I was never much on spelling, Dam would be correct.

I climb down a muddy bank to get near a stream all the while my wife scolding me for being dangerous, there was a Mill pond dam I wanted a picture of, I turned around and saw this view under the bridge that was behind me. I was balanced on a rock, this is the shot, the bridge is just in the frame at the top.

Very nice, I just recently purchased a P900. Can you share what settings you used to get these shots.

My question has always been if the end of the world came tomorrow would I have to pay my mortgage off?

Carl Sagan warned of a nuclear winter, read below, wide use of nuclear weapons can have results much more far reaching than are in the general discussion. These weapons in the hand of a mad man who believes he is invulnerable and infallible. God help us all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter

Well as for the Pentax, in its day it was a great Camera, but as I have shoot 100s of thousands of file shots I will never use a film camera again. It is unforgiving if you make a mistake in exposure. I studied the art when I was young and never became an artist in stead I became a technician of photography, I used to tell friend I can take a picture of a black rock in a well at night. You need to understand what all your settings do. ISO, F-Stop, Shutter Speed, these are all creative tools that allow you to get the shot you want. Even with new Cameras that do a lot you need to understand how the equipment work, my eclipse pictures were all done on manual with my D7100. I used a number 11 welders screen modified to fit on my 400mm lens. I used the same set-up to take pictures of Welders at work. I used F9 for a reasonable depth of field, 1/50 of a second shutter speed. I did use ISO 400, to gain some shutter speed. Then all on a tripod for stability, very important with a long lenses. So may advice use the 510 learn how all of the settings impact your shots and take lots of pictures.

This is my primary Camera and I love it. I have taken around 5000 shorts with is since I purchased it 3 years back and it has been everything I wanted it to be.

I always take flower pictures in the early morning or late afternoon. Or on a bright overcast day. I find it drives the colors to deeper richer tones. In bright sun the sensor in the camera is over whelmed with stray reflected light that causes the tones to become altered on the subject. Then take a lot of pictures add in a dab of luck and presto. Happy snapping.

Does any one know what this is, we planted it in a large planter and would like to get one next year but I did not write the name down.

I fly back and forth to Mexico all the time I carry piles of spare batteries for my Camera, Lap-Top, and just regular batteries. Never a question, they are always in carry on. The issue with Batteries is that over changed Lithium Ion batteries can explode. At lower pressure like an Airplane luggage compartments the threshold for that explosive reaction is much higher. In the passenger compartment the pressure is held at about the same as it would be if your were at 6000 to 8000 feet above sea level. This is adjusted gradually while you ascend and descend, thus ear pops. However Lithium-Ion batteries are designed to operate between sea level and 3000 feet as a normal range of altitude, 10,000 feet is the extended range. In addition do not keep Lithium-Ion batteries where it can not breath, that will trapped gas in the battery and may create heat. Never keep your phone in your pocket ever, never let your wife keep it in here purse on her lap on the plane. So no issue if proper care is taken. I do not believe that Ice land is under same no electronics restriction as Dubai.

I have been to China, some years ago and much to my dismay Cameras were not as inexpensive as one would expect. They were the same as discount sales in the US. There are Chinese Cameras but I would not buy one as there would be no support once out side the country. All others are heavily taxed making them to expensive to buy.

I have an I-Phone 5 which I carry but I find it very limiting, the pictures are very grainy, I believe my lens is also clouded. I am a bit fussy about pictures, I always get comments on what I take for work which is not my job but unlike a smart phone, with areal camera you can do so much more.

I am going to China on a business trip, I was looking at the A900 to carry in my computer bag to get the random shot that I might come across. I generally use my D7100 but the two VP's I am traveling with might not appreciate all that extra hardware. I used to have a small point and shoot Nikon but it was taken out of my car. I am looking for comments. I do want to keep my spend under $ 350. So as I know will happen please comment.

Thanks all.

Personally I love this shot, the Bird is great, but that roof needs to be replaced.

One of the best ways to be sure your Hard Drive does not fail is to replace them often. I replace my drives every year, I use the old drives as back up units. I copy over the data then unplugged the drive and store it is dry container with some desiccant packets. I have been an Electrical engineer for over 40 years, and I have worked with computers since the 80's. My first computer was per-digital camera. That said I will say that using portable drives is great but do not leave them running. It is best to connect make your back up and disconnect them. Those running Drives in Raid, you should also be running some type of drive life software, this will report the condition of the drive. Also be ware that the mirror drive does not contain an exact duplicate of the primary drive, it is a mirror. If the Primary fails the process for restoring the mirror is challenging. This dual drive system should be run in a server type environment using three drives. One containing the server operating system and two running in Raid. That way the server operating system can always be restored if that dive fails and it will not affect the data drives. And if one of the data drives fails it is easily restored from the remaining drive. In this discussion there hast been discussion about types of drives, I would will add that the latest SSD Solid state drives are as good as it gets, in addition great advancements have been made in conventional drives. I have found that the Crucial SSD drives have the best performance for the cost. I am not a fan of Samsung as I had much heartache with one of their SSD units. All drives need to be handled with much care, recently a friend lost a 3TB drive because he kept it connected all the time, and it was on an unstable surface, it was also in the side up vertical position. While the drive makes will say that drives are all position I will tell you that current production models have only one double row ball bearing and it is designed to have the drive in the horizontal label up position. Also never move a drive when it is running, that can be the kiss of death, never put one next to a printer or other device that creates vibration drive heads are micro inches off the spinning disks, 10 times closer than the thickness of a hair. If the head comes in contact with the disk both are damaged. SSD drives do not suffer from this but they don't like strong magnetic field, they also incorporate TFT, thin film technology. A hard impact at an odd angle can snap a circuit connection and your done. I always treat my drives as if they were my wife's Grandmas Chrystal. I do use the rule of three for my back ups. But all the drives are in the same location, not the best idea. Happy Snapping.