I have taken both a monopod and tripod on cruises. I don't, anymore. Too much work. I take a DSLR, two zoom lenses a stereo mic, extra memory, batteries, a charger and a few small items all in a man's DAP Kit. I can carry this in my carry-on, along with passport, cruise documents, prescriptions and my regular DAP Kit of toiletries. Of course, I take my cell phone, for a portable camera when going to dinner, shows (if allowed) and other activities.

Have fun!

For me, selecting menu items is the most difficult thing to do, because you have to lift the pen and move through the air to the area where you can select a menu item. Using a mouse, you always have the mouse on a surface to get to a menu item. Otherwise, a tablet and pen are more precise when selecting areas on a photo or painting.

I have never loaded an extension for Windows 10 and it has always displayed the Raw files from my Pentax K5 II.

I photographed many weddings with my Kowa Super 66. It was loud, but took great photos. I had the prism and extra backs. One warning, you can get the mechanism between the camera and backs out of synch, which can make the camera inoperable. I did that, once, during a wedding and had to use my backup camera. This is different from old Blads, which had to match cocked or unlocked status between the camera and backs. I wish I still had my Kowa.

First of all, I haven't used Video Studio. I have been using Pinnacle Studio Ultimate for many years, with a short stint using Avid Liquid and Media Composer in between. While Liquid and Media Composer are much more stable, Liquid is no longer available and Media Composer is much too expensive for home use.

All that said, Pinnacle Studio has most of the features anyone could possibly want in a video editor. If you use normal video clips to edit, Pinnacle is very efficient. If, however, you try editing a long (such as an hour long clip) into very short Individual clips, Pinnacle will really bogg down. This can happen if you have imported video from another application, in which you have created one long video clip, as opposed to individual clips based on time or when the record button was pressed.

Anyway, the latest version of Pinnacle Studio has vastly improved how special effect keys are added and manipulated. The process is much more understandable. I could go on, but, you can see all the features by going to the Web Site.

For me, besides all the features, what I love about Pinnacle Studio is the integration of Smartsound, a separate music application that has to be purchased separately. Pinnacle Studio has its own music feature, but, not as robust as Smartsound. Smartsound will add music to a track of clips and when the clips are edited, by extending or shortening them, Smartsound will completely edit itself to match the new clip lengths. The music keeps the beginning of the music selected and recompose the middle and end of the music. The Smartsound music has to be purchased and can get expensive, if you want a lot of variety. Go to www.smartsound.com for more information. This feature, alone, made me buy Pinnacle Studio.

Pinnacle Studio Ultimate has additional features that make the small extra price worth it. Corel has specials throughout the year, so you can usually get their software for a really good price. Personally, I would just take a chance on Pinnacle Studio Ultimate. It comes with 21 days of free access to StudioLot, which has training videos to get you started. Even if you hate Pinnacle Studio (which you won't) you have only spent about $100 to experience it and you may fall in love with it, like I have.

I hope this helps.

I use PaintShop Pro, which is easier to manipulate photographs. I think what you have to do with Painter Essentials is to open your photo and transform it into a raster or other type of layer. I believe there is a quick command for that. In addition, Painter Essentials has a tracing paper feature that creates a transparency layer over the photograph, which can be made fully transparent, all the way up to 100% opaque, so that you can paint over the photo, without touching the original photo.

Corel (www.corel.com) has free demos and replays of webinars that show how these features work. Corel has these for both PaintShop Pro (photo-centric) and the Painter products (for artists). I have all Corel products except for their Computer-aided Design (CAD) application. I have been very impressed with their products, especially with their huge number of digital paintbrushes, that can do wonderful things. By the way, I'm a photographer, not an artist. However, I have all but the latest paintbrushes, which are, currently, in the hundreds.

Their paintbrushes are not just for paint media. There are particle brushes that can be used for adding things like lightning, smoke, fire, stars, etc. If you want to enhance photos, artistically, that's the way to go. And their software are reasonably priced, especially when on sale. Lastly, if you get their "ultimate" versions, there are extra software applications included, which have been useful.

I hope this answers your questions.

Corel has Painter Essentials, Version 7, that has auto paint. You have to get your photos into Painter to use this function, but, it can be done. Auto paint has different algorithms and allows you to modify/repaint the completed auto paint results. From what I have seen demonstrated, there is more flexibility than anybody could want. Painter Essentials 7 is on sale for $49 right now. I have the full Painter 2020 application, which does even more, but, it is a lot more expensive. I hope this helps.

Corel PaintShop Pro has a free plugin called Pic-to-Paint which has a number of artist styles and it has paint brushes that allows you to fine-tune further. I would get the Ultimate version, which has more features and additional software.

Nice system!

I would have ordered a read/write Blue-ray drive instead of the DVD drive. Blue-ray discs hold a lot more data (photos) and read/play CDs and DVDS quicker. As an example, if I copy a CD to iTunes, for example, my CD drive load music at 8x (8 times normal speed) and the same CD on my Blue-ray drive loads from 24x to 35x. Otherwise, nice system you are buying.

A cheap, whole-in-wall, but delicious lobster place is Nunan's Lobster Hut. It's a few miles out of town. They used to serve lobster, chips and drinks, but, the lobsters were right off the boat, when in season. We loved it!

As far as photos, Kennebunkport is a quaint little town with a lot of tourists.

Enjoy!

My two cents:

I use Corel PaintShop Pro for photos, along with all the additional Corel photo-related software, such as AfterShot. I find it more user-friendly than Photoshop Elements and has most, if not all, useful features of regular Photoshop.

I use Corel Pinnacle Studio for my video editing needs. The latest version has a lot of pro features, but the rendering engine isn't as robust as Avid Media Composer. However, it's way cheaper than Avid MC, which I owned until it got too expensive.

Both of these software packages are attractively priced, especially when they are on sale.

My only suggestion is to ask someone who just came back from a trail to one of the geysers just how far and difficult the trail is. We did that and found a few too long and strenuous for us to walk. Most geysers were fairly close.

Also, there is a lot of scenery that you can enjoy/photograph from within your car or at pull-offs where you can stop and walk short distances.

Enjoy!

My first camera was a Spotmatic. I replaced it with an ME Super, which I still have.

If you are driving, the Art Museum in Eden Park is great. Not sure how much photography is allowed. Cincinnati has great old architecture that you can photograph.

One word of warning, there is part of downtown about 12 blocks away from the Ohio River that you might not want to walk through. Driving is okay, though. It has great architecture but better to photograph from your car. The core of downtown Cincinnati is very safe during the day and evening. Enjoy your stay!