Well said. I haven't visited this site for about a month now. I think I'll make it two months before I try again. I know I will get nasty remarks for saying that. Hoping for more humility and civility on this site and in America in general.

Thank you for the tip. I will check it out.

I was hoping that had changed by now. Too bad, my search continues. Any suggestions? Oh, yeah, I just don't like Adobe products or their leasing model.

All this positive feedback on a product for only $45 plus another $45 for the book! I'm currently using CaptureOne Pro and like everything about it but the cataloguing feature. Can someone please comment on Affinity's library or cataloguing ability?

It is true that using a wide angle lens with a polarizer will get you uneven effects of the polarizer as the image spreads over 90 degrees or more of the image. I wouldn't call it banding and I wouldn't say to never do it. This is one of the "rules" I read on this post that I often like to break. I do use a polarizer on a 20mm lens on a full frame sensor and I personally like the results. I don't always like the results, but many times I do like the gradation of the intensity of the sky. My recommendation is try it.

I have been to the Galapagos and you definitely want a CP for all your lenses. They are not just for reflections on water, but they also cut through haze and extra UV light on landscape shots. You will get bluer water and bluer skies. They even work well in the rain to cut reflections off wet leaves and rocks. They do not work when the sun is directly in front of you or directly behind you. They can also double as a light ND filter. And no software program can completely duplicate the results of a quality polarizing filter.

The Galapagos are amazing. You will love it.

I still love that smell. I am what other photographers call chemically dependent. And my wife tolerates me using our guest bathroom for a darkroom until we actually have guests. I love shooting a Hasselblad more than anything and I like the look of film printed on silver coated paper. But I also love digital. It opened up the whole world of color for me. And editing on a computer is tolerable. I do love the payoff of seeing large color prints slowly roll out of an Epson 3880 printer. Like someone else said, I just love photography, stinky or not.

Can't resist answering this one. Online courses are good for some things. I don't think learning photography is one of them. I was one of the first if not the first in the US to create one of these courses for learning banking software in 1979. I ran a leading consulting company specializing in online or eLearning for 31 years. And I don't recommend it for photography.

I teach classes in photography in person now. I recommend that people purchase a book by David Busch written specifically for their camera to learn the camera. Our classes start from there. The one thing 80% of my students point out as being the most valuable aspect of the class is doing the assignments and getting individual feedback on their work. Online courses don't do that. Find a good local class.

Even better, do what dsmeltz says. I once told one belligerent customer that I would race him to the door and if he got there first, I wouldn't have to throw him out. He turned and left quietly.

It should be pretty obvious to you by now, that the problem isn't with your camera and you do not need a Nikon 850. You probably do need a nice weekend workshop in bird or wildlife photography. It is a specialized type of photography and good instruction will definitely help you. I do a lot of this work and I do recommend Aperture priority. Shoot that Canon 100-400 wide open at f/5.6 too. It's made for that and will handle it beautifully. My rule of thumb for shutter speed is 1/250 to 1/500 for birds not flying and at least 1/1250 or higher for birds in flight. I keep track of my ISO myself, I never let my camera do it. And I rarely need to go over ISO 1600.

Tell them you just checked your schedule again and you are already booked. Trust your intuition.

Yes, very carefully poke your finger inside the lens shade until you feel the edge of your filter. With a little practice, you can rotate the filter without removing the lens hood. It takes practice to do this without putting finger prints all over your filter. The other alternative is of course, to remove the hood, adjust the filter and replace the hood. It's worth a little practice to poke your finger in there.

Yes, the pro gave you a good tip. Whatever polarization effect you did or did not have would be easier to see looking at sky and clouds than looking at small and subtle reflections from leaves. Seem straight forward to me.

I beg to differ with Wikipedia. Upstate does not include Buffalo, Rochester or the Finger Lakes region if you were born there and I was. That region is referred to by those who live there as western NY. The southern half of that is referred to by those who live there as the Southern Tier of NY. So, it does depend on who you talk to.

I would go earlier than late October. I visited western NY this year in late October and it was a disappointment. Fall colors can be best from late September into mid October, but these days with unpredictable climate it is anybody's guess. But September is usually beautiful. I recommend Letchworth State Park named America's favorite state park last year. And of course Watkins Glenn, always my favorite. All this is west of what you were planning, but worth the trip. The finger lakes and their wineries are always spectacular.

Yeah, that's the way I learned it too.