I have never traveled on Southwest Airlines. I am going to the southwest in early spring and am considering travelling on Southwest Air. Of course, their "Wanna Get Away" fare is the cheapest route BUT since I have never traveled with them I have no idea about overhead space for my camera gear. I am certainly not going to check my gear. Has anyone traveled on Southwest on "Wanna Get Away" fare and had any good or bad incidents. If I need to go up to their next fare level, i might as well go United or American. Thanks for anyone's insight.

My friend has a Nikon D5 and it started giving him problems. Some time, it just would not take a photo.

Push the button and nothing happens. Gave him different error messages each time. He when through our local camera store where he purchased it and they sent it to Nikon for repair.

That was three months ago and Nikon has not fixed it. Nikon now says they do not have parts for the D5 and do not know when they will be able to repair it. You would think they would make sure that they could fix their high priced professional cameras timely.

Hope mine does not have any problems in the near future.

My new purchase is an unmitigated disaster. After 9 years with a bridge camera, I decided it was time for an SLR to get the better quality images that can be gotten with an SLR. I bought a Nikon D3400 and a Tamron 16-300mm lens.

The camera has 11 focus points which are 10 too many. I'm an old man and my eyesight isn't getting any better. The focus points in the viewfinder are dim, as are the sides of the rectangles that surround some of the points. I've selected single point focusing and I have trouble finding that point. It seems like I press the shutter button halfway a half-dozen times before every shot. It's much worse when there's a busy background against those dim points.

Do you have any suggestions for how I can deal with this focusing system?

Next problem. Back to age, my hands aren't getting any steadier, just like my eyesight isn't improving. I am unable to get sharp pictures when shooting at my lens' longer focal lengths. By the way, I shoot small critters such as butterflies and dragonflies, other insects, spiders, frogs and anything else that moves except people.

I did some reading about getting sharp pictures and tried doing some new things. 1) supporting the lens with my left hand and 2) pressing the shutter button with the flat fleshy part of my fingertip rather than pressing down with my fingernail. I also try to keep my elbows against my body when shooting position permits. I'v also tried pressing the shutter while holding my breath and exhaling.These changes made -0- improvement. Of course, being human, my degree of steadiness or lack of same isn't consistent and varies from shot to shot. What doesn't vary is that on every shot the mirror flies up. Might that be my problem?

I am pessimistic and don't see a way out. I don't know what to do differently. My lens' maximum focal length is 450mm equivalent. For what it's worth, I get a reasonable number of acceptably sharp pictures with my bridge camera at its maximum of 486mm equivalent. I know that sharpness can be had based on the many pictures I see on my photo group, with successful handholding at 600 on a Sigma 150-600 and >1000 with the Canon SX.

I know this is a long post with more than one subject and I thank you for and appreciate your patience.

Marty