I'm glad you like the photo and....Thank You.

I've just posted a few to the gallery. I'm not sure if there is a limit one should adhere to to be polite and well behaved.

I think she can wait as long as she needs to :wink:

Farmhouse at Albuquerque Bio Park "River of Lights"

Corrales, NM

Albuquerque Zoo

I've been "lurking" on UHH for a number of months but never introduced myself.
I am 64 yrs old and live with my wife in New Mexico (born and raised in Bergen County New Jersey).
I was heavily into the photography hobby back in the late 70s. Even made a little money at it. When I got married I pretty much gave up the hobby, then we moved and I lost my darkroom etc etc.
I got into digital photography a couple of years ago and love it.
It is challenging, rewarding and has the potential to be a huge drain on my retirement fund :(

I will try to get a few photos posted in the next day or two. I have never ever had my images critiqued by fellow photographers so.....would value the feedback.

The fact that something like GIMP is available for free is almost unbelievable but my two cent is that you will find yourself spending more time learning gimp than you will learning photography.

I have used gimp to accomplish some pretty complicated photo editing work however I always used a tutorial to step me through what I was doing. I never really learned it. It is very powerful and very complex. It is like Photoshop without the polish. It is not photography specific. By that I mean that it wasn't designed specifically for photo editing. Many of the "beginning gimp" tutorials start with things like making logos and other graphics exercises.

I finally gave in and bought lightroom, learned how to use it in a couple of days and the only times I've used gimp since then have been if I wanted to do something involving multiple layers.

I use a Lowepro "Event Messenger" bag when I want to walk around with just an extra lens or two. It will hold a camera and moderate tele plus two additional lenses. With the camera out and in use you now have one open "slot" to help facilitate lens changing. There are two or three sizes.
http://www.lowepro.com/eventmessenger
I had tried a sling bag but changing lenses was a pain.
The Lowepro Event Messenger isn't the most heavily padded bag out there and a camera with a battery grip is a tight fit but other than that........it's great and......inexpensive.

BTW
The only thing at DisneyWorld that hasn't been photographed a bazillion times will be your Granddaughter.

In the darkroom I felt like an alchemist and I had this arcane knowledge that impressed others.
I know that's pretty childish but it was good for the ego. Kind of like the Unix guys that insisted on doing everything via command line.
Somehow knowing how to use Lightroom just isn't the same.
On the other hand.......it's great to be able to actually see what you're doing while you're doing it and......when you're done there are no "dishes" to do.
If I has the option of setting up another darkroom, I wouldn't.

With that budget you probably shouldn't spend any time looking at the current generation of cameras. Go back 2-3 years. There really hasn't been any monumental technological improvements anyway.
That said.....Canon still sells the T3i which is a really really good camera and Amazon"s top seller.
I just looked it up and you can get the T3i with kit lens for a measly $450!! Add the EFS 55-250 for around $260 and you have a darn good kit.
This is the kit that I used for a couple of years and was quite happy with it.

I have to admit that I really don't know squat about the T3is video capabilities. Never use them but I think I remember reviewers commenting favorably in this regard.

Also.....there is "Magic Lantern" which is a firmware add on available for a number of Canon cameras, T3i included, which is targeted primarily at video enthusiasts.

While doing anything to camera firmware sounds scary, I've used Magic Lantern for a couple of years now for the still photography enhancements it provides and haven't had any issues.

Good Luck

I has a very similar problem a while back. I don't remember the details exactly but the problem was that in the process of logging in, at some point I created a new account. I didn't realize that Flickr kind of assumes you want to create your account using a Yahoo ID but my original account was created using my Google ID. Like I said....I don't remember HOW I created the problem but I was logging into the wrong account. My photos were in the account using the Google ID and I kept logging into the new account using my Yahoo ID.
At the Flickr login you can choose between Yahoo in big letter in the center of the window or Google (and something else) in small print at the bottom of the window. Make sure you are going to the right option.

I've had hard drives go bad but never any solid state media of any kind.
Having said that I feel doomed.
Sorry for the double post.....which raises the question, is there a way to delete one of your own postings that you screwed up?

I've had hard drives go bad but never any solid state media of any kind.
Having said that I feel doomed.

I don't have an answer for you but I've noticed the same thing on both my T3i and my 6D. The camera always seems to want to shoot at higher ISOs.
My guess is that the camera is programmed to consider whatever high limit you set to be just as viable as ISO 100 and noise isn't in the equation.
Maybe there's someone out there that actually understands how the camera decides and will give us both a bit of enlightenment.