Two years ago, I took a charter flight on a 4-seater over the Canyonlands NP and Monument Valley and got some really good shots. I set the camera shutter speed to 1/1000 and let the camera figure out the aperture setting. I don't remember what my ISO setting but I fiddled with it by taking a few test shots as soon as the plane took off. One thing to be aware of is glare from the window you are shooting through. I had a few otherwise great shots that were ruined because of the glare from the window. It proved to be a bit tricky - especially when the pilot circled around Monument Valley and the window glare was constantly shifting. The flight was early morning. The lighting was great but the low angle of the sun probably contributed to the glare. I tried to use my body to block out the light from behind me. It helped a lot but it became a bit tricky when trying to frame shots so the airplane wing was excluded from the picture. Hope the plane's wings are topside. I sat in the back since there was less wing to contend with in framing the shots.

I am a firm believer that you can never have enough backups. I backup all my photos to several external drives and I use cloud storage. The reason I also use cloud storage is that it is external to my house. I could loose my photos as a result of someone stealing my PC and external drives, or they could be destroyed in a house fire or earthquake. I trust cloud storage provided by major players, such as Amazon and Google. They are not going out of business anytime soon and we would have plenty of warning before they do. The major cloud storage providers actually back up everything at geographically separate sites to insure the integrity of your files. Before retiring, my employer was seriously considering backing up all their computer systems through Amazon. It turned out that a lot of major corporations use Amazon cloud storage and I am certain that Google is also hosts backups for many corporations. The bottom line is that cloud storage can provide very reliable and secure storage. Just stay away from the fly-by night providers. As they say, you get what you pay for.

I had the same experience with Carbonite. The upload took forever. I back up all my important stuff to an external drive but I felt more comfortable backing everything up to the cloud just in case the house burns down or someone steals my PC and external drive.

One reason that your upload took so long is that most internet providers give you a high transfer rate for downloads, but the upload rate is much, much slower. That might contribute to the glacial time it took to upload your stuff. I have Frontier FIOS and the 50 Mb connection speed applies to both uploads and downloads. I had to conclude that Carbonite throttles the uploads. But it is very frustrating to monitor the initial uploads and praying that your hard disk doesn't fail before the upload completes.

If you are using LR, you can use the auto leveling feature under the Lens Correction tab of the Develop panel. I take publicity photos for a local symphony and they have an art show before the performance that features local artists. I have to quickly round up the artists and match them with their works of art and photograph them together. Since I am moving around to take the shots, they are not always level, or I have to shoot at an angle to eliminate reflections if there is glass in the frame. The auto level in LR works great to correct leveling errors. While LR occasionally comes up with some goofy leveling correction (like 45 degrees off), it still works pretty well most of the time. I have a Develop Setting specific to the symphony photos that I use to make the leveling corrections when importing the photos from the performances and then manually correct the few that LR goofed on. I am amazed how much a correction that is probably less that half a degree greatly improved the appearance of the photos. Now I always try leveling corrections for most of my photos to see if it improves on the final picture.

LR also has an auto button above the angle tool that is found as part of the crop too. I use it on occasion but prefer to use the corrections available under Lens Corrections because it also provides vertical and full corrections for those situations where I have to shoot a bit to the side in order to avoid reflections.

I started out using a Canon 9000F film/print scanner with SilverFast scanning software and was generally happy with the results until I started making large prints (11x14 and larger). The large prints were not as sharp as I felt they should be, particularly for prints made from scans of medium format slides. I eventually purchased a Plustek 120 film scanner and I am very happy with the results. I have had very large prints printed by a professional printer and the prints are very sharp. Unfortunately the Plusktek 120 scanner costs about 2 grand. In your case, it may be simpler (and cheaper) to start out with a flatbed scanner (such as the Epson V600) since a flatbed photo scanner will handle all your prints and slides. It will will give you very decent scans. Depending on what you do with your scans, you might feel it necessary to purchase additional hardware. For example, if most of your slides are 35mm, you might want to look into a 35mm film scanner. I know that Plustek manufactuers several 35mm film scanners. But starting out with a flatbed photo scanner is probably the least expensive way to start scanning all your prints. For software, I use the SilverFast software that came with the Plustek scanner. But VueScan is a popular scanner product and it costs a lot less than SilverFast.

I have run across products that will emulate film, but I have never had any desire to use them. I have always shot fine grain film. The products that I have seen appear apply a 'grain' filter to make the pictures appear that they were shot using grainy film. Since I have tried to minimize grain in my pictures, I have no interest in these products. While I miss the subtle colors of film, the differences between film and digital are not so significant that I really favor one over the other. There are so many advantages to digital that I really appreciate and don't miss the film world all that much. It's like cars. There are several classic cars I dream of owning but today's cars are so superior to those classic cars in terms of safety and technology, I am happy to leave those classic cars to my dreams.

I started out with a 35mm camera but moved up to medium format (Mamiya 645) and eventually went digital. Last year I purchased a Plustek 120 film scanner to digitize my medium format slides. It has been very instructive to compare the film scans with my digital pictures. I honestly cannot say that I prefer one over the other. I really like the colors on the film scans. There are hard to describe differences in the sharpness between the scans and the digital pictures. I attribute much of this to the fact that the film grain is a bit random in comparison to a digital camera sensor. But I really don't miss my retired Mamiya 645 because the lenses were fixed focal length and rather pricey. In the digital world, I use zoom lenses that allow me to frame the picture much better. And I definitely do not miss spending time in my darkroom making prints. I now spend my time in my Lightroom, sometimes sipping a beer as I work. A while back, my daughter asked me to make her a print of a picture I had taken in Glacier NP in the 80's. I scanned it and had a large print made by an outside lab and the print was spectacular. So while I long for the colors of film, I really appreciate the convenience of digital.

I have a Nikon 70-300 zoom that does this when the VR is on. It has been doing this for years. It's a bit disconcerting, but I get great photos from this lens. The problem is with the lens because I have used it with two Nikon bodies and the mirror has jittered with both bodies. I don't experience the problem with my other lenses.

From you post, I get the distinct impression that you do not take a ton of pictures. At one time I used Elements but have migrated to LR and I really like it. However, one feature that I really liked with Elements and sometimes miss in using LR is that Elements had several auto-fix up modes so that you could click a single button and it would apply a number of fix-ups like exposure, contrast, sharpening, etc to you pictures and really did a pretty good job of transforming your picture into a vibrant photograph. On the other hand LR has a significant learning curve. For you, I suspect you would be better off with Elements unless you have visions of upping your game to produce stellar, as opposed to just good, prints.

I always pack my tripod in my checked baggage just so I don't have to worry about it. If you do put it in your carry on baggage it might make a difference to TSA if the tripod/monopod is carbon fiber or aluminum. Somehow I would think that a carbon fiber tripod might not ring any alarms when they x-ray you carry on luggage and might not view a carbon fiber tripod as potential weapon. Nevertheless, putting you tripod in you checked baggage eliminates the worry.

RMNP probably is Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado

This is a great photo. The television coverage just showed Comey while this photo shows the mass of audience and photographers surrounding him. I know that lots of people watched his testimony but this photo really conveys the national interest in hearing his testimony far better than the television ratings.

Tracey B stayed on the west side of Glacier. I prefer staying on the east side because I find the scenery to be more spectacular. The place to stay on the east side is the Many Glacier Hotel, which has been there for eons. The rooms are a bit on the small side, but we really love staying in old historic hotels like the Many Glacier Hotel. There are many trails from the hotel and the hike to Iceberg Lake is spectacular. It's a bit long (about 10 mile RT) but is not particularly strenuous. Whether you stay on the west side or east side of Glacier, definitely plan to spend a day going over the Going To the Sun road that connects the east and west sides of the park. The scenery is spectacular but it may be a bit nerve racking if you are afraid of heights. A better plan would be to spend a few days on both sides of the park.

To answer the VR on or off question when shooting with a tripod, I would check the manufacturers instructions for the lens. I mention this because I have a Nikon 70-300mm zoom that I have been using for 8 or 9 years and the instructions clearly state that the VR should be turned off when using a tripod. However, a few months ago I purchased a Nikon 18-80mm zoom and the instructions state that the VR can be used with a tripod and uses the rational that it will correct for small micro vibrations in the tripod. In the past, everything I read said to turn VR when shooting from a tripod if everything is clamped down, but now it appears that at least Nikon is backing of from this, at least for some of their lenses.

If your camera has a USB connection, you might try to insert the card in the camera and then connect the camera to your computer. If your camera can read the card, then you should be able to transfer your pictures via the camera.