My understanding on the 50mm is perspective rather than seeing or width of field.

Our eyes see afield that is wider than even an 18mm lens because our retina or film "plane" is curved.

The image displayed on a flat surface (film plane or photograph) taken through a 50 mm lens will show the same perspective as our eyes see. The size relationship between objects at the same distance is nearly identical.

Sit at a known fixed distance from a group of objects and, with your eyes, study the relationship of those objects and be critical about it. Now, look at photographs of those objects from the same distance taken with 24, a 50, and 85 mm lenses, and compare the perspectives of those images to the critical view you did with your own eyes.

I seem to remember that for a medium format camera, this relationship exists with an 85mm lens, so an 8X10 box would be normal with a lens of a couple hundred mm, and a APS-C should see the same perspective at about 28-30 mm.

Tony Northrup has a video on YouTube showing how to shoot multiple shots and then average them in Post to yield the same effect as using a ND filter. He claims you get lower noise and higher sharpness without the ND filter. I have not has a chance to try it yet. Go to YouTube and search for Tony Northrup Neutral Density.

Corel ASP3 is known to operate faster than Lightroom at cataloging and processing, however, Lightroom is known to slightly richer in colors.

Plugins designed for Photoshop - for the most part work seamlessly with PSP. PSP 2018 starts up and runs twice as fast as PSP X versions.

Right now, a full version of PSP 2018 Ultimate (Includes AfterShot 3 and several plugins) will cost 49.99.

I have used PSP since ver 0.1 (DOS 2.0)

Register your camera with Canon USA and you will be able to download everything that came with the camera Plus firmware updates for your camera (if available). It is all based on the serial No.

Canon provided you with an excellent piece of software for working with RAW and JPG photos. Digital Photo Processing 4 (DPP 4) will allow you to change most aspects of your photos including using algorithms best suited for canon produced RAW images, and will automatically deal with distortions from Canon lenses, and it is capable of producing a very fine product. If, after you have corrected your photos you want to change the attitude of a photo, Topaz Studios offer a nice free program for doing so. As you work your way through these programs you may find yourself wishing you could do this or that, and at that point, it may be wise to look for an alternate. If you jump right in and go the lightroom/photoshop route, figure at least 100 -200 hours of learning curve time. Time you are learning a system at $10/month and time you are not looking through the viewfinder (or spending with the family).

Three techniques for you:
1) rotate your camera to the zenith and meter the sky. Use this setting to shoot your sunset/sunrise
2) use the technique called ETTR (Expose to the right ) whereby you bring the histogram into your viewing screen and open the shutter or aperture to move the right edge of the brightness curve nearly to the right edge of the graph. This will yield the highest detail in the dark areas without losing detail in the light.
3)Bracket your exposure by plus AND minus two full stops, and then place all three images into a HDR program. Note that your goal is to bring in dynamic ranges beyond your camera's basic capabilities - be careful not to allow your images to become gaudy

A few years ago, we bought a pocket Olympus for my Daughter. After using it (unprotected) in the Ocean, the instructions called for you to turn camera ON and place it in a bucket of fresh water for a few minutes. Take it out, wipe it off, let it dry and check the Battery compartment seals. I would call that water proof. But even that camera was only water proof to a certain depth. You are always depending on the differential pressure across the seals to remain less than sufficient to induce flow. Smartphones are rated to resist water to a depth of___ for a time of ____.

We all post Photographs that could use improvement and we all are capable of offering critism of photographs. I try not to tell someone your photography stinks - please sell all your camera gear and try something different. I figure that if I do not like a photo, I must have a reason and there must be something the person can do to improve the photo( from my perspective). I was late to a photo last week, and there were already a dozen "cool image" etc comments, so I chose to PM the artist and make my comments directly to them. Typically I will say - I like your image, however, I believe you could improve it by doing this or this or that.

There is a lot of art that will NEVER hang in my house, but that does not detract from the capabilities of the artist - or their art.

On a Canon, if the autofocus is set to single shot and you BBF, the focus will stick through one or more photos, AI Servo AF will allow the focus to continue to focus after releasing the BBF. I can only assume you have similar controls on the Nikon.

While we are here; when I joined this group a year ago, I had never heard of BBF, and when I did hear of it, I thought - "That is Dumb". Now, after having tried it, I cannot imagine how I have shot for 15 years with an autofocus system using the shutter release to focus.

Thanks to all those here that promote Back Button Focus. For those that do not use the back button - try it! on the canons, it is set up from the custom functions menu.

A picture of what?

Do you go out on a weekend (or a Tuesday) and point your camera this way and that way and shoot 100 images and then go home and select one with stable images and pretty colors? Or do you look at an object, study the light falling on it at a particular time of day and decide you absolutely must capture that light, those colors and that object? What is it about that object or that scene that drives you to spend time to capture that image so you can share it with friend, family or even strangers? When I look at your photos, what do you want me to see?

I have captured Denali in near perfect light from the town of Talkeetna and missed it. I have a snapshot of a mountain in the distance - because I failed to ask myself - before taking the picture - what am I trying to say? What do I want people to know about this mountain, this town, that huge expanse of God's country? I failed to capture the subject of the picture - even though Denali was the most prominent thing in the photograph(s).

Note: Some of you may know the great Denali as Mount McKinley - imagine naming a indigenous god after a man!

This is really too bad as the number one problem I see in ALL photography is there is no subject, no story being told, and thus it becomes just a bland boring picture.

We all know that a picture is worth 1000 words, but those words still need to have a subject and a verb - and tell a story.

I can see you advertise KC as home, but are really a UPer at heart?

Consider FedEx or UPS to ship your truly large lenses to your hotel or B&B and insure it for its true value.

I suggest you spend the $1000 to rent the equipment you believe you need to capture this trip. It sounds like you are in search of Canon L lenses or Nikon equivalent and a body to support those lenses. lenses with that much glass in them are so far outside a budget around $1000 that I don't even walk by the case when visiting my local camera store (Norman's Camera, Kalamazoo).

Before you rush out and buy a much more expensive printer that will print 50% faster, think about buying a second printer. The advantage is that your output doubles while your total failure rate drops to 1/4 the current probability and you can use the same ink in each printer. Send prints to Printer #1 until it reaches a delay time of about 30 minutes, then start printing to the second printer. Use the second printer only to absorb additional capacity when necessary, that way the probability of losing both printers will remain low over time. At the appropriate time, you may need a third printer which should always be the lowest priority printer.