I would like to agree with Cholly,if you have a local Brick and Mortar store their prices will be very close and if you want them to stay open you need to support them.I live in an area where the closest camera dealer is 65 miles away. I buy there as much as possible if they go out of business it would be mail order only.

I agree with alandg46 sometimes when using a on camera flash the lens hood can cause a shadow. They can be turned around to save space.

Have both Nik and photomatix both have their strengths and weaknesses. I believe the both offer a 30 trial give them both a spin and see for yourself so you can decide.

Lightzone is an open source lightroom replacement. Just started playing with it, seems fairly easy to master. Lightzoneproject.org

Just reinstall the NIK Suite does not use a license. If you contact customer support they will send you a link to re-download your software. I just did this.

I have actually had some pretty good luck with the 32 gig transcend cards. I am shooting a D800 and the card keeps up ok as long as I am not getting crazy. The camera only shoots 4 frames per second at that resolution. And I agreed move to USB 3 to speed upload will help for readers big hard drives and a fast processor with lots of ram is probably more important especially if you are dealing with bracketed images. You can always slow down your shooting and be more selective. Also I agree more smaller cards is probably better so photos are spread over multiple cards if one fails. I know some shoot using the second card slot as a backup of each shot since if you are shooting something like a wedding failure is not an option. Minimum card size is relative though I would probably stick with at least 16 gig for the d800 or the likes of the 5d mark 3

I would suggest a NAS like perhaps a Synology Diskstation 8 bay or a Drobo. Running raid then if one drive fails you install a replacement and it rebuilds. With 8 bays and 4tb drives would get you up to 32tb in one box.

Perhaps with no experience and in that price range you might consider something like a used or refurbed sony nex-5. Lenses are less and you still have the versatility of interchangeable lenses and a fairly auto interface.

You might just consider renting both from some place like borrowlenses.com put them through their paces on your camera and judge the results for yourself. I see I am duplicating an earlier comment suggesting lensgiant same idea. You may like one much more than the other for your application. Try before you buy either lens not free or cheap,a small rental investment before you buy would be wise.

Try downloading Trey Ratcliff stuck on earth app it contains crowd sourced locations from all over