Diocletian

Or maybe ensure

But neither does it ensure you know how a camera operates.

Diocletian

No technical terminology needed. Even I could understand those instructions!

Diocletian

No no no don’t say wasted time! The entertainment value of the answers alone was well worth it!

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

I've had mixed luck with Sony products over the years. Some good VCRs, some bad. I was really disappointing in a fairly high-end three motor direct drive Sony Cassette deck I still have that died after a couple years in that it eats up the tape! So a bought a used cheapo Sony cassette deck at a yard sale, replaced the belts myself and it has worked fine since. And I've had both bad and good Sony CD / DVD Players. I have a Sony AV Receiver that sucks. It is impossible to figure out and it is fussy about the impedance and number of speakers you hook up to it.

The Audio components that I favor are Technics (Panasonic) turntables, Pioneer vintage turntables, Pioneer (silver - wood grain case) vintage receivers, Yamaha receivers. Had a AR (Audio Research Labs) receiver until it finally died pretty much all at once. My first receiver as a late teen was a Fisher. Damn thing did not last long. I still have loads of old speakers that all still work. I used to swear by old huge Koss Headphones. I'm trusting B&H's recommendation for a Sony Blu-Ray / DVD / CD Player. So good so far.

It seems the "best" brands change over time. At one time I loved HP. Having owned and still do many HP calculators, starting with a '73-ish HP-45, and later 10C, 11C, 12C, 15C pocket calculators that all still work. But for the HP-45 I have to run it off A/C power as the battery died decades ago. My wife and I had a nice '94 HP 4 Laserjet printer. But since then and all the HP executive wars they've gone way down hill. I had a high-end 18" HP LapTop that was nothing but trouble. These days I like Dell Computers. I have two different tower models currently. We've been thru a few Gateway's and Lenovos as well. I used to like Chevy cars, <1973 models. Since owning a 1971 Nova 307 V-8 (great car until it finally just gave it up), I've owned nothing but Japanese cars, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, now Mazda. My first two cars were a '66 Dodge Dart (slant 6), and then a '72 Ford Mavrick (303 V-8, but the car did not handle well and would easily fishtail; found it rather dangerous actually), The Mavrick was like putting a "Mustang" Engine in an over-sized "Pinto"! A POS. Anyway, same with AV and other sound equipment.

GrandmaG Loc: Flat Rock, MI

Absolutely...you can’t discount an entire company based on one bad product or experience. Our 30-year-old Fisher amp, speakers and components rocks the socks off the 5-year-old Panasonic set.

My Japanese Honda’s were the best cars I ever had. Too bad they downsized the Accord or we would still be driving one. My Dodge Charger with its Hemi engine is going strong; but, it doesn’t have 100,000 miles on it yet!

I’ll stick with my Japanese-built Nikon camera, too. My first one is still going strong. My old Canons still work, too.

My Sony a6000 is fantastic and I’m thinking about upgrading to an a7***; but that’s a topic for another thread.

To the OP, I really enjoyed this thread...entertaining AND informative. Thank you.

wayne60 Loc: Joliet Illinois

A couple of years ago I saw a listing on CL for a Nikon D 700 listed with battery pack charger and 2 batteries for $200. I called immediately. The woman who was professional wedding photographer said shutter was locked. She had it since new and had called Nikon authorized service center in ATL how diagnosed over phone with her.
They had quoted for new shutter and sensor as she had said there was vignetting in corners. I bought it and took a chance. After getting home I open up menus. I saw mirror was in M UP position. I released and it dropped back down. I pushed shutter release and snapped away 15-20 shots.it had 112000 shutter actuations. I checked menus and vignetting had been set for more effect. I called her back and found out she had purchased a super wide DX lens and every time she used it she had bad results on this but not on her 7100.
I hated to tell her but did. She was obviously disappointed. But had already bought a D800E. So right after I had same kinda problem where would recognize cards. I removed batteries for a day and reset to factory default and voile never happened again. Sold with @ 190000 shutters snaps for 650 last Sept.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

I always download my images to my laptop and then format the card each time. In fact, I format the card 2 or 3 times to avoid corruption on the card.

I used to own a photo lab and I don't know how many people would come in with corrupted cards. They would use them to shoot hundreds of pictures and only delete ones they didn't want. Eventually, the "file" marker so to speak would get corrupt. In most cases the files can be recovered with recovery software and if so, down load them to the computer and then format the card to avoid this problem.