Here is a secret about official reports - they always say what the person paying for the report wants them to say. You always need to go back to the terms of reference that the report was created under. For a local example. We have a small river here in our semi-arid part of the plains. The government commissioned a report to determine just how much land in the area could be irrigated. assuming an unlimited supply of water. It was 100's of thousands of acres, and it had all the farmers wide eyed and tongue drolling over all that prospected land that is only good enough to raise cows on, becoming a rich paradise under irrigation, if we just built the dam. Here's the catch - that unlimited supply of water doesn't exist. In another report (god forbid you put facts together in a single report) you have the actual capacity of the dam. No where in that report does it mention how many acres can be irrigated. To get that number you have to go back to the first report - and then do the math with the actual amount of water that could be supplied by the damn.

The result - those 100's of thousands of acres actually come down to a little over 10,000 acres and that was with a total yearly draw down on the dam. That means that it would fill up to be a lake in the spring, but by the end of summer, it would be empty. Then you take out a map, and look at where that land is, and who owns it. Would you be surprised to learn - it was owned by the very politician pushing for the creation of the dam?

But there were more reports - one dealing with the potential for recreational use of the dam. We have boating, and fishing, and swimming, and all sorts of potential. Again the terms of reference for the report specifically said, to assume that the dam would be at full volume all of the time. Well that 100% draw down of the dam from irrigation would give you a body of water that varied by 90 vertical feet through the year. So those boat docks that are at the edge of the water when full, are nothing but mud flats by the middle of the summer.

It goes on and on. Each repot being accurate in relation to its terms of reference - but a total pile of s**t when looked at in totality.

The point - c*****e c****e is nothing but a bunch of useless reports that don't deal with all of the facts in totality. Just follow the money to who is commission the reports and why. Yes, the c*****e c****es - it has been changing for billions of years. We are still coming out of the last ice age, and if history repeats itself we will be going back into another ice age at some point in the future. Man has nothing to do with any of it, and there is nothing that man can do to change it. Pollution and c*****e c****e are not equal, and one does not cause the other.

Examples of inaccuracy's of the report are evident right in the first paragraph. Where it states that average temperatures have risen rapidly and drastically since 1980. That alarming statement - right at the start of the report - can be easily proven false by a Grade 5 science class. Where I live, I have a neighbour that has been recording the daily weather since 1908 when the grandfather first moved onto the homestead. That is over 100 years of records from one spot. And it doesnt' take much effort to see that the local weather follows a 30 year cycle, and that temperatures today have not increased rapidly and drastically since the 80's.

All you need to do is go back to when Gore made his onerous predictions of what the world would look like today - to realize just how full of s**t his predictions were. But he continues making them because he makes 10's of millions of dollars from pushing the whole c*****e c****e story.

Much of the predictions are based on computer models where the model is flawed in some basic forms, and the predictions from the models have never been corretct. Which is what happens when you feed garbage into a computer - you get garbage out.

And again just picking from this story - they are quoating a political science professor - what the fuck does she actually know about weather. It is just more proof that the whole thing is politically motivated for a political conclusion. Not a scientific conclusion.

It's difficult to change the way we do things sometime. Optical media (CD, DVD) has proven itself as unreliable for me through the years, and I have abandoned trying to use discs for storage of anything. This is not a criticism of your efforts, but a gentle nudge for you to consider doing something else.

I have to think that your images are stored in a folder on your PC's hard drive. Perhaps multiple folders. After you have edited the images and are happy with them, and you're ready to copy them to some other media, stick a thumb drive in your PC's USB slot. Go to the folder that houses the images you want to copy, select them and simply copy them to the thumb drive. Elements is not needed to do this.

However, your best solution is to go to Best Buy and get a 2TB external hard drive and connect it to your machine. Get some backup software (SyncBackSE is free and more than adequate) and perform a backup of your images to that hard drive on a regular basis.

I have experienced your frustration and that's why I have a drawer full of brand new discs that will last me the rest of my life. Good luck.

DP Review posted an interesting article about shooting the eclipse. A link follows this opening post. But, the article starts with this recommendation:

Preparation is key. Remember – 160 seconds. Of course, you'll want a tripod and a cable release to lock everything down and minimize shake.

"If you really must photograph this, you’re going to want to practice a whole bunch of techniques in the weeks leading up so it’s as second nature as absolutely possible during those precious seconds."

Protecting your eyesight and your gear is equally important. It's only safe to point your eyes or your camera sensor directly at the sun during totality – a little bit before or after and you're risking serious damage. He suggests a pair of solar eclipse glasses and a filter for your lens. Per NASA, your glasses should meet the ISO 12312-2 international standard.

Be sure to use both during partial phases of the eclipse – you risk damaging your eyesight, not to mention your camera, with just a pair of glasses and an unfiltered lens. Crucially, don't forget to take off the filter during totality. You'll be extremely disappointed with the results if you don't.

Periodically a question will be posted listing the posters lenses and asking which one to use for a specific location/reason/result. Or what point & shoot to buy, or what additional lens to buy so they don't have to take all their lenses with them. Why would anyone buy a lens without knowing what to use it for and when to use it? And why would anyone take all their lenses with them wherever they go? Just take what will be needed.


For what it's worth, I have two cameras and five lenses.

I have a Nikon D7200 that I use with a Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR for when I want to shoot far away things.

My main camera is a Nikon Df. The four lenses I use on the Df are:
Nikon AF Nikkor 24mm f/2.8D
Nikon AF Nikkor 35mm f/2D
Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
Nikon AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G ED VR

The lenses that get used most on my Df are the 35mm and 50mm