I disagree. The top area gives the depth and balance to the bottom as well as emphasizes the frenzy of the mass below it. Cropping the top would disconnect the hanging decorations into independent distractions rather than a layering element. The main thrust is the layering of the photog in the foreground and background against the midground of swirl with an integrated vertical element of the interspersing hanging elements visible as a screen deliberately captured as I was ten feet up on a ladder. Additionally, cutting out the sign and its associated layer of decorations would eliminate the documentary element important to this shot, and flatten the image as the link of the vertical decorative elements to the visual height of the sign would be lost. The shot depicts the moment and balances the multidimensional space, not just a focus on the swirling elements as a singular mass with a foreground contrast. The photog is only an element, not the main focus.

Another photographer working in the thick of a mass of contra dancers with Elixer Contra Band playing the music at the 2013 Winter WarmUp Contra Dance in Columbus, OH. last weekend. The total depth is the keyhole short of a basketball court. Unprocessed, Canon 60D, Tamron 17-50 at 50mm, F/16, 1/3 sec., ISO-800, no flash, handheld.

This type of discount is standard procedure/business model as they are simply getting rid of remaining stock as fast as possible and putting it at a price that is a bargain, performance wise, relative to the price of a new 70D. Buying a camera based upon a projected future used value is not the best reason for choosing a particular brand/model nor is the manufacturer responsible for artificial pricing to maintain the value of a photog's inventory.

Camera advances are coming so rapidly that a two year cycle to obsolescence, with rapid depreciation, is becoming the norm. Mirror-less systems are going to eventually dominate many sectors of the market, relegating heavy, ponderous DSLRs to a smaller and smaller user sector in the same way that in-phone cameras are dramatically eating away at the mini-camera market even if the photo quality is inferior.

I agree, Rick Riggins has done excellent work for me, specifically fixing a 24-105L lens clogged with silicon and a malfunctioning focus ring. the Lense came back perfectly functioning and clean. His price was about $75 plus shipping/insurance. and was returned in a reasonable time. You can also contact him:
1 303 669 0945,
rjriggins11@comcast.net

I'm not sure I read anything in the UHH rules governing ad-hoc censorship, rather much is spoken of the forum being a place where all type of photogs can meet and educate each other freely without fear of being bullied.

Any of the words listed could be used correctly. "Bokeh" is a correct description of an actual phenomenon and has no replacement of equal descriptive efficiency. Whether it, like any other word, is used correctly is a completely different topic, certainly one that should not start with condemnation. Same with 'capture' and most of the other words in this list. What annoys me most is the holier-than-thou attitude towards those that might, through lack of understanding, inexperience, or simple error, misuse a word and, thus, be immediately judged to be 'one of them' rather the the incident affording an opportunity to educate and improve the writing skills of the initial speaker.

The same goes for Facebook. Overgeneralizing about pictures posted on Facebook indicates a narrow scope of experience or preconceived notions/judgments over all posted pictures. Besides, what somebody posts on Facebook, within their own unique/quirky social network is simply nobody else's business, certainly not open to criticism. I could easily find a dozen Facebook photographer sites with outstand images carefully shot and processed. Maybe I'll start listing shots in the gallery that are specifically short field with deliberately controlled bokeh such that the foreground dimentionally pops from the atmosphere around the subject through luminosity shifts and capture the tension between the subject the adjacent layers objects. Of course, I will add them to special galleries on my Facebook along with other specific themes already there.

Boudoir, Boudoir, Boudoir - Difficult techniques on all fronts. I haven't seen any results displayed in the gallery so I assume that few at UHH are adept at the multifarious skill required to produce images of a sensitive and/or erotic nature. Perhaps a monthly contest should had boudoir images as a requirement.

So, I'm not looking too kindly toward prejudice thinly disguised as a 'humorless' list.

Incorrect. With few exceptions, all the astro photography produced is taken with a Schmidt–Cassegrain style telescope (mirror, reflex, catadioptric). This type has been in use, for that purpose, since the early 1800s. The Hubble telescope and every major observatory uses mirror lenses with exactly the same configuration as the smaller camera models in discussion. Every serious commercial Meade, or competing brand telescope, and every Dobsonian amateur style is a mirror lens with a folded light path. You simply cannot get the magnification necessary in a reasonable sized package in any other way.

The advantage of the mirror lens is compactness as the 800mm length is folded into thirds as the image bounces off the back mirror to the front mirror (black blob in center of lens) and then back to the final element. However, most have fixed F-stops of either F/8 or F/6.3. The older mirror lenses from the sixties had a rotating aperture plate with F/8,11 and 16 choices. The newer lenses have significantly better resolution, flair control, and aberration compensation. There is no room in the construction for automatic anything or vibration compensation.

Most of the current lenses are of Samyang origin, thus the similarity between Bower, Samyang, Rokonon, Vivitar and others, the only difference being the barrel aesthetics. There are a couple of other manufacturers, but the products are similar.

Of course, if you really want long distance resolution, you can connect your camera to a telescope quality mirror lens. When Mt. St. Helens was about to erupt I was on a hill ten miles south of the mountain in Cougar, Washington (which, as it turned out, was not far enough...) with a group of astronomers viewing the pending eruption and we could clearly discern a mountain goat grazing from that distance.

Yes! However, I have seen less organized testing results that are not visually consistent at other sites.

In this particular case, the closer to the right in each chart is better. For example, the last chart ,Chromatic Aberration, shows the lens on the right having lower distortion than the lens on the left.

Rule of thumb. Moving a camera from a cold environment to warm/moist environment is best done with the camera in a plastic bag to allow it to heat up and prevent condensation on everything.. Similarly, coming in from the cold and you cold glasses condense moisture from the air as the cold air around the lens condenses adjacent moisture. So the rule of thumb is: If your glasses fog when you transition between two environment, so will the surfaces of your camera suffer. Thus, they need to be sealed from the moisture while they equalize their temperature to the new room.

The only time a quality battery will leak is when the electrolyte inside is no longer holding a charge and the ionic balance is no longer being maintained, reverting the electrolyte to be a free radical and eat the battery casing. Batteries will die over time as well as through use. An unused battery will remain charged and in good condition for a couple of years, enough that you will not notice it has lost some of its capacity. However, once it has had some of its capacity discharged, it becomes acidic. The more it is discharged, the greater the corrosive capacity of the electrolyte. So, you use half the battery capacity in your flashlight (and the light is still as bright as new) and then set it in a cool place to continue on its way, eating itself up. As the internal structure is consumed and the electrolyte decays, it shorts out the battery internally and then it really goes to town eating the casing.

Bottom line: New batteries have a shelf life and will eventually consume themselves. Half used batteries should be removed from devices when constant use is not anticipated as they have already started digesting....

I absolutely agree! A good photographer can produce great images with anything, good equipment does not equate with good photography, and chasing technology is a waste of time. However, given the original problem of deciding which element to replace in the choice of an obsolete and failing body or an okay lens, the choice towards the body is obvious regardless of the current state of the equipment art.

Thus, my suggestion, to take the lens and body to a store and do some comparisons and buy/retain the combination that best satisfies his expectations within his budget, still holds.

It's time for a new camera. In the old days, a camera body was a camera body. It just held the lens in front of the film. However, cameras now are computers and not just physical devices. Every two or three years the improvement is dramatic and can be easily demonstrated by comparing identical shots with the same lens. For example, the new 5D Mk III has enough improvement over the 5D Mk II to easily justify the trade-up. Not only, in four years, has the megapixel count risen, but the processors are much faster, the sensors are dramatically improved and more sensitive, the focus is more accurate, low light performance has dramatically improved, dynamic range and color accuracy has been enhanced, let alone the addition of, in some cases, internal processing for HDR, multi-shot images and, recently Wi-Fi linkage to your computer or across the Internet. The 'get better glass' rule no longer automatically applies as the image quality now results from the summed qualities of the whole system - the processor, sensor, software algorithms, and lens. Your standard kit lens is okay until you can afford better glass. It's not the weak link in your current system. It will be the weak link if you upgrade your camera.

Refurbished cameras are warrantied by the manufacturer the same as new and, as they have had service as if you had sent it to Canon for a checkup, have a high probability of excellent performance, and will arrive in like new condition. It would be my choice unless you find a sale somewhere that matches the price. You can go to their site to see the available specimens. It changes daily. Here is a link:

http://shop.usa.canon.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CusaMiscPageView?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10051&file=refurbished/refurb.html&WT.mc_id=C200488

Prove this to yourself. Go to a camera store. Take a picture with your current camera in manual mode. Note the settings (time, aperture, and ISO). Now check out the low light capability (very important to me as I prefer natural light). Take a picture in low light with the ISO set to about 1600 with corresponding adjustments to speed/aperture. Swap your lens to a new Canon body. Take the two identical pictures, normal light and low light, with the identical settings and then compare them on a computer monitor. You should see a dramatic improvement in both shots, especially in the reduced noise levels in the low light shot with the new body. The improvements you will see are, cost wise, more significant, more 'bang for the buck', than you would get for an equal expenditure in a new lens at this moment. With a new body, the lens would become the weak link.

You have to be careful how you read statistics. There are more Seagates sold than everybody else combined, thus, numerically, there will be more failures even if the percentage is very low. So, the complaints are useless from a statistical reliability perspective unless you have the metrics on the number of units sold verses type of failures compared to the industry average.

Personally, I have a Seagate 1T external drive that has worked perfectly for two years. I'm about to buy a second Seagate 3T drive, using the 3T for my data/photo repository and the 1T for my backup program data storage (backing up the 3T drive and my main computer storage in a compressed format). Additionally, I have Carbonite backing up the main machine data and the external drive into the cloud. It's always a good idea to have two backups, one local for convenience, and one NOT ON SITE in the event the local is murdered, stolen, lost in a divorce, confiscated by a SWAT team, attacked by a virus, small child or pet, or otherwise rendered into junk by the actions of its owner....

Cell phones have a life cycle of about 18 months, that is, the average consumer upgrades in less than two years to a more capable unit. Apple iPhones do not have user replaceable batteries as the product life is expected to be less than the life of the battery. Software is the same. If you wait long enough, either you will want the upgrade, or your are satisfied with a less capable product that eventually will cease to have company product support. Adobe has set the price to be lower than paying for an upgrade every couple of years, making $10/month to be preferable to the cost of upgrades. And, you will always have the latest version, latest bug fix, incremental upgrade, and support.