Las Vegas is an amazing city for both the horizontal and the vertical, but the scale there is just amazing for the huge hotels. But, taking pix of these buildings from the ground will cause the vertical lines of the buildings to converge, dramatically in many cases. If you are into architectural shooting, you might try to get your hands of a tilt-shift lens that allows you to bring those lines parallel, increasing the drama of the shot - while not having to backup too much.

I know that you can deal with these problems with post-processing in some software, but I like to do as much as I can with the camera right when I take the picture.

You can rent them for short periods, as well. If you know how to use them, they are also used for panoramas.

I do mostly landscape and find that my keeper rate is less than one in a hundred - that one being the shot that gets the "wow" from the first time viewer. So... be patient.

Further, analyze your work. Compare your shots. Which one works and which doesn't and why. I look at two similar shots and keep the better of the two. Then, I'll bring in a third and compare it to the winner of the first two, and so on.

Don't delete photos unless they are clearly trash (out of focus, etc), but keep them and come back later and look again. While you have been away from the work, your mind continues to analyze your work while you have not been paying attention. You may not find any other keepers, but it will help you to further analyze your work.

Read, read, read... read how the best among us do their work.

In addition to showing my work as much as I can, I often show my work to artists that I trust. I get excellent feedback on composition, movement, color, framing, emotions, etc.

Be open to the idea that there is no shot available. I often see stunning landscapes, but after some work realize I can't get my camera to capture what seems so exquisite to my eye.

Just some random thoughts

Thanks all for your comments. The SSD drive is not intended for photo storage, but for keeping all of my operating systems and software. So, I am considering upping to 512 GB SSD internal, but depends upon system storage needs. Not sure at this point I want to pay for SSD storage for photos. Maybe down the road when it gets cheaper and becomes the standard for multiple TBs.
Mirrored internal drives is a good idea, but I want to have triple redundancy, so will use the cloud or additional external hard drive to get to that level of security.
Didn't include in original notes, but DVD/CD writer has been spec'd out, as well.
Thanks again. Look forward to more comments.

I am trying to spec out a new Windows-based computer to be used primarily for my photography. I have used Apples for years but my main IT guy (my brother) is a Windows guy and that is what I use at work. Money is an object, so I don't want to spend a fortune, but with that in mind, a nephew who builds computers has suggested this (among other things):

AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2 GHz 6-core processor
32GB memory
Asus - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Dual Video Card
Also thinking about 4TB Hard Drive (with two 4TB portables for back up)

Any thoughts or comments? Do I need 32 GB of memory? And, is video card a good idea?

Your ideas are greatly appreciated.

Scott

I just ordered 2 Seagate Backup Plus 4TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0, Silver at $90 each for Prime Day. Regularly $130 each. I am spec'ing out a new Windows machine and am ordering it with 4TB internal drive.

Kevin,

Are you from ABQ? I am retiring from UNM and looking to find others nearby for coffee klatch, etc. or to start photog club in this very photogenic state.

Great shots! I really love the old battle wagons; from such an incredible era of sea warfare. But, by the time WWII cranked up, the allied and axis powers were beginning to understand that they were gigantic floating targets. As early as the Battle of Midway, PacCom was realizing that carriers were the way to project power over great distances. In the Battle of Denmark Strait, the Germans sank the HMS Hood in a matter of minutes losing almost the entire crew and then the Brits found the Bismarck a few days later, damaged a bit during the encounter with the Hood and heading for dry dock, and sunk her, as well. This was May of 1941, six months before the U.S. was attacked at Pearl, here by air power launched from carriers hundreds of miles away by the Japanese. And, everyone knows the outcome of that battle, including the sinking of the Arizona. Few realize that all nine battleships in Pearl that day were destroyed or heavily damaged. Fortunately, all but the AZ and the Utah were salvaged and repaired.
The Tirpitz, Bismarck's larger brother, brought fear to the allies just by its existence, although it spent most of the war not far from Norway. Occasionally suffering mild damage and incessantly short of fuel, the Tirpitz hid in the fjords. Even so, the allies sent a battle force in March of 1944 to attack it, thinking that the Tirpitz was about to go to sea again. This force included six carriers, two battleships and two cruisers, and 16 destroyers! Scoring 15 direct hits from carrier-launched dive bombers, the Tirpitz was only out of duty for two months. Finally, in November 1944, the Brits found it at sea and, dropping 12,000 Tallboys, hit one of the ships magazines, and capsized it in ten minutes. For all of this, the Tirpitz fired its main guns only once in warfare.
The largest battle ship ever constructed was the Mushashi (72,000 tons) commissioned in mid-1942 and only saw limited sea warfare. It was sunk by the allies on 24 October 1944 in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in the South Pacific. It took 19 torpedo and 17 bomb hits from carrier-launched aircraft to sink it.
The USS Missouri, in 1944, became the last battleship commissioned by the Navy and the last to be decommissioned in 1992. Its last appearance was in the movie Battleship (2012) and had to be towed around in order to get the proper shots because it had not moved under its own power since decommissioning two decades prior. The era of the battleship is long gone. The only question that remains is who is older, the Missouri or Liam Neeson? Answer: Neeson was born in 1952.
The Missouri is seaworthy, but it would take probably $1B to convert to modern electronic and rocket-based warfare. It's 15" guns on its deck are worthless. And, it would take a fleet of cruisers and destroyers to protect it from a modern assault.
I hope some would enjoy a bit of sea warfare history.

Beautiful!! Not to detract from this wonderful shot, I just ask, what would it look like with just a tad less saturation? I'd love to have the raw file just to watch it while adjusting it across a range of saturation. After quite a hiatus, I am back to this forum and trying (upon retirement) to resuscitate a long dormant love for landscape photography. The composition is suburb and the sky adds so much to the photo.

Might want to be careful here. Intrigued by the comments, I went "hunting" for their website and first clicked (by mistake) on an add that starts out with "HUNT Camera Low Price..." and I was whisked away to a BHP website. They are squatting on Hunt's name. I assume they can do it because the word "hunt" is generic, although it is marked as an ad and I try to stay on the lookout to avoid advertising. The main Hunt web page was the next item.

Just a thought.

Thanks so much. Please believe that for someone that has lived in the desert for 20 years, freezing is "extreme!"

I may have the opportunity for a year in the frozen north (Grand Forks, ND). I have lived in the desert SW for nearly 20 years and have been a Canon person for almost that long. I am thinking of digging deep and switching over to the new Nikon d850 (and new lenses, of course), but was wondering: does anyone have experience with Nikons in extreme conditions (down to -10F), either with the new d850 or Nikons in general? Lots of great stuff written about this new camera, but no one has touched on this topic. This question also applies to the lenses, as well. Will zoom continue to work. Thoughts greatly appreciated.

He was one of those rare individuals whose passing, like (for me anyway) Luciano Pavarotti, Chris Hitchens, and Pete Seeger, causes me to pause and shed a tear. People with a rare gift of beauty, grace, and inspiration. Fortunately, their words, their music, and in Nimoy's case, his acting lives on and prospers long beyond his time. Life is precious, delicate, and oh so short. Cherish those around you now.

Exquisite shot. There is so much to explore in this exposure that you can keep going back to it. The rock in the center foreground is so evocative of the distant mountain range that it is uncanny.

Wonderful, evocative shots.

I can't believe the number of times someone as said, "I had a B&W laser that was cheap and I only replaced the toner once, but I got rid of it..." Listen to what is being said. For documents, you can't beat a simple B&W laser. They cost about $100, they are tiny - say about the size of a breadbox, and the cost per sheet is probably half to a third of any inkjet and the technology is so much more problem free than the complex inkjets. I have a Samsung next to my desk at school (I teach on the graduate level) and it hums nicely all day long and I replace the cartridge less than once a year. It is probably six years old. It went to Georgia 4 years ago when I visited at the Univ. of... and it has been through one office move. When it finally stops working, I will mourn over it for 10 minutes, throw it away, and buy another one.