Many thanks for yet another wonderful macro photo.

I have a SONY A6500 mirrorless with an inexpensive 16-50 mm SONY lens. Total weight is about 600 grams (not including a Peak Design strap. Has In Body Image Stabilization (IBIS), good View Finder. Much to my surprise, despite the marginal quality of this low priced lens, can print 20x30 inch scenics with excellent sharpness and very good color that "almost" match the quality of images taken with my A1 with GM lenses (well, that is certainly a bit of an exaggeration!). But for a lightweight travel camera when hiking it is excellent. Not as compact as a RX10 or RX100, but easier to brace, and allows interchangeable lenses. APS-C, 24 MP images.
It uses the smaller battery than a A6600, and is moderately tolerant of moisture. I have seen it listed on Craigslist for as little as ca. $625. Fits into a typical parka pocket or fanny pack.

Is there any software APP that degrades the quality of a CD so that it sounds like a Vinyl LP after half a dozen playing ? Maybe clip the dynamic range, add noisy snap, crackle and pops?
Variable speed turntable to playback to provide a nice wobbly sound?
Repetitive "stuck in groove", or skip grooves?
Let's feed this rant!
How about shifting to 1" reel to reel tape to hear the purity of the the original format of the studio recordings before they were then converted to Vinyl Masters?
Harvey

The people at CVS were very polite and tried to be as helpful as possible. They explained patiently the limitations of their training. If the prints were unacceptable, they did not charge me for them. Some of the results were quite good.

The major problems were that the colors of the 4x6 (chemical process) were not predictive of the output of poster size images printed with ink process. Color fidelity appeared to depend on the spectrum of colors being printed. If the color was a rich blue (sky), the poster (ink) was often either washed out (grayish) or with a purple cast. Saturated reds were washed out into a pale orange.
If I can predictably modify the colors for each of their printers (4x6 chemical process; 8x12 chemical process; 16 x 20 ink process) and match the gamuts of each printer, it may help improve quality of the outputs.

Hi BurkPhoto,
Many thanks for your helpful comments. Your comments directly address many of my concerns.
Harvey

Many thanks to the various UHH participants for their useful hints, judgments and evaluations.
I am considering pursuing the purchase of a suitable printer, but am a bit hesitant because of the steep learning curve. Do any of you have suitable beginner's level primer on color printing that you might recommend?

With apologies to the people who point out the paradox of spending a lot of money on gear, and hesitating on spending money on printing, my goal is to find the most economical protocol for my everyday images. I might suggest that the vast majority of digital images of field photographers are posted on internet sites, and are only very rarely actually printed as hard copies. Under the critical assessment of evaluating hard copies of seemingly desireable photos, I am benefitting from learning about a totally novel aspects of looking, learning and finally seeing yet another set of skills associated with photography.
As an example of such a learning curve, I delight in realizing that my photos have greatly improved as a result of shifting from film to digital images. This is partly due to the major difference, when shooting a bird in flight, in the cost of shooting 30 to 50 photos on film, versus shootiing that many photos of a bird with a digital camera. The digital images are essentially a "free" set of images. This encourages exploration, and is evident to my various bird watching photographer-friends, as they all comment on how their photos are greatly improved since the introduction of the latest generation of mirrorless digital cameras. As I now greatly increase the number of photos that I consider worthy of printing, it includes consideration of what I should be looking to see in the final prints. One of the many points that I now include, when assessing my images, is a far more critical attention to white balance, ISO, noise levels, background, color contrast, focus, tracking, etc. THe use of inexpensive 4x6 prints, (even from CVS) has been helpful. I don't think it requires an apology for trying to keep costs down while pursuing my learning curve.

I am one of many photographers searching for a suitable replacement for COSTCO. COSTCO provided good service with helpful suggestions about corrections and moderate prices.
In the course of searching for suitable replacement for Costco printing services, I recently started to use a local CVS printing facility in Del Mar, California. To date I have printed the total of about 40 digital images at CVS. I have printed Mainly pictures of birds in flight.
Images taken with either a Sony A1 or SONY A7R4, mainly using a Sony 100 to 400 GM or the Sony 200 to 600 G. images all originally captured as ARW (raw) files and processed with Adobe Lightroom classic. Processed on a Microsoft laptop with high end screen. Results of images we're compared to those viewed on a professional workstation with a calibrated BenQ 32” monitor; Modifications were limited to simple cropping, adjustment of color temperature minimal changes to exposure and other basic modifications of light balance, saturation, etc. Original exposures were generally found to be satisfactory with ISOauto ( from 100-3400)., in Manual Mode (usually shutter speed of 1/1600, f stop of f 6.3 to 8.0, White Balance of camera adjusted relative to conditions when shooting. (i.e., cloudy, sunny, etc.)

My general procedure is to export a high resolution JPEG file from Lightroom (as sRGB). I then print a copy of the same file at three sizes: 4x6 (glossy and matte). 8x12 (glossy and matte), 16 by 20 Matte finish poster size. The CVS printing facility is a Kodak commercial throughput system with different printers for each of these three major sizes. This allows me to compare the results of the exact same data file and Matt vs glossy, and different size output machines.

The results have been most disappointing. despite my best efforts to provide suitable digital files well within the gamut range with the printer saturation of the Blues and the Reds and the spectrum differing drastically with each size printer. The technicians running these printers at CVS explained that they have minimal training in modifying the resulting prints. In notable contrast to this, the technicians at Costco carefully matched the color coding in each output size. In general the 4x6 was satisfactory, and the goal was then to adjust the 8x10 and 20x 30 to matchd those those results. This allowed me to confirm that the color values in different parts of the final photo of the 4x6 closely matched that of the 20 x 30. The COSTCO technicians I was fortunate to work with we're committed to high quality results. Unfortunately I don't recall which brand of printer they were using. I vaguely recall that it may have been a Fuji printer. but they clearly knew what they were doing. In fairness to the technicians at CVS, they made every effort to try to improve things, that explained that they had not been trained in any aspects of the machines other than restocking the paper and replacing the dyes. They indicated that they ran a routine test every morning when turning on the machine, but that was the limit of their knowledge of what was going on inside the box.
in general the four by six prints provided the best results. when printing pictures of a large white egret against the blue sky on a 8 by 12 the blue sky often presented as a purple sky!
the CVS Prints were listed at the same price as the Costco, though on occasion CVS would have a reduced price sale if ordered on the Internet. But they were all printed on the same machine as the regular production item.
I would hope that other UHH people will share their experiences with CVS, COSTCO, Shutterbug (?) or other companies.
BTW, I also spoke with the photo desk at a different branch of CVS and was informed that they had the same limited training.
Many thanks
Harvey

Lovely pics. Suggest that you might reduce highlights a bit. White in head area is a bit burnt in. try reducing brightness of Blue.

Much depends on what you are shooting. If shooting pictures of Birds in Flight (BIF) and you want to capture changing wing configurations and positions, and depending on speed of changes of wing, then higher speed of 30 frames/second is important. If shooting at 30 FPS on SONY A1, I may shoot continuous runs of more than 100-150 frames. When shooting at these high speeds, it is important to have the very high speed ability to empty the buffer. This requires the CF cards. I should add that I only occasionally shoot those high speeds, but the resulting pix are worth the cost & effort. If you are shooting at 5 - 10 FPS, the slower UHS-II cards are adequate. Most of the time, with slow moving or static birds, high frame rates are a bother and demand too much time to review and discard the many similar photos. ALso, high FPS is useful if shooting pictures of high speed sports, such as tennis, batter hitting ball, etc.

You didn't specify the camera you are using, or the type of photography you are doing. If you go for the pricey new SONY A1 or Nikon Z9, they use CF Express cards. SONY uses type A, Nikon (I think) uses type B. The SONY also allows use of SD cards.
I shifted to a SONY A1 about 6 months ago. I initially put in one CF and one SD card. After two days, I bought a second CF Express card. I initially found little difference in performance between SD UHS-II cards and the SONY CF Express. But as I became more familiar with the A1, shooting mostly Birds In Flight (BIF) at high frame rates, the CF Express Cards proved their worth. When shooting at 30 Frames Per Second for more than 3 seconds, the concern is filling the buffer to the point that the camera may no longer keep up with your rate of shooting when using the SD card. That is very unlikely to happen when using the CF Express card.
If you are shooting landscapes, streetscenes, macros, etc., then the very expensive CF cards have little benefit. Save your money and go with a good quality SD UHS-II card. If shooting BIF or race cars, sports with fast action, especially long runs of several seconds, you will find that the CF Express cards are well worth the cost. This is also beneficial when shooting high speed video at 240 FPS, 8K and 4.2.2. It won't make any difference with standard 24p/30p video.
As with so many things in life, the answer always starts with "Well, it depends...."

I recall reading that they can run on land up to about 17-20 Miles/Hour. In other words, they can easily outrun most of us!

SONY firmware 1.3 modified the Lossless RAW Compressed format. Only if you shoot with one of the newer S,M,L formats will you have trouble with Lightroom Classic when you try to read the newer format. If you shoot with JPEG or simple RAW you should have no problem. If you are unable to read the new format, then you will have to download the very latest version of LightRoom Classic (?Version 11.4?). When I clicked on the Adobe Update tab, it updated Photoshop, Lightroom Classic, as well as the RAW viewer. But I don't know if the Adobe RAW viewer update is essential for the SONY A1 firmware 1.3?
Good Luck and have fun.
Harvey

New firmware 1.3 was released last week for the SONY A1. I tried to find information on the benefits and drawbacks of the new software. Unfortunately, it didn't include the hoped for "Pro-Capture" for saving the frames immediately prior to the moment you actually press the shutter button, or evidence of fixing the bug associated with the SONY RMT-P1BT remote controller. Nontheless, I immediately downloaded and updated the new version of the firmware. One of the claimed benefits is new Lossless RAW compressed file formats (Small, Medium and Large versions).

A major bottleneck presented itself as soon as I tried to download and open the new Lossless RAW Compressed file. I was unable to open files taken the next morning when using Ligthroom Classic. Being increasingly slow witted, it took a while for me to recognize the temporal relationship of the new firmware and this problem. Then this morning I noted that Adobe sent me a message indicating that Lightroom, Photoshop and a few other programs had posted new versions of their software for their programs. It listed changes in the Masking routines, the new Lossless RAW compression, but no mention of the new SONY A1 file format.
I tried to install the new updates to LightRoom Classic version 14, but the Adobe Loader wouldn't allow me to install the new version of LightRoom Classic. The installer repeatedly gave me error messages telling me to close the open program of LightRoom Classic, even though I found no evidence in the Task Manager that it was open. Problem was that the hidden chambers of Microsoft did not inform me that my error was that my memory card (CF Express A) was in the card reader and thought that LightRoom Classic was open. Once I removed the memory card from the card reader, the Updater installed the newest version of the program.
When I then installed the memory card, program automatically opened and it was able to read all the variety of new RAW Lossless Compressed files.
Problem solved, though I wasted the better part of an hour discovering the source of my error.
Hope this saves some of you the aggravation of nonspecific error messages.
Harvey

Magnificent action shots of pelican. You managed to capture the angle of the head in a dive, the vergence movement of the eyes to a frontal angle, the changing configuration of the wings and head. One of the best sequence of pelican in a dive that I have seen. Where were you at the time? Camera? Details of photos?

Professional grade cameras often advertize that the mounting coupler for the lens is reinforced to accommodate heavier lenses. But I can't recall if they then provide guidelines for weight of the lens. SONY stated that their A1 camera had a redesign of the lens coupling ring for greater strength. Their 200-600 mm telephoto has neck strap mounts on the tripod collar and recommends that the weight be carried by those mounts rather than the camera mounts.