Tonight? That doesn't give you much time to go out and buy a new camera.

Absolutely!

I know what you mean by "Craftsman." I feel the same way about Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Rubens. They can't be considered to have produced "fine art" either, as they all used numerous assistants to do the "actual work."

I'll be taking a day trip to NYC soon to see the Chihuli exhibit at the Botanical Gardens, and I'm planning my visit. The website suggests 2 hours for the exhibit -- does this sound reasonable, and are there any suggestions for activities after? I'm not too familiar with NYC, so any suggestions will be helpful. We'll be on foot in NYC from about 10am until around 6 or 7pm. Our evening pickup will also be at the Botanical Gardens. Thanks in advance for your advice.

I upgraded from a D60 as well, and bought a refurbished D5500 last December from Cameta for $479. All of your lenses from the D60 will work exactly the same on any camera in the 5000 series. I chose Cameta for their 1-year warranty. I love my new camera and have no regrets.

I have the D5500. I never use the articulating feature, but I LOVE the touch screen. I use it constantly, both for menu/settings changes and for quick-zooming on a picture to confirm the focus. I find it much faster and easier. I've had this camera since January and have no regrets.

I love this lens. I use it in all my low-light venues where I don't want to use flash: museums, aquariums, old churches, etc.

You use an app on your smartphone to control the process, i.e., to tell the RAV device what to copy and where to copy it to. There is no display screen on the RAV device.

Actually it does, with some apparently minor limitations. Check it out on Amazon. Many of the users posting reviews or answering questions there are Mac users and seem very happy with this device.

You don't need an iPhone, and you don't need cellular reception. It connects to your phone with bluetooth.

Agree entirely. cthan is added to my ignore list.

Jerk

That's exactly right, but my philosophy is that this is a job I only want to have to do once.

I'd suggest setting your scanner to 48-bit, 600 dpi for scanning photos, and much higher for negatives. I'd scan negatives at between 3000 dpi – 4000 dpi. If you try 4000 dpi and you feel there is too much grain, work your way down to 3000 dpi. But, I wouldn't go any lower than 3000 if you really want to archive a high quality film scan.

Here's a link to a website with a wealth of information and advice on scanning --
http://www.scanyourentirelife.com/

You can tell the scanner you have multiple images and it will select them for you. You don't state whether you are Mac or Windows, but I understand there is free software on Macs for scanning and importing images off digital cameras/smart phones, with a setting on the right hand panel called "Auto Selection." There is an option for "Detect Separate Items" that will automatically draw the little dotted line around all of the photos you placed on the scanner bed.

If you are Windows, the Epson Scan software that came with your scanner will do this as well. After you run a Preview scan, in the preview window, click on the "Thumbnail" button at the top to take you out of the "Normal" mode. If the prints are placed far enough apart, or are contrasty enough for the software to detect it as two or more separate items, your photos will come up as two or more separate images already cropped out. I believe you have to be in the Professional mode to have access to the "Thumbnail" option. It's listed in the Office mode for example, but I think it's grayed out.