The story on the .mp3 file has zero credibility. I won't bother to explain why. I am quite confident that there will be no spaceships from somewhere beyond our solar system visiting earth in the foreseeable future.

The sheer size of the universe and the long history of life on earth make me believe that the universe has abundant life. Scientists are eager to find proof of intelligent extraterrestrial life. This would be big news and not a threat that would need to be hidden. Science is an ongoing search for truth about our world and beyond.

To me, the moon landings were mankind's greatest engineering achievement. I have often wondered how many man years of effort it took. I don't know how many people worked full time on it. But if I assume 10,000 (NASA and all subcontractors) working for 8 years, that gives 80 thousand man years. And the work was done about 50 years ago! The latest consumer technology was color television and touch-tone telephone "dialing".

Amanda Peet or Claire Forlani!!!

Oh, I get it. Lincoln delivered his address at Gettysburg. Not his Aggress.

Thanks to all who offered their comments.

The aperture setting is way too high. look up "diffraction limited aperture". I have a D800. I have tested it. Great sharpness with all my lenses from f/1.8 to f/8. f/11 starts to get fuzzy. by f/22 images are very fuzzy. I'm time limited this morning; I am certain this is you main problem.

Was walking my dog and looking at the trees in my neighborhood. The beauty in this tree really caught my eye. Nikon D800, Nikon 24-70 mm f/2.8 lens @ 70mm; f/8, 1/125, ISO 100.

Thank you SO MUCH tommyf. You understand my viewpoint.

Beliefs are merely the paths that lead a person to specific actions. A person's actions, especially towards others, says volumes about that person. Perhaps the most generous action one can do is to give up your life to save the live(s) of other(s). Most folks won't get that opportunity. But all of us get many opportunities to help others.

So many people think no further than themselves. Where would civilization be today if EVERYONE acted only to serve his own interests?

I believe that many of the people who want to call the U.S. a Christian nation feel that Christianity is the only path to moral behavior and to God. I believe that there are many paths. And I wish that there were more opportunities to discuss the differences and similarities among religious beliefs. Furthermore, I wish that everyone would examine why they have their religious beliefs. Is it simply because it is what their parents believed or did they search for answers to religious questions on their own?

I offer these thoughts out of respect for all readers of this forum. Having informed discussions is a very good way to learn. I assume that most of UHH readers have joined to learn (about photography). But someone raised the religion issue, and since I have struggled with religious questions all of my adult life, I felt that I should say my two cents worth.


I truly feel that a person's actions are much more important than his beliefs. Beliefs have no effect on anyone until acted upon. In this short note I have stated a few of my beliefs. They have led me to write this note. I hope that it helps people to understand that people with diverse beliefs can act to help each other.

The art of photography at its finest!

Peter, I thought you might make that conclusion. It may be correct or incorrect. I think I am very good at photo editing. There is some chance that I could do a similar edit by using you software. But I don't have it.

I wrote about # of bits/pixel relating to the brightness range that the camera could capture. Your exposure was great, because you had details in the dark areas and in the bright areas. When this is true, you have great flexibility to make adjustments to the brightness of the entire photo.

I think that with good post-processing, you could make 11 x 14 prints that are outstanding technically. I would never print a photo from my camera without editing. This is one of the huge advances provided by digital photography. The editing alone takes a good amount of learning. Lightroom has some much more than just editing. But I know very little about the rest, except for printing.
Unfortunately, I cannot teach by typing. There is just too much to tell. If you lived nearby, I could teach in person. That was part of my engineering job.

I expect modest priced cameras to keep improving for many years. If you are on a limited budget, I would probably stick with them, and upgrade perhaps every 3 to 4 years. This would be about $100 to $140 per year for your camera. If you take 5000 photos per year, that is a very small price per photo.

I need to eat dinner! Stay in touch if you want any more help. And if you think what I did with this photo was a fluke, I will edit a few more for you. After dinner, I will send the full res jpg to you. It will pop your eyes!

Peter, I used your raw for this. I edited it as if it were mine. I wanted all the details - no dark trees. PRESTO! Do you like it? I checked the store original box.

8bravenotes - the photo has not arrived. Did your mailer actually send it or was there an error? Over an hour has passed. I think it should be here by now.

8bravenotes - Lightroom has some very powerful, easy to use functions that enable the user to edit the relationship between the brightness seen by the camera and the brightness that appears on the edited image. I will try those.

The house photo that you posted had detail in the bright clouds, but not much in the dark trees. The house photo that someone else edited and posted had some tree detail, but the sky was mostly white, with little detail.

Given that situation, I think it is easy to get detail in both the dark and the bright parts of your photo. You may not want that; I sometimes like to have some parts of my photos in dark silhouette.

If the raw file is < 25 Mbytes, it can be sent to my gmail account the same way you would send a jpg file. Please send me a full resolution file (if <25Mbytes). I will send back my edited version, full resolution as a jpg.

Looking forward to trying this. We should learn somethng!

to joer: The house photo that you posted no longer has visible clouds. (And I think my monitor calibration is OK.)

To 8bravenotes: I would love to try to edit the above photo for you. If you are willing to let me try, I'm willing to share the result and tell you what I did. But I want to start with the raw file, presuming that Lightroom 4.4 can process your camera's raw file. If you did not take raw, jpg will have to be used. Please send the file directly to me.
rpcohn@gmail.com