which does not give the shutter count).

Well, Philipschmitten, you're still a kid compared to my 72 years! I too, like so many others, just love photography! Here's a list of some of the gear I take along for a wedding shoot.

Two Nikon D7000's, one mounted with a Nikon 70-200, 2.8, the other with a Tamron 17-50, 2.8, along with an SB600 and SB700 flash units, plus other miscellaneous gear. I do not (as of yet) have a 2nd shooter, but how nice that would be in some situations!

Great idea! Love it! Will contribute whenever possible!

Thanks Rongnongno... that makes sense. Still wish I could get that part though!

Thanks, Mongoose, but if I had the part, I could have it looking like new too. $19.00 and 1/2 hour does not equate with $75.00 and at least a 1 day turn-around. Then, pay on top of that $15.00 for shipping each way! UGH!

I am totally frustrated with trying to get Nikon lens repair parts! After checking with several 'parts' stores, they all came up with the same answer after they told me they were out of the part I'm looking for, that Nikon stopped them from selling any repair parts. Stilll can get Canon parts, and if I wasn't so deep into Nikon, Canon would be looking so much better in my eyes.

I guess it's all about money! The part I need is the 18-200 front filter ring. My beautiful Vizsla gave a tug on her leash, and down went my D7000, lens first, onto the asphalt. The only damage was to the part I need. Anyone have a lead for this part? It listed for $18.55 at a center in California, but there are none to be had at that store or any others that I checked with. None on ebay either.

Thanks

But, the list of lenses would most likely change if one were to use a full frame vs. a cropped frame camera. I definitely use the 70-200, but also a 17-50 2.8 as I use a cropped frame D7000. And as far as shooting jpeg vs. RAW, I will do so... RAW on card #1 and jpeg on #2. In good light, I find not much difference, but in low light, RAW wins, hands down.

I really love Lightroom and want to use it as my main 'go to' photo program, but where to start? "I know... at the beginning... right now!" I will start today! All the folders I export to an external HD while using Picasa cannot be found by Lightroom, and I have to do the Lightroom search thing or edit a pic (that is on the HD) into Picasa and then import to Lightroom. What a mess! AARRGHH!!!

Thank you for all your suggestions. I will try re-installing Picasa within the next few days.

Hello Fellow Hoggers.

I sure hope I can find some help to cure my problem with Picasa. I have well over 100,000 pics in Picasa folders, and here's what happened.

After exporting many folders to an external HD, Picasa did a Re-org (or whatever) to free up resident HD space. Well, after Picasa was done with its thing, all of the photos in Picasa have this blurred face in place of the photo that is actually there (Face recognition thing?). And when I move my cursor over that 'face', the actual photo will then appear (the face disappears). This has happened once before and I successfully ran the cursor over most of the pictures to have the 'faces' removed which was very time consuming, but now am once again with the same problem.

All of those photos viewed in Lightroom are fine.

Here's what I do on importing from the SD card.
1. Import from the SD card to Picasa
2. Open Lightroom 4
3. Import photos from Picasa to Lightroom
4. Edit 'the good ones' in Lightroom
5. Export those edits back to Picasa into the original folder

I know this is not the best way to do this, but there it is. Any help would be most appreciated.

Thank you for the thought! It's so easy to dwell on the negative as this world becomes so dark, where the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good!

Your thought reminds me of some words I often think of: Think on those things which are good, and pure, and wholesome, and lovely... (my paraphrase of Philippians 4:8).

Thanks again for the thought and keep that camera ready!

Check out the Vanguard Alta Pro 264AT. I have it and it is a very sturdy piece of equipment that I use with my D7000 w/ 70-200 2.8 lens.

Try this, as I had a similar problem. Reformat the card on your computer not using FAT32, but NTFS. I'd bet this will solve your problem. Don't know why, but I believe on larger SD cards (like 8MB and above), this File system must be used. After that, I could format this card in the camera without a problem, and yes, it was a SanDisk. Hope this helps.

I too have an Epson 837 and it does a wonderful job on photos! I really like this printer... had it for just over a year and feeds heavy photo papers without a problem, and the colors produced are absolutely fabulous! And yes, Epson has this printer on sale for $129.99.