This machine has 32GB RAM. That's more than adequate. It also has two hard drives, one SSD (512GB) and one HDD (1TB). That's fine too. The price is good. The only thing I see that it doesn't have is a dedicated graphics card. Depending on what you do, it may not matter, but it might if you're editing video. Video editors sometimes make heavy use of the graphics GPU. Anyway, fine machine on a budget. Some on UHH are going to suggest spending megabucks or having a custom machine built. Whatever suits them, but buying from Costco is the easiest thing in the world.
cahale wrote:
The military has plans for every known scenario and even some unknown ones. They share a commonality - none of them work.
All it takes is to set off a nuke in the upper atmosphere. The satellites would not necessarily be destroyed, but it would ionize the atmosphere and prevent communication between the ground and satellites. I don't know how long this effect would last, but it's a known issue.
Back in the day, our nuclear missiles relied on self-contained inertial guidance, accurate enough to take out a target at 6000 miles with no communication with the ground or satellites for guidance. I wonder if this is still the case. GPS could easily be knocked out within minutes.
lbrande wrote:
Smart engineer. Always look to nature first. Several million years of evolution will probably give us a good basis for the optimum design.
Isn't it interesting that modern airplanes have wings and a tail? Just saying.
dbrugger25 wrote:
It might have been DirectTV. They installed a dish antenna on my roof several years ago. I got poor reception and often the image would "dissolve" on the screen. Whenever it rained the signal was constantly poor. I kept calling and was told they weren't responsible for the weather. I would explain the image problems and they would remotely reset my system and the problems continued. Then, one day a workman on my property noticed that the dish was mounted too low on my steep roof and was only partially seeing the sky. I called and was told that I would have to pay $100.00 for a service call.
In a much earlier time period, I had a business. Our phone service was with Verizon but there was an unspecified service charge on our bill. I finally noticed it and called Verizon to inquire about the charge and was told it was an ATT charge. I called ATT and, after a long inquiry, was told it was a charge for two toll-free numbers. I didn't know we had toll free numbers and asked what the numbers were, and they told me. I asked how long I had those numbers and was told it had been five years. I asked how I happened to get those numbers and they couldn't or wouldn't tell me.
I explained that I was the business owner and had never authorized those numbers and that I wanted a refund.
$178.00 per month for about five years would amount to $10,680. They told me I could get a refund for three months and that was all I could get. I insisted on talking to a person with more authority and worked my way up the chain of command. I got nowhere. In fact, the higher up I went, the ruder the people were. At least I got a little refund and stopped the money bleed. I did file a complaint with the appropriate government agencies, such as the FCC, but they didn't do anything to help me.
You can now see why I hate ATT and will never do business with them.
It might have been DirectTV. They installed a dis... (
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It pays to look at your bill every month and question charges that you don't understand. I had the same problem with Comcast, being charged for a modem when they never put a modem in my house. The charge was there for as long as I could view my bills online. I always used my own and upgraded as necessary. Like with ATT, they only refunded three months of charges.
I used ATT for my wireless service for a long time. I got a discount through the company I worked for. Even with that, the charges were out of line with other companies. I ditched them for Consumer Cellular. But interestingly, Consumer Cellular will give you a T-Mobile SIMM card as the default or ATT if you ask. I got poor cell phone service in the hilly area where I live with the T-Mobile card and switched to ATT. At least I'm getting their cell service for a lot less than they'd charge me for it.
As for DirecTV, it was a disaster. (From a Satellite Dish. I don't know anything about their Internet streaming plan, which didn't exist when I used their service.) Reception was poor in rainy weather. The DVR recordings were hit or miss. They'd freeze. They would speed up suddenly to lightning speed. DirecTV didn't include all of the local sub-channels like MeTV and others. I had to resort to using an antenna if my wife wanted to watch Leave It To Beaver reruns.
I have an ATT landline, a real landline, not what some companies call a landline that relies on the Internet. I'm about to ditch it. I always felt that it was a safety issue in case of an emergency and possible loss of cell service and Internet. It's costing me over $100 per month. The extra charges on the bill are a mile long. I don't even know what most of them are for. ATT wants to pull out of the landline business in California. Fine with me.
jerryc41 wrote:
Netflix offered me the chance to upgrade the quality of the video I watch for an addition $7.50 a month. To persuade me, they showed a blurry example of what I'm getting now and a very sharp example of what I could be watching. I really don't care! besides that, what I am watching now is sharp, provided it was recorded sharp. Going from $17 to $25 is not in my future.
They want you to pay for UHD/4K. I don't find standard HD to be particularly blurry at the distance I sit to watch TV. I have 55 and 65 inch TVs. When I play a UHD/4K disc, I can see some difference but not much unless I get very close to the TV. I'm not going to pay them for the upgrade either.
AzPicLady wrote:
The mottling in the sky is from my trying to remove the thousands of dust spots! The company that developed the film is the top place in the Valley, so I don't fault them. I fault the scanner. It creates horrid dust spots!
You're probably right. Removing dust spots can leave behind artifacts. I would want to be sure before buying a new scanner. You can take a negative that hasn't had contact with the scanner, preferrably with the sky in it, and look at it with a strong magnifier to see if there is anything on the film. This just doesn't seem normal and takes away from the beautiful picture.
AzPicLady wrote:
On Wednesday I took the new Hasselblad with a roll of Ektar 100 out to the river to see what the Hasse would do with my favorite local mountain. I got the roll developed that afternoon by TCR and came home with the negs to do the scanning. Ever since then I've been working to clean up the dust spots. (That's why I don't like scanning!) I found a spot where I could get some foreground interest in the frame for Cany143.
The resulting TIFF is 201 mg. Sort of large, no?
I think this camera is a keeper. It's easy to use and gives pretty nice results. What do you think?
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I just downloaded your picture and look at the image at 100%. Unless you have weird clouds where you live, the sky should not look like that. The blue appears mottled, not even. There are broad areas of irregular white where there shouldn't be any. I don't believe that this is caused by dust. So A. Get someone else to develop your film and see if the results are the same, or B. You're creating artifacts from removing dust spots in a photo editor (seems unlikely but possible.)
I have scanned thousands of negatives and slides. Dust spots have a sharp margin. Same with hair from my dogs that got on them. These are my thoughts.
NateB wrote:
There's something I’d like to say, but it would probably be rather useless, cuz this whole discussion has been rather lame, so I s’pose I’ll just keep quiet, cuz it might start another useless argument. Bottom line, use what works for you. Different people have different likes, so just cuz you prefer one brand doesn’t mean it’s the best, neither does it mean that others have no right to prefer a different brand. To each his own
P. S. If everyone would use the same brand, the other camera companies would go out of business and then there’d be no more competition and then what? Camera technology wouldn’t advance nearly as fast anymore
There's something I’d like to say, but it would pr... (
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I think the point of this thread was a joke. You need to understand a bit about the person in the title. Nothing serious here.
AzPicLady wrote:
On Wednesday I took the new Hasselblad with a roll of Ektar 100 out to the river to see what the Hasse would do with my favorite local mountain. I got the roll developed that afternoon by TCR and came home with the negs to do the scanning. Ever since then I've been working to clean up the dust spots. (That's why I don't like scanning!) I found a spot where I could get some foreground interest in the frame for Cany143.
The resulting TIFF is 201 mg. Sort of large, no?
I think this camera is a keeper. It's easy to use and gives pretty nice results. What do you think?
On Wednesday I took the new Hasselblad with a roll... (
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It's a beautiful picture. I'm puzzled by your need to clean up dust spots on a newly scanned negative. If there is crud on the film, then you need to find a new place to develop your film. If you're not able to control dust getting on the film in the scanning process, then you need to work on a routine that discourages it, blower, light brush etc. The Staticmaster brushes are quite effective, but they've gotten really expensive and have a limited life before you have to replace them or the Polonium inside. Don't forget that dust on the glass of the scanner will be picked up as well. You might consider having the film developer scan the negatives for you, but results may vary, depending on who you use.
A TIFF of that size would be about normal for a 6x6 negative, especially if you're scanning to 16 bit depth (48 bit color).
Bohica wrote:
Hold it, cuddle it feed it and call it George! You kids wont get the connection
A real photographer holds their Nikon in their lap while watching TV.
User ID wrote:
Youre spozed to end the title with "And what do you Nikon Users Think ?"
Happiness is a warm Nikon. Hold it, caress it, stroke it, sleep with it. Never let it go. Only a true photographer would know this.
User ID wrote:
It depends.
Not joking.
But Im unwilling to rehash all the tiresome details of "it depends" for the zillionth time.
Ill only point out that viewing on a screen demands more resolution than a wall hanger print if the image is intriguingly full of small details. Its much more comfortable to zoom into a screen image than to stick your nose onto a wall hanger sized print. its verrrry much easier to "wander around" in a screen image than in a hard copy.
It's much easier to zoom in on a screen to view details in a picture, but a large print, such as found in public places and sometimes in a home, is for others to view, and when I encounter such pictures, say in a restaurant, I do "look around" for detail. Large format pictures from the 1800s and earlyl 1900s are particularly interesting to me. I like to see in detail what people were doing, what cars they were driving, what they were wearing, what businesses people shopped at etc. I don't own the original to view those pictures on a computer screen or possibly on a large TV. More pixels will make details in a large print easier for OTHERS to see details.
All suggestions are appreciated. I'm leaning toward the Nikon 200-500. I have many opportunities to take pictures of birds, squirrels, turkeys etc just from my front porch. Even with cropping, the results leave something to be desired.
kpmac wrote:
Nicely done. You are correct; a longer lens would have helped.
Thanks. I'm going to have to break down and buy something longer, perhaps a 200-500 and deal with the weight.