Thanks everyone for the ideas and comments. I do have a flicker of hope and will head down the road of some of your ideas. I'll keep you posted with success and $$. At the end of the day I guess I hope this helps someone else to not be as dumb as I was in storing important pictures.

Happy Holidays to you all,

Learned a very painful lesson on storing your pics. I puchased a seagate 1.5T external hard drive and have been copying my pictures to it for the last coupld of years. A week ago I got the click of death (did not know about this click of death before) and now I can't get anything to read my HD and I am afraid I have lost all family, sports, vacation, Grandson, work shots, etc, ect. It makes me sick to my stomach to think I have lost them and the 1000's of hour spent on them, worst is my grandson who is three and I have lost those memories.

From reading about it on the internet is looks like Seagate knew this is a problem but does not want to givr any help other then to send it to their support team to fix it. They charge a minimum of $500 just to sniff at it and that does not include the fix. I would probably pay the money just to get the pics back....if I knew they could get them back.

Other than saving pics to something other than a hard drive or a online program like cloud in the future, does anyone have any ideas on how I could possibly get them back, other than sending to Seagate.

What is the price. Thx

This taken when I was walking out the door from work and I had to run across the parking lot to my truck. unlock the truck, open my camera bag and turn it on and then try and get a setting that would work. I had just enough time to swing around and take a couple of shots before it was gone. I had a couple of people wondering what the heck I was doing.

Is is better to shoot in black and White or shoot in color and make the changes using your software in photo shop.

Is it a good idea to have your lenses proffesionally cleaned once a year or more? I would say I shoot on average a minimum of 3000+ shot per month in all conditions. I try and be cautious but do notice some dust on the inside of the lenses. Would that be the same internally for your camera body.
Thanks

Who cares where people grew up Gessman, no excuses....a jerk is a jerk and that doesn't make you passionate. Time for you to go to be and maybe tomorrow your profile pic will have a smile instead of a glare and you will be more forgiving to the less worthy....but probably not.

Cindy,

Same question I asked for a couple of years. I was thinking 5D MII and started buying lenses for it and then my focus changed some and I started shooting sports and my grandson. I went back and forth and ask and asked. last year I had the 7D in my hands at a trade show and then put it back, could not pull the trigger. Finally I decided to go with the 7D and will look at the 5D Mark??? in a couple of years. Most important are the lenses. Now I just need a good everyday lense for my 7D and I saw some good ideas from the feedback you had on your email. Have fun with your new camera..

I have ran into a problem where I have downloaded my pics (and always make a copy to edit first) and then cropped them only to find out after, I can't order to the standard size 5x7, 8x10 etc. I have use a couple of different companies that force you to crop more for those standard sizes and if your shot is to tight before cropping you might lose a important part of your pic or cut something off and it also works the other way if you crop to bring something closer. I learned from experience after taking some family portraits for someone that I needed to crop and the pic were good but I could not print. I have not found a solution to this problem and I have another family portait to take this weekend....

I have a picture that I think could sell for political reasons and the timing is right but 1. I am not sure how to get it our there 2. I am afraid if i put it out there someone will steal it and then it will be worthless. I have had poeple that have seen it say just send t to me and they will take care of it.....right.

Yep, My depth of field was not as good as it shoud have been and using a little faster shutter speed would have given me better depth of field. What I meant by using a lower ISO speed was that since they were walking towards me as I was taking the picture, my lower shutter speed may have been what caused some of the blur, along with being a rookie. I was shooting on a tripor also. Thanks again.

Thank for the tips. I was shooting my ISO starting at 200 and went up to 360. I'll try 400 and a few others next time. One pic was five of them walking towards me and the outside two were slightly out of focus and the three in the middle were fine.

I am learning through trial and error and more errors about taking family portraits. Any reccomendations for best lenses or tips. I am not taking shots in a studio but most are outside with only natural lighting.

Last time out my pictures just did not seem as crisp as I expect they should be. Thanks for the help!

Practice, Read, Practice, Practice, Read, Photo Clubs and Photo Classes and more practice. Try different things. There are great one and two day classes put on by local camera stores or independant photographers trying to make a living....and of course practice. Have fun!