Loved the Kodachrome. And as time progressed and I embraced the digital age and started creating web pages, I ended up not only paying huge sums of money to get my film developed but then paying again to have them all scanned and put on CD's! I was fully ready to go digital with my photography! The good news, I guess, was that if you were going to end up spending $600 on film processing after returning from a trip, it made it a little easier to justify that expensive new lens....

The warm place/box is a good idea, and put in some silica gel packs or even some kitty litter to absorb moisture. Although lenses are "sealed", the problem is that telephoto lenses permit air to enter between the elements that move apart (perhaps they are originally sealed, but that would require a seal that can withstand pressure changes as the elements move apart). So telephoto lenses are inherently more susceptible to this than fixed lenses. And as one person noted, this can encourage fungus to actually grow inside the lens - on the lens surface.

The biggest threat to camera equipment and lenses is condensation caused by moving from a cold air-conditioned building to a hot humid environment. Moisture will condense on the outside AND inside of your camera and any lens that is not 100% sealed. I spend some time in the Amazon and other rainforests, and if I am lucky enough to be staying in an air-conditioned hotel, I keep my equipment in heavy zip-lock type bags and don't remove them until they have been outside for 10-15 minutes - after they have warmed up without being exposed to the humid environment. At night I keep everything inside an air tight case with silica gel packets to absorb extra moisture.

My little friend...

DOF of course is a function of f-stop, and so the more light you have, the smaller your aperture can be, and the greater your DOF. One thing that I found works pretty well unless you are really close to your subject is to simply use your flash with a flash diffuser - I like the Lumiquest Pocket Bounce kit with the gold diffuser which adds warmth as well. This gives a diffuse enough light such that fairly close objects will not have shadows. It is a poor-man's/woman's subsitute for a ring flash - which will be my next investment!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/533930-REG/LumiQuest_LQ_125_Pocket_Bounce_Kit.html

Yes - it is a catalpa - our neighbors had a huge one in the yard across the street when I was growing up in Kansas. I recall the flowers made quite a mess as they all fell from the tree, but it was a neat, huge, tree.

Red light doesn't seem to bother sea turtles, as experience with the egg-laying adults has shown. I would get a red gel filter that will fit over your flash and experiment with this at night. With no real flash your photos will not have any color anyway, so you should be able to get some well-illuminated B&W's with this technique. You can obviously get very complicated with big flash units with filter holders but Nikon makes a color filter set: Nikon SJ-1 Color Filter Set - for SB-800, SB-600 & SB-80DX Flash which is cheap and includes a red filter. Cokin also makes a set which is designed to attach to any flash: see
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/727558-REG/Cokin_FGK30500A_Photogel_FLASH_Filters_5.html

Look forward to seeing your results!

napabob - really nice shots - great depth of field. I hate to acquire too much equipment and have been fairly happy with not-so-close up hand-held shots with my Canon 100mm macro using a LumiQuest "Quick-Bounce" diffuser. I can stay far enough away to get good lighting. But that won't let me get extreme close-ups and the depth of field I see in your photos. Thanks for sharing them.