You're gonna LOVE retirement, especially if you keep yourself busy. I went out at 8:00 AM this morning to get some foliage. I have time for that now.

Recommendations...I recently bought a Nikon D5100 kit at COSTCO. About $1100. Comes with the body, a Nikkor 18-55mm lens and a Nikkor 55-300mm lens AND a camera bag.

I saw the same model at BJs for slightly less but the long lens was only 55-200mm.

Have fun...I love retirement.
Indi

Am I missing something here?
"What about the bathroom????"
Indi

I tend to prefer a wide, horizontal format on most of my pictures, and rarely do my prints work out to the standard format of 8 x 10, 11 x 14, etc. So, I bought myself a mat-cutting machine at a Michael's (don't know if they're in your neighborhood) for about $80. Now I cut my own mats.
Instead of mounting adhesive, I use a tacking adhesive which allows pix to be removed in case the purchaser wants to reframe the picture. Finally, I buy neutral colored mats in warm whites and cool whites to match the picture.
Hope this helps.

How about using a clone brush? Most editors have this.

Oh, yes! Backups are a must. I back my pix to a 1 TB external hard drive that's always connected. I've learned my mistakes in the past. External hard drives are cheap.

Wow! That reDynamix is something else. I just ran #2 through it and I'm really happy. I could play with this all day. Better get out of the house. :D
Thanks.
I haven't looked at Topaz yet.

That was helpful!
I'm learning a lot from this forum. I hope I can contribute something.
Thank you.
Now I have to go out and buy a polarizing filter.

I haven't heard any of those bad reviews. I've been using the 8GB one for almost a year, and I just bought a 4 GB for my P&S.
I've even had it upload to the computer while the card was sitting on my computer desk.
Don't know how it does it, but it does.
What were the bad reviews?

I recently purchased an "adjustable" ND filter. Pretty much it works about the same way as my polarizing filters.

I have 2 Eye Fi cards now. They're great. A little tricky to set up as the instructions are not perfect.
Whenever I take a shot near my computer, or have a camera full of pix, I'll see the pictures upload in the lower right corner of my screen. You can keep working while that's being done. You'll find your pictures in your My Pictures folder of Documents under Eye Fi. Btw, I put a shortcut to that folder on my desktop.
In that folder you'll find all you pictures in folders that are dated with the day you shot them.
Additionally, I receive email notifications from my Eye Fi center that the pictures are uploaded WITH a mini picture of each in the eMail.
If you don't delete from your camera, but delete from your computer, they'll upload again.

Whoa! I like what you did, especially to the second one with the whale fluke. So, what did you do?
Indi :)

I'd be lying if I said I didn't already work on these pictures. (see reworked picture) I did pretty much what you suggested except I did (as I usually do) DARKEN the shadows...interesting. I'm going to try that & see what comes of it.
I just bought an adjustable ND filter for my new camera which I think will help with the clouds when I need it.
I was so excited to capture any whale flukes, and this one against the mountainous backdrop was one of my best.
Thanks for any suggestions.
Indi

Reworked


Unedited

Hi! I know that there are quite a few posts about clouds. I took these 3 pix in Alaska this Summer. It was very overcast and I was using my camera dujour, a Canon SD 1400 IS. I discovered that this camera was extremely limited when there wasn't enough available light, and so, some of my whale-watching pictures didn't come out the way I would have liked. I have since bought a Nikon 5100, but I don't think I'm going back to AK for a long while.
Here's the deal. You play with these 3 pictures and see what you can get out of them. I KNOW there's some drama in them...I can feel it, but I'd like to see what you guys can do to them to fix them up.
Just let me (and anybody else who's interested,) know what you did to them.
Thanks
Indi

I think I'd go with JKF159's version. I like the proportions better. The other is a little too narrow...but I do like the shading.
My 2 cents.

Actually, I asked the question, "How do I post photos in this forum?" in one of my first posts. Never got an answer. I feel bad when I do post in someone else's thread but if I have something to say, contribute, or compare what do I do? Should I "start a new topic?"