Captures a certain innocence. We have them over in Readington, on a farm. I've always meant to go over there & shoot, just don't find time.

You make me reflect on pp much the same. There's a distance when I'm at my BenQ. A clinical quality, whereas when I'm afield, the liveliness of the environment makes every shot a kind of organic encounter as if with something living, and that's what I mean by my trying to make the whole shot good in itself, because it honors that moment of encounter as if that instant has spiritual experience. But then, later, I'm just as free to crop and make something else, and as I say, I enjoy doing that. I see stuff when pp I couldn't have seen afield. Just because something is sacred, it doesn't mean you can't distance and manipulate the image it had inspired. The sacred is always there for you in the field. It's not scarce.

I love to crop, but actually, I always try to get the shot in the original frame. When I have to crop, it's kind of a confession that I didn't get the shot right in the first place, even though every time I have to do it, I relish the opportunity. Often, it's just the matter of not having seen, when you were afield, what you see when post processing.

I noticed great improvement over my Nikon D60 (10.2 mp) after I bought the Nikon D7100 (24mp), although it is true that some of my images captured by the D60 really stand out. After I bought a Nikon D850 (46 mp), it seemed to that many images captured in broad daylight were no sharper than those my D7100 got, but I immediately began enjoying functionality in low light I had never experienced before. On one occasion, I was out fishing after sunset, quitting in the dark, and walking back to the car without a tripod, I saw a guy fishing the reservoir below while wearing a headlamp. I managed to get my 70-200mm f/4 on my camera, got down on my belly, and braced against a wood rail. I didn't even select high noise reduction, and haven't used noise reduction in Lightroom to improve the image. (If it exists there, haven't looked yet.) I guess you could say the image is a LITTLE grainy, but it doesn't call attention to itself. No tripod, f/4, in the dark. I'm not filled in on whether megapixels have anything to do with low-light performance, but the D850 is expensive not only because of its high number of megapixels, and having made the investment, I do have more opportunities to work with.

Some people are joiners. They feel a need to be included in something larger than themselves, such as the subscription that includes them in what's going current, but I'm sort of both ways, leaning more towards just wanting my LR6 stand alone and doing my thing without anyone else knowing. Until I go on Hedgehog and say something! I will see. I might figure however I might figure out focus stacking without the subscription.

Yeah, more than an hour went down the rabbit hole of videos & blogs last night. I was looking into some software program that does it, too. Costly. I will be spending some time at them before Matt gets home so I'm prepared.

Looks like that when my son saved my LR6, he got Elements 2020 with the deal. I previously had Elements 11. I haven't yet opened Elements 2020 & might wait until he comes home, when we'll make final sense of all this. If Elements can merge a stack of six or seven photos, why not? Unless I decide other features are worth it.

Someone else said Lightroom 6 lets you merge photos? I hadn't entirely ruled that out, but I would be surprised. Maybe I'll look into it & try before Matt gets home. I do like my LR 6 and I'm not the sort to explore all sorts of features. When I get to something, I get there without any whimsy. Someone else pointed out that I might get software, and I might, if not too costly, because I am afraid I would end up going for the whole shebang and find all I really needed--at least thus far--was to merge stacks of photos. I know $10.00 month doesn't seem like much, but I'm extremely conservative about my spending, so thanks for all of the input. I was hoping I might tease out some advice, and I see I've got tons of help.

Yeah, I learn...what I should spend...as I go. After my Pentax, used D60 for four or five years, then, fortunately as it turned out, fell on my face into a river with it in hand. My D7100 I still have & use. D850 is markedly better in low light, plus the other features. I can't help the ambition I feel. D850 cost & costs. I may never be great at using either camera, but it's so much fun.

I've been using Lightroom 6 since early 2016, proud of my son for finagling Adobe to allow us to reinstall it on my new laptop about a year ago, but although I've really had no problems with 6 & feel great about it, today I believe I learned that I need Classic or CC, either of the subscription services, in order to merge together a stack of images. I tried my D850's Focus Shift this afternoon, pleased with results, but of course not seeing the final results yet. I'm guessing that once I use one of the two subscription services, I'll find there are other good reasons to be spending more money, too. Is anyone else still using Lightroom 6, or am I a real dinosaur? Part of me kind of hates to let it go. Why give up on a good product, unless there's more to gain by new?

I know that feeling of panic! You think you're SCREWED. But then you figure it out. Glad to hear you learned something in the process & thanks for sharing it. As for myself, every time I take a hit from something like that, my defenses get better. But the older I get--60 now--the more prone to new errors I fear I might become.

This article about ssd drives I found interesting: https://www.solarwindsmsp.com/blog/ssd-lifespan#:~:text=Current%20estimates%20put%20the%20age,of%20when%20it%20stopped%20working.

According to my son, solid-state external drives have better longevity. As far as I know, they have no moving parts, so it makes sense. Also, the longevity of the memory chips would seem to be a function of how often and for how long the drive is used. I read in one of the comments above that suddenly pulling the cord can fry the chips. I did that a few times with one of my drives and nothing untoward happened, but I quickly caught on to always clearing the hardware first.

I had to return the monitor, because it needed a firmware update I couldn't give it. The next monitor came, I calibrated it, and got a great validation report--.61 Delta E average and 1.59 high mark. I began post-processing on it the other night, and it felt great. So I'm in business, thanks for all of your help!

Yes, I'm working with Joshua by email. Will see soon if he needs to reach out to a tech soon. Thanks.

Art's videos have been very helpful. Studied a number of them carefully before I attempted any of the many calibrations before I got a passing validation. No, I selected Adobe RGB. As you say, had I selected Panel Native, that would have shifted that slot to "Custom," but by all I've been able to ascertain, that wouldn't have changed "Calibration 1" to "Custom 1,' even if I had chosen Panel Native.

I got back in touch with BenQ. If we can't figure this out, he's getting more informed technical help for me.