I have been to the Biltmore Estate, Plan on a whole day at least to see everything, and it should be beautiful in April. If you happen to be in the central part of the state, the NC Zoological Park near Asheboro, is really nice. Also check out, WWW.ourstate.com which is the website of a NC State magazine that has lots of ideas that might interest you. They will be glad to sell you a subscription also if you want one.

The reason that I personally wanted to try some of the free programs was to learn. I have never done any PP on the computer so did hot have a clue where to start. With the price of some of the programs, I felt that I had to make the same choice about it as I did when I purchased the camera, buy once! However I will not get on here and cry about my choices, I will do the best that I can with what I have. After all is said and done I am trying to make things better for myself.

I love this camera also. I have found that when it comes to focusing, if you are looking through the view finder, pay attention to the red dots in the frame. Make sure one of them is on the area that you want in perfect focus and it will focus on that area, If you don't it will grab something that is in one of those and focus on that, and then take the picture.

I have a Canon T3i that came with a PNY class 10 8GB sd card. Worked great for stills and still does, but when I tried to shoot any video, it would not keep up with the camera for more than a few seconds and then the thing would just stop recording. Got a Sandisk extreme Pro rated at over 90 meg/sec write speed and I am doing video just fine now. So BS aside, you will get what you pay for. You may find a cheap one that will work, and then you just may not. I want one that I know is going to work, so I will buy the best that I can find. I will stick with Sandisk.

Yes, I too have taken lots of photo's, actually slides, on military bases during shows. There is nothing classified on display there so they don't mind. But I can tell you something that happened to me while I was stationed in Germany, and this is not hearsay, it actually happened to me. My friend and I were on an american Air Base where we had just purchased a new lens for each of our camera's. We went out to the observation area near the runway and was taking a few slides of the aircraft that were coming and going. Then one came out of a hanger and started towards the area where we were. I pointed it out to my friend and told him that I had to have a picture of that one, Put the camera up to my eye and was getting it focused and ready to go, when the camera was gently pushed towards the ground, and a voice says, "You don't want to do that."Naturally the anger had already flared in me and I was just about to give someone a piece of my mind, when I looked to my left and saw the gold oak leafs of a major facing me with his hand still gently on my camera! I said well yes, I really do, Sir, but if you say that I don't, then I won't. He said you may watch, but no photo's. From my memory and the very few pictures that I have seen of a U-2 spyplane, that is what took off that day.

I don't know if everyone would be that helpful or not, but the local folk know that I have a great interest in the older prop driven aircraft, and that if I drive by and there is one parked that I will come in and ask if I can get a few pictures of it. I have never been turned down, and they have been most helpful. And yes, I agree that I would not find it to my liking if I went out and found someone taking pictures of my property without asking first.

I have been to the local airport several times with my camera. The first thing that i did however was to go inside and ask if i would be allowed to take some pictures of some of the aircraft that were parked there. A couple were of particular interest to me. Not only was I told yes, they allowed me to go out through the doors onto the asphalt and I did not have to fight the fence and bushes to get a good shot!

I still have my original Canon FT-QL that I just love. I bought that camera in the base exchange back in 1967 and it went all over Europe and Turkey with me. Everything works including the light meter. It used the PX-13 mercury battery, which as you say is no longer available, but I have found that a Duracell PX625A, which is alkaline, will work just fine, You just need to change it more often, as the voltage drop off is rather quick over their life, where the mercury cells held their voltage right up to the end of their life before they just died.

I guess that in some peoples minds that I waste money, but when I pick up something I want it to work, Period! For that reason when I need a car battery, I get the biggest most powerful one that will fit into the box, Not a cheepo rated for two years, that yes, will start the car under the best of circumstances, but if there is a problem, I guarantee you that it will let you down. So keep buying that memory that works for you, After all it is your money. I, on the other hand will continue to get the best that I can afford, and recommend others to do the same. I haven't been disappointed in doing this, and don't expect too.

I have the T3i, same basic camera, and for sure all class 10 cards are not the same. I purchased the 32 GB Sandisk Extreme Pro, which has a guaranteed write speed of over 90 meg/s, and it does HD video just fine. This card is not cheap, be forewarned! I had to order mine on line, I could not find one localy. Best Buy.com has it for a list price of $165 right now, but on sale for $99. This is what I paid for my card. They are on backorder right now, but you can go ahead and order it at the sale price, and they will ship when it comes in. They will try to get you to change your order to another card, but refuse and wait for it. You will not be sorry. Just playing around the other day and ran off over 8 mins of video. A class 10 PNY 8 GB card came with the camera, but that card only has a write speed of around 15 meg/s, and the camera would take less than a minute of video before the buffer was full and everything came crashing down!

OK, thanks for that reply, I now realize that my older Canon lens were that, manual lens, fixed focal and not zooms like the newer lens that came with my latest camera, but I had looked at several other lens and noticed that the lines were gone, but now realize that they too were the zooms, with auto focus.

I have a question that may or may not be related to this, but neverless, here goes. I notice that most, Maybe all new lens do not have the dof lines marked on the lens like all my older Canon lens do. Is this related to "bokeh" , or just the lens maker getting lazy?

[quote=rivernan][quote=Nikonian72
Personally, I hate the term "bokeh". It was adopted just a few years ago. Matthew Brady must be spinning in hes grave!

me too. What ever happened to depth of field?[/quote]

It lives on with us that got our start some years ago! I absolutely hate change when it is just for the sake of change, and it seems to me that is all this "bokeh" is.

I have never had but one extended warranty that i felt paid off. That one was on an electric range. I purchased the same camera from BB and declined the extended warranty package.

USAF 1965-1969 Air Force Communications service, Lindsey Air Force Base, Wiesbaden, Germany. Loved Europe, Then got sent to a remote communications site on a mountain top in Turkey. 1 Year on a mountain top and the winter conditions were considered Artic to say the least. By end of winter had over 14 feet of snow on the ground. Wasn't bad I thought, then in the summer boredom set in, and I realized that there were places you didn't really like. Enlistment ended and I came home to find that Vietnam era vets were not thought very highly of by the folks back home. Booy, what a slap in the face that was, still hurts. I am gald to see that attitude has changed towards present military personel.