Whether you are a space invader or an earthling, it is a pretty picture, with great colors.

Unlike the day the earth stood still, which was in B&W. But great special effects for film in 1951. Probably the movie that started me down the road of science fiction.

I have a mid 2011 iMac that had 4mg of ram. For about $100 at MicroCenter I bought an additional 8mg and installed it in the panel on the bottom of the screen. So now with 12 mg, everything loads and runs faster. Not ideal, but I don’t want to pay another $100 just to get the last 4 mg that the system could use.

I also have priorities other than a new computer. Good luck.

In my limited travels, I have gone to zoos from Oklahoma City to Cleveland. Haven’t gotten to Detroit yet, but I would agree with the 55-200 as the lens. Mine is the kit 18-200.

My only other suggestion is to have a circular polarizing filter with you. In some instances it can significantly reduce the glare when shooting through glass. Sometimes manual focus is needed when AF is confused.

I will say that my best shooting days are when I go alone and can wait out the crowds and kids. Occasionally, the best shots are some of the kids and their amazement of the animals.

Good luck.

When I was a kid, I loved watching the Constellations (you know 4 props and tri-tail) fly over. But they didn’t leave contrails. So the Guvment funded development of Jet Liners and secretly built in the dispersion tanks that they use today. And that’s a fact. Just check the internet.

Great advice on all the courses. After you do your reading, if you can, visit a local camera store. There advice and the ability to hold some cameras can help you decide which models “feel” best.

The adventure awaits! 😀

AND

Dachshunds were bred as ‘badger dogs’ and trained to go down the holes after them. Fierce but lovable and Cute.

Love the dog.

You might want to view some of these Affinity videos:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/10119-official-affinity-photo-desktop-video-tutorials-200/

I wonder if there are forums for oil or acrylic artists where they have discussions about certain paintings that aren’t artistic enough because they look “too photographic”.

David, most of my best pictures are from zoos. Anytime we are traveling i find the zoos along the way. Tulsa and OK City have good ones.

I agree. I always backup to time machine, then eject the time machine drive, then upgrade. After the up grade I do some preliminary checking to see if things are functioning properly. If so, then I reconnect the time Machine drive.

No problems going to High Sierra on either of my old Macs.

Have you called Apple. My upgrade went well and new photos works well. No problems can use both Luminar and Affinity as plug ins.

Chris, yes it would be easier which is exactly why I would not want an exterior switch. I don’t want to accidentally switch off of raw and end up with a days worth of jpegs. I have enough trouble keeping the focus selector on the correct sensor as an example. Granted I am a beginner using a Nikon D3100.

JohnR, I admire your moxie in taking on the photographic and computer experts we have assembled on this forum. It is a losing battle, but I am not sure you will recognize that.

Before I learned to shoot in raw, I shot in jpeg only. I did not understand anything about White Balance and shot some of my favorite pictures in the wrong WB. I can somewhat adjust the WB in the jpegs but I can’t find a way to fully change the WB in a jpeg with the several editors I have tried.

In raw it is a one item correction. So, since I am sometimes inept in capturing the image correctly, I will use my raw files when I need to. I now shoot raw plus jpeg, so sometimes my jpegs are fine with minimal correction.

Question: if jpegs don’t lose data upon compression, why is it called lossy?