I watched a documentary on Netflix last night - "Beyond the Curve." It was about the growing popularity of the flat earth movement. It was disappointing. I expected members to offer their "proof." The only thing they did in terms of proof was saying something vague about planes flying in the southern hemisphere and being able to see buildings in the distance. Actually, I'm surprised they used the term "hemisphere."

They did put a lot of emphasis on two scientific experiments, one using a $20,000 gyroscope and the other using lasers over a distance of several miles. These two experiments were going to prove that the earth was flat. The gyro experiment didn't turn out the way they wanted, so they tried it two more times in different ways. Now they are planning to try something else with the gyroscope. It was the same with the laser experiment. When they didn't get the result they wanted, they said they would have to try it a different way. So, if you want your calculator to say that 1 + 1 = 3, modify your calculator.

What's scary about this group is that they reject facts. As more people accept the idea that the earth is flat, there will be more people willing to reject facts and believe conspiracy theories. Supposedly, NASA and all the governments of the world are involved in a conspiracy to maintain the idea of an earth shaped like a ball. This great lie has been maintained for hundreds of years. A reporter asked their "king" why they couldn't just travel to the edge of the world. He said they are getting funding to do just that.

Their king said that doing a search on Google used to bring up 50,000 items. Now, you get 90 million. Stupidity, gullibility, and rejection of facts are dangerous characteristics of a population. For example, we didn't really land on the moon, lizard people are ruling us, the government is holding aliens at Area 51, there is a secret alien base on the dark side of the moon, chemtrails are poisoning us, the shooting at the Sandy Hook school never happened.

The wife and I are going to the big flower show in Philadelphia and I can't decide which camera to take. The wife will be using my Canon SL2 with an EF-S 18-200 lens. I was thinking about taking my 5D IV with the 28-300L or my D7200 with Nikkor 28-300 attached or my M50 with the 28-300L attached. I used the 5D IV / 28-300L last year but, even though I got excellent photos, that camera lens combo is quite heavy. I'm leaning towards the D7200 because it's really good in lower light conditions and it's smaller and lighter and has higher resolution than the D500. I like the 28-300 because even on a crop body it's plenty wide for the flower show and the 300 end comes in quite handy. The Nikkor lens isn't as good as the Canon lens but it is good enough.

I have those and also the 14-24. I don't use the 14-24 much because it's bulky and doesn't fit well in my bag. Most of my really wide angle shots are of static subjects so I can just stitch several shots together. I stick with Nikon lenses because the other brands I tried didn't measure up as well.

I got the 24-70 and 70-200 about 12 years ago and they served me very well. A couple years ago they came out with new versions which (IMHO) are even better because they have the new generation of VR (which the old 24-70 didn't have). The VR on the old 70-200 could give you about a stop of improvement (you could use a slightly slower shutter speed). The new VR gives you several stops of improvement. I have gotten reasonable photos with the 200-500 hand held at 1/10 second at the 500mm end.

Of course the drawback to the newer lenses is the newer price level.