I mentioned previously that my Canon T3i body had started to misbehave. Probably from moisture getting into its inner workings and most likely because I shoot most from a boat floating in bumpy salt water.

This image is from among the group I shot when the problem first showed up back in early September, I think.

I'm think of printing this which has me back to wondering about if its worth it to consider a good printer. I have no idea what such a thing costs or why printing my own might be preferable to having images process professionally.

And because we are again feeling to tightening restrictions of The Bug, or those who think they have and answer to it, I thought it was worth bringing up for discussion.

For printing over 8X10 just for fun say 16 x 20
Buy a good printer and DYI print?
What is a good printer?
Cost of a good printer?

Cost benefit of DYI printing?

Suggestions on commercial labs.

I'm looking to acquire some neutral density filters (non graduated) and need some info/recommendations on brands.

I know B&W are excellent, but pricey. Have used Hoya filters in the past (for B&W film) with good results. I noticed ICE has a three filter set at an attractive price, but I know nothing about them. Not yet very versatile in post processing so don't need filters that introduce color casts, etc. Have read enough to decide to steer clear of variable ND filters.

Any comments pro/con or recommendations will be most welcome.

It's an appropriate question which also involves perspective. In the case of a photograph what's the proper viewing distance to experience perspective as it was recorded from the camera position. That can in fact be calculated for any given camera/focal length but the bottom line is we can't really control viewing distance for others.

In gallery venues some artists have tried to force viewing distance by setting up a barrier like a rope that limits and/or encourages viewers to stand at a specific distance.

Leslie Stroebel explored the issue and went a little further by conducting measurements. What he did is measure the average distance that viewers in a gallery stood back from X size images given the freedom to stand where the wanted. What he determined was that people tended to stand back from an framed photo/painting/etc. twice the long side of the image. So for a framed 16X20 inch photo they stood back 40 inches. That's going to be very close to the figure Longshadow noted which I also don't know where it came from.

If we know that people have this natural tendency we can least shoot and process images for that target.

I'll preface my question and comments with the admission that I'm a novice when it comes to photo competitions. I've only recently joined two camera clubs and begun participating in their competitions so my experience is quite limited. So this question is directed mostly to those of you who have experience in judging such competitions or who regularly submit entries. Is it important to present the title along with the photo when being judged or should the image stand on its own without the title being attached? I ask the question because the two clubs that I belong to have different approaches. In one instance the photo is presented without title and one hears what the title is only after the image has been judged and is announced along with the name of the creator of the image. In the second instance the titles are presented along with the image to be judged. I realize that in perhaps the majority of instances titles are given to images by their creators because they are required and little thought may be given to them. In my limited experience, however, I have had a small handful of images for which I felt that a title is necessary in order to direct the judges' attention to what the image is intended to convey and that without it some judges would be hard pressed to understand the intention of the shot in the 10 seconds or so that it is presented. I'm of course referring here to digital images. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

I'm not sure about other services, but Backblaze B2 only guarantees data integrity (storage space) and accessibility (distributed computer - e.g. cloud). For integrity of the actual data that is backed up, I must rely on an application for that. In my case, I use Restic which performs verification of the snapshots, tracks changes, and ensures that any new backup is performed by the parameters that are set during execution.

The one thing I don't do is periodically restore random data (files) to check for corruption. I don't think most people do, and if there are cloud services (backup or file storage) that do, I would be interested in that information. But honestly, if I lose a raw file or two of some random trees in my backyard, I'm not too bent out of shape