"A.Word.A.Day" is an email list that sends subscribers, well--a word a day. From Monday to Friday a word pops up in your mail box with definition and at least one example of its use in context. On the weekend, the list's owner/founder, Anu Garg, prints responses he's received during the week from subscribers.

One of his words last week was "Photoshop" used as a verb, and today, his weekend "Compendium of Feedback" included the following email to him from a person representing Adobe's Trademark and Marketing department, followed by Garg's response to her:


It has been brought to our attention that you have included Adobe’s Photoshop trademark in the Wordsmith “A.Word.A.Day” feature of your website. As you point out, the term is a registered trademark, owned by Adobe Systems Incorporated. As you may know, use of a trademark as a verb is improper use, which over time, can cause the trademark to cease to function as a trademark, and instead become a generic term. A trademark is correctly used as an adjective to indicate the source of a particular product, e.g., we enhanced the image using Photoshop image-editing software. We ask that you correct the “meaning” of the term by removing the verb reference and adding an adjective reference.
Laura Brou, Sr. IP Paralegal - Trademarks & Marketing, Adobe, Seattle, Washington

Thanks for writing. I know you have to do your job and send The Letter to show that you are making due efforts to prevent trademark dilution. I’m sympathetic to it.

It’s an unjust world. Some want to have enough to eat so as not to be underweight, while others would spend thousands of dollars to lose weight. Some companies encourage people to use their trademarks as verbs (“Do You Yahoo!?”, “Bing it”, etc.) and fail, while others see their trademarks being used as verbs and discourage that use.

Ultimately, language works not by legal letters or ad campaigns, but by how people use it. Today, google is a verb, so is photoshop. It’s too late now. The verb photoshop has entered Oxford, Collins, and Merriam-Webster, among other dictionaries. When lexicographers define a term, they only report reality, not create it. We can’t photoshop this reality.
-Anu Garg

As for the selfie stick, my favorite term for it is the narcisstick. Wish I'd been the first to think of it.

Gary Friedman has an excellent ebook: 599 pages for $26.45. Two week risk-free trial.

http://www.friedmanarchives.com/alpha6000/

I rarely tell you how much I enjoy your photos, but I always look forward to them. As so many have already said, this one is stunning: the way the back-lighting reveals the bone structure of the wings is a revelation, and the lighting, framing, focus are all spot on. Keep them coming.

For those of us old enough, the word will always recall the actress Vikki Duggan who had a photo circulated in the media in 1957 in which she wore a dress so low cut in the back that . . . well, that it inspired a song in her honor by the Limelighters that uses the word callipygian:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hie9muEMWEw

Don't know if the diameter of the lens is the same as the SX-50, but if so, I bought an inexpensive adapter for a 50 mm circular polarizer that I already had, it just screws right on. I keep the filter on the converter ring permanently and when I want it, I just attach the converter ring-CP combination. Sorry for the lack of details, but it cost less than $10 on Amazon. No problems with lens distortion or vignetting.

If you can find it, Five Knives is a great bacon. I'm not sure it travels much out of Vermont, but you might be able to get some through their web site: http://5-knives.com/our-five-knives/. As you see on the site, it's something of a boutique operation--humanely-raised critters, organic feed, small private slaughterhouse, etc. Can't argue with the results: tastes great.

They're associated with Vermont Smoke and Cure, and to expand the pig talk in a new direction, Vermont Smoke and Cure make what I consider to be the best pepperoni I've ever tasted: http://www.vtsmokeandcure.com/Smoked-Pepperoni.html. The pepperoni is smoked and that apparently makes a huge difference in taste.

If you can find it, Five Knives is a great bacon. I'm not sure it travels much out of Vermont, but you might be able to get some through their web site: http://5-knives.com/our-five-knives/. As you see on the site, it's something of a boutique operation--humanely-raised critters, organic feed, small private slaughterhouse, etc. Can't argue with the results: tastes great.

They're associated with Vermont Smoke and Cure, and to expand the pig talk in a new direction, Vermont Smoke and Cure make what I consider to be the best pepperoni I've ever tasted: http://www.vtsmokeandcure.com/Smoked-Pepperoni.html. The pepperoni is smoked and that apparently makes a huge difference in taste.

If you can find it, Five Knives is a great bacon. I'm not sure it travels much out of Vermont, but you might be able to get some through their web site: http://5-knives.com/our-five-knives/. As you see on the site, it's something of a boutique operation--humanely-raised critters, organic feed, small private slaughterhouse, etc. Can't argue with the results: tastes great.

They're associated with Vermont Smoke and Cure, and to expand the pig talk in a new direction, Vermont Smoke and Cure make what I consider to be the best pepperoni I've ever tasted: http://www.vtsmokeandcure.com/Smoked-Pepperoni.html. The pepperoni is smoked and that apparently makes a huge difference in taste.

Just to be clear about the history of the bill, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, probably the most progressive member of the senate, drafted the bill and has been pushing for it against ongoing Republican opposition, just about from the moment he was named Chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. He and Jeff Miller R-FL, Chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, finally worked out details of a compromise bill. Kudos also to Sen. John McCain, far from Sanders ideologically, who helped sway fellow Republican senators who had been opposing the bill. We need more cross-aisle cooperation like that between McCain and Sanders.

The VFW has been supporting the Sanders bill since at least January:

http://www.vfw.org/News-and-Events/Articles/2014-Articles/VFW-Supports-Sanders-Bill/

If you check online, you'll find statements from the VFW more or less every month since January in support of Sanders' bill. The heart of Sanders' argument: "Planes and tanks and guns are a cost of war. So is taking care of the men and women who use those weapons and fight our battles."

Lots of helpful suggestions from others here, and I'll add two more.

One is to put the camera into continuous shooting mode, rather than single shot mode. Then press the shutter and listen to it click off 3 shots. Often the first shot is just fine, but if I've jiggled the camera while pressing the shutter release, my hand will be steady again during the next two shots and I have two back ups to choose from that are likely to be better. I use this more frequently for a dark interior at fairly wide angle, though I've also used it outdoors. This is somewhat similar to the suggestion made earlier about shooting in High-speed Burst HQ in the Scene mode, but in that case the camera takes over and uses automatic settings if that matters to you.

The second solution is one I use outdoors at extreme zoom, where a secondary problem is that the slightest movement of the camera can dramatically alter the framing of a shot, sometimes cutting off part that you might have wanted to retain. Set the self-timer to 2-second delay. Then when you press the shutter release, you have 2 seconds--a perfect amount of time--to reframe the shot if it got messed up, stop breathing, brace yourself, and let the camera take the shot while you're holding steady. Needless to say, this works better with architectural details than it does with birds in flight.

I have the SX50, but these suggestions would presumably work with any super zoom.

On Back Button Focusing--not exactly, but sort of.

Press the shutter button half way. Then, while still holding it press the left arrow button at the same time. This switches to Manual focus, locking in the focus you just achieved automatically. (It's equivalent to achieving auto-focus with a dSLR and then switching the lens from AF to MF.) If you want, you can tweak the focus with the up and down arrow buttons or with the rear dial. The camera will hold that Manual focus for successive shots. Press the left arrow button again and toggle back to Normal mode afterward. Warning that if you go into Review mode to look at photos, the camera reverts to Normal and your manual focus no longer locked in.

There is a way to simplify manual focus which seems not to be well-documented in the manual. (I've only used it a couple of times, but I think this is how it works.) As Yooper2 suggested, focus on something close to the point you want in focus, something that's solid, say a mountain or tree line rather than the sky. Press the shutter button half way and, without releasing it, simultaneously press the left arrow button, the one with the flower ikon and the letters MF. Under ordinary circumstances, you use the button to toggle between the Macro, Normal, and Manual Focus modes, but if you're also pressing the shutter half way at the same time, it locks in as Manual the focus values that the camera has just achieved by auto focus. If need be, you can refine the focus with the up-down buttons or by turning the control dial.

As such, it's similar to the asterisk button on the back of a Canon dSLR if you're familiar with that option. It seems to be a way to enable something akin to Back-Button Focusing, since the camera holds that focal value for subsequent shots. That would make it also valuable for certain kinds of sporting events, such as races--whether of cars, bikes, or people. Set the focus on a specific point--a hurdle, say, or a finish line, or a turn in the track where you know drama is likely to occur, and (I'm assuming a tripod here) you're pre-focused when the action occurs. When you've finished, press the left button again and switch back from Manual to Normal focus mode. Warning: if you enter Review mode to check the photos, the camera exits Manual Focus mode and reverts to Normal, so you have to be disciplined and not chimp, or you lose the manual setting.

I think you'll find that the flash button works only when the flash itself is lifted. Check out page 142 and following in the manual. When the flash is lifted, pressing the button lets you adjust things like flash exposure compensation, slow synchro, flash exposure lock, 1st or 2nd curtain shooting, maybe other options. I don't have the camera at hand right now and may be misremembering, but I think these options may be available only in one of the PATM modes, not in the automatic ones.

Agree with what others have said. They're all well-reviewed cameras, so ergonomics will play a major role. All three were available at Best Buy so I got to handle all three and play with their menu systems, another important part of ergonomics for me, since it affects how I'll be able to handle the camera at the moment of truth. I'm a long-time Canon user, so it was an uneven playing field, but I did give the others an honest go before settling on the SX50. For me, it felt better in the hand than the Nikon and I'm so used to their menu system that the other two felt like a foreign language. If you're accustomed to the other systems, you'll obviously have a different take. No single best answer here.