You must have a really long lens to see Yellowstone's moose, bison, and wolves from Yosemite.

Why? Are you expecting someone to complain about Bidenflation? (Oops.)

Use your wide angles for iconic shots such as: Tunnel View; Glacier Point (or little brother Washburn Point); the other side of Half Dome from Olmsted Point, and while there, the gnarled pine tree surround by cracked granite slabs; and even the valley from the Merced River at Yosemite Valley View (on Northside Drive just before El Portal Rd), with the huge fallen tree trunk that's been there for years for foreground. Then do something different, something that hasn't been done countless times before.

Consider using a longer lens for landscapes. The longer the lens, the more lens compression you get in a photo. Long lenses draw the background forward, giving a different look. If the narrower field of view isn't enough, take several overlapping shots and stitch them in post. If you take these shots in portrait orientation, you can end up with a typical 3:2 photo when you're finished, but the image will look entirely different from a photo taken with a wide.

I regularly shoot landscapes with a portrait-length lens, or I end up with the equivalent after cropping in post. Many photographers do.

I've seen a bear on two different trips, and a bald eagle on another.

And once, as a teen backpacking in the back country, I saw a different kind of bare that I'll never forget. First time seeing an actual, real-life nekkid woman.

This depends on a few things. As for putting a $300 CPU in an old machine, well, the motherboard is the only item that isn't easily upgraded. But the mobo often is just a placeholder to keep everything else in place. Sure, chipsets matter -- eventually. But if you have the latest or near-latest chipset and features you want on your current mobo, a CPU upgrade is often worthwhile. Other components, like RAM, the GPU, and storage, are easily upgradable and probably should have been done before the CPU.

What a person does with a PC matters most. Is what one does heavily CPU-dependent? Or does one mostly play video games? I don't game, but I do things like video rendering and, especially, photo processing, both of which use more CPU than other resources. I need a strong CPU.

We also might consider upgrading the CPU for features. I upgraded from a 10th-gen Intel to an 11th-gen to take advantage of PCIe 4.0 support of an m.2 NVMe drive. The ~20% CPU performance boost was nice I suppose, but the faster drive was worth the easy upgrade. Yes, swapping out a CPU is simple.

Those of us who buy or build in the sweet spot rather than the latest and greatest might be most likely to upgrade a CPU. I'm working up to my next build with an Intel 13th-gen CPU. I wouldn't do this if I didn't know that the next gen will use the same socket, which gives me an upgrade path of one CPU. After that, Intel will surely use a new socket. AMD, on the other hand, will likely keep its new AM5 socket for a few generations, but I'm a recovering AMD CPU user, so that's moot for me. Others might want to go with AMD if CPU upgrades are their thing. AMD uses the same socket for much longer than does Intel.

Intel CPUs still outperform AMD CPUs overall with Adobe photo apps, according to Puget Systems. I urge you to peruse the Puget Systems website for articles and benchmarks. They're easy to find, and you'll get plain, easy-to-read scientific data rather than anecdotal recommendations (like mine).

I'd probably go with a 13th-gen Intel, such as the i7-13700k. Intel's 12th-gen chips are power hogs. Also, Intel's 14th-gen will use the same socket, so there is an upgrade path later on.

I'd go with DDR5 RAM (the aforementioned Intel chips support both DDR4 and DDR5). DDR5 has finally come way down in price, and performance is, as one would expect, better. I'm happy with 32GB of RAM for now, but if in doubt, 64GB isn't unreasonable. It really depends on what you do while running your Adobe apps. Specs you read on how much RAM you need tell you for Adobe apps only -- not those apps plus all the other apps you have open.

For storage, I'd get at least one m.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 for the OS. My current machine has three m.2 sockets, and my next will have at least four. This is because these drives are only now becoming reasonably priced in larger capacities. The sweet spot is still 2TB, but 4TB drives are coming down. If you need more than 8-10TB of storage, you'll be glad for the extra sockets for an easy storage upgrade. For starters, a 2TB PCIe 4.0 for Windows and another 2TB (even if it's the slower PCIe 3.0) for data might do. I currently have three 2TB NVMe drives plus a 6TB snail on a SATA hookup.

Finally, I'd consult Puget and also Adobe regarding a GPU (video card) to make sure I get one that works well now and will for a few years, while also making sure I don't needlessly overspend. You don't need a $1,000 card (nor even a $500 card). I've read (on Puget, I think) that after a certain level of GPU, any performance gains are incremental. And that was a surprisingly budget GPU -- but that might have changed a bit by now.

Laptop CPUs and GPUs aren't as good as those on a desktop. The good stuff uses too much power and generates too much heat.

You can add an external optical drive with a USB connection. They start at around twenty bucks and are fine for occasional or light use, but I'd never build a PC without an internal optical workhorse.


~Sigh.~ Oh Jerry, now I get it. Now I see how you cause yourself so much grief.

I knew it, I always knew there was something about you, Jerry. Now I know.

You share a birthday with Hellbitch (my ex-wife).

I shoot in both jpg and RAW -- storage is cheap. And although camera-rendered jpegs are fine for snapshots, I often want to do something more, so I need the RAW files.

Of course your wife (and you, and any of us) would prefer the jpegs to unprocessed RAW files, but I usually prefer my processing to that of my camera.

I had that happen with me on a Windows 7 machine with an AMD processor. I mention the CPU because, although I don't remember what caused the issue, I want to say it was CPU-related.

As I said, I don't remember the cause, but I do remember I figured it out and fixed it. (Well, Google figured it out for me probably.)

This is backwards. It's counter to plain thinking, but restart purges everything, and shutting down saves many settings to allow a faster boot. With modern computers (with an SSD for the OS) this is moot anyway, as there's no real difference in boot time anymore whether some settings are saved or not (boot time is mostly BIOS).

My main PC is on almost always. It shuts off the displays after 10 minutes of inactivity and sleeps after 20, unless I sleep it first. I'll close all my apps and restart every once in a while, probably 3-5 days on average, but otherwise I sometimes close and reopen my browser windows (or other apps) to free up resources without rebooting.

Aren't you the founder of that club?

On any new camera, I select my preferred default settings then save them as one of my camera's memory modes. When I pick up my camera for its first use of the day (especially if it's been many days since its last use), I change it to any mode then back to that memory mode, resetting my camera to my preferences. Never again will I shoot a fleeting rainbow at ISO 6400 while wondering why my shutter speed is so high (I did that many years ago, which is what prompted my ussing a memory mode for my default settings).

This sounds familiar. I believe this is what I did previously to make minor edits. So it's not that Lightroom changed, but that my memory failed me.

As for seeing Gerald's photos (btw very nice shots, Gerald) and then commenting how good the lens must be, I'm reminded of people seeing my photos and commenting that I must have a really nice camera.

CJW, how are other lenses on your two bodies? And do you know anyone with an e-mount body you can mount your 200-600 on? I know, the lens is loose on two bodies, but it's still possible both camera mounts are bad.

I had to replace the mount on my a7R a few years ago. I did it myself with an aftermarket mount I found on Amazon.

If I recall correctly, Precision Camera starts with a flat rate price for simple repairs -- and it goes up from there. So replacing a lens mount might cost several hundred dollars, the same as for adjusting focus of something.