You are quite welcome, Sir. Enjoy your new love-affair, whatever mode you choose to use ...

Guess I'll put my 2 cents worth in. I began shooting with film when there was no such thing as Digital, or digital anything for that matter! No internet, no cell phones, no iPads, no email... no, no. no, NADA anything digital. So, paver, take this humble advice from an older guy who is still in-love with the love of his life; Photography.

I'm a self-taught photographer - pro, semi-pro, photo-journalist, et.al. I started out in photography shooting by the seat of my pants. I turned pro and photo-journalist with film - 35mm, medium and large format landscape cameras - Ansel Adams type.

Well ... so you're new to digital, and congratulations indeed. Well, when I went from 'hard film' to digital it was like stepping out from the controls of a bi-plane Stearman into the cockpit of a Gulf Stream. I kicked, and I squalled, and I threw temper tantrums! But ... I had no choice. The Photo World had suddenly turned Digital and if I was going to stay in business I had to get out of the cockpit of that Stearman, because the clients wanted their 'stuff' Now! Not next week, not tomorrow, but NOW! Like as soon as I landed my airplane and could download to the computer and email them the proofs. Enuff said.

Digital was extremely difficult for me to learn, and 20 years later I'm still learning and still pounding my fists on the table. DO I MISS hard film? Oh yes. Yes, I miss those days when I'd blow 12 rolls of 36 exposure Fujichrome Velvia @ 25 and 50 ASA (ISO it's called now) with a 10-day minimum turn-a-round processing time and then throw the whole lot into the trash and keep just two keepers.

So, 20+ years of digital shooting, weddings, portraits, aerials, landscapes and I have shot one (1) single solitary Raw image. The reason ... just because it was novelty and everybody in the industry was raving about it and saying that if you're a pro man, then you must shoot Raw. So, then I put out $700 bucks out for a piece of circular plastic in disc form called Photoshop 7.0 just so I could shoot and process Raw and be just like the 'Big Boys.' Guess what?

The Raw thing in my humble opinion is pure, Bunk! Plain and simple. And, this thing of shooting RAW and then going into PP and creating an image from an image is NOT photography. It's manipulation of colors, balance, composition, the Rule of Thirds, and all the rest of what real photography is supposed to be. Photography is an ART not a PROCESS. The only thing I have ever used Photoshop was to erase garbage cans and junk cars and other junk from the back yards and the neighbor's front and back yards when I was doing aerials for real estate folks and developers. One doesn't sell a developer aerial shots when there's litter and crap all over the place in the adjacent land.

Well, my friend you can learn Raw all you want, but you might want to take my advice and the gentleman's advice that owned that studio for 20 years ... you know the guy who politely offended you.

Welcome to the world of digital. And, oh yes, I do love it!

Really nice!!! Do like the camera setup too, although I find the Tamrons are sometimes a bit soft, but not complaining as they have put some nice $change$ in the my pocket over the years.

Quite nice shots taken thru window glass, especially the Junco, which I like best. Dark-headed Juncos are exceptionally challenging little guys to shoot as they are continually moving and darting around at the speed of light. I figure that once I can master photographing these birds the rest of the bird-shooting game will be easy ... ha, oh yeah, right! Dream on. Thanks for sharing.

Looking forward to seeing your Nikon gear in the Classified section.

Mark, reason I asked about the Sapphires ... (Statute of Limitations are up) the best Cutthroat fishing I ever had! Roasted them on a stick like a hot dog over a fire next to a fork of the Bitterroot . Best tasting trout I ever had. Off photo topic ... smileys.

Goes to show what pushing the ISO can do in poor light. Nice set!

Nice shots Mark. Not so sunny up here today @ Trout Creek/Noxon; snow to sleet, then to rain ... no photos for me today. My dog is getting cabin fever so will have to get out tomorrow, regardless. Say, are those the Sapphire Mountains in the background?

Too cold, yes indeed! We have 10-12 white-tailed deer on my property that call it home. And, like your game laws we get slammed pretty hard for feeding them, but I do put out water, especially in the hot months. Keeps them off the highway crossing to the lake for a drink. All of our herd have names, and one doe in particular is a great grandmother eight times over!

The proper way to relate the points on a muley or a white-tailed buck is to count the lesser side, minus the eye guard ... but scoring and times have changed in that regard. Last deer hunt here a friend told me that he had shot a 10-point ... wow!!!!

That is a beautiful shot of a Muley (Mule Deer) buck! Hang this one on your wall for sure, or make a few bucks (no pun intended) on it. Was wondering, did you shoot this photo thru your window, or outside? My windows play havoc on the auto focus and metering.

Thanks for the info fantom. In all my years of wildlife photography I never got the chance to shoot a bobcat; they are so elusive and mostly nocturnal. I'll bet you like your D750 along with that Tamron lens ... I shot Tamron back in the day when they were struggling to make quality lenses at an affordable price. Back then couldn't afford a high-dollar long lens, so bit the bullet and bought a Tamron 200-500 f5.6 manual focus and was of course shooting 35mm.

Well, that lens made me a lot of money in publications and print sales over the years - it had a drop-in filter slot that I used only with a circular polarizer. When I went digital that lens just sat in the closet and collected dust, and one day I sold it for a song. What a dumb mistake! Really miss that lens ... went thru digital cams and then took a sabbatical for some years. Just picked up a D610, which although being in love with it, lots of the functions are somewhat still over my head. Have a Nikon 70-200 AF VR f2.8 that was my aerial platform ... rather than buy a tele-converter for it I'm looking at the Tamrons with a zoom to 500. Any thoughts on this??? Or, anyone else have some thoughts out there in Hedge Land???

In the meantime, that bobcat is hanging around that area for a reason. Keep trying to cross its path and you'll eventually score again.

Wow, what great shots! Any info on the camera, settings, and lens? After shooting the bobcat, did you shoot the woman?

Thank you all, am looking forward to sharing and learning ... have been on a photo sabbatical for a few years and just bought a D610, and wow this thing is way over my head ... started photography back in the film days when we shot by the seat of our pants. Am not a newbee to digital, but ................

Hi all, just signed up to the forum ... not sure how it all works yet, but will hopefully get it all figured out. Am an Arizona native, but retired and relocated to Montana full-time a few years ago. Couldn't pry me out of Montana!