Thank you, Karl. I am no (skilled or otherwise) birder. But this location is simply great! Too bad that I only motivated myself to visit this site ("the bridge over the river Haw") starting in May of this year. I knew about it last year, but never visited early enough - ideally AT sunrise - or often enough to get any good captures.

The Merlin app + sufficient motivation (and stamina) can be a great path to becoming a birder though. I spent an hour earlier this week trying to locate a Yellow-breasted chat in a different location (Dix Park in Raleigh, also the home of the Painted Bunting visitor to central NC!). The Merlin app identified the chat's call, and I could hear a pair of them in the trees or shrubs. But never saw either one after following the calls and waiting a sighting for an hour!

I took some photos this week at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH this week. Almost all of the displays are behind glass. In some case, such as the photos below, the glass is reflecting images from other displays. I have found that in some cases, a ND filter can eliminate most, if not all, reflected images, but I had none with me. So I'm wondering if there is a way to remove (or at least minimize) them in post-processing?

(For the curious, the photos are of the unique amplification rig designed and developed by guitarist John Cipollina, one of the leading guitar players in the heyday of San Francisco's acid-rock sound).

Christian Irmler, an Austrian landscape photographer and painter has written a thought-provoking piece for Fstoppers in which he argues that the current state-of-the-art in image stabilization and sensor performance at high ISOs may have made tripods obsolete. Fstoppers is an online community and resource which reaches 1.5 million photographers each month.

As he provocatively put it a tripod may have "become a relic from a time with poor technology." (He does acknowledge that a tripod is still necessary for focus stacking and can serve as a useful aid to thoughtful composition.)

Given the frequent (some might go so far as to say obsessive) discussion of tripods on UHH (to which I will plead guilty to some degree) I think the question merits further dialog.

My personal conclusion is that ponderously heavy, stable (and expensive tripods) are no longer the critical tool they once were, and that the still-useful functions of a tripod can be fulfilled by lighter and more portable gear.