I personally will never be without one again. I recently bought a new 24-70 2.8 Tamron that came with a Hoya UV filter. Unfortunately the filter was backordered. On my very first day of shooting, my small sheltie dog who loves to surprise me and run and jump up into my arms did just that and her paw hit the camera hanging around my neck. Yep. about a 3/8" scratch on the lens itself. Fortunately, the scratch is very near the edge of the lens and well away from the opening in the center of the lens into the camera. I have done every test I can think of and thankfully can find no evidence that the scratch is impacting images. They are tack sharp even in bright sun where I thought the scratch might flare.

Until I find that there is some reason to, I probably will not send the lens in to be fixed but every time I look at it I think, If I only had a filter on it......

We don't have a lot of Fall color in our trees here in central Texas, but I did find this interesting version on a trip to Austin last week. Reflections in the street from the sign on the building.

(Download)

Looks like it. Still a good shot.

Love the windmill but the winch is packed with texture. That always screams B&W to me. You might try it and see which way you like it best. Both great.

I vote for my 24-120 Nikkor also. Most of the time when I am just going out for pictures without anything in particular in mind, that is what I carry. BUT, having started out long ago in the film days when I only had the 50mm 1.4 that came with my Pentax (still think it is the sharpest lens I have ever owned) I find myself sticking a 50 on my D810 and just walking around with it.

If you do decide to upgrade be careful which option you pick. (I just upgraded recently from CS6, and there are some really nice new tools and features that the old version did not have.) . They sell a version called Lightroom CC for $9.99 a month and it is a completely cloud based system designed for you to be able to edit your pictures from your phone, your tablet, your computer, or someone else's computer. All your photos are stored in the cloud and not on your local computer.I think you get some basic amount of storage for the $9.99 then you have to pay additional for more storage. IMO the editing features are somewhat limited and more like the stuff you get on a smart phone than what you are used to in CS5.5. They also have a version called Lightroom Classic CC that is included in what they call the photographers package, also for $9.99 a month and it includes Lightroom, Photoshop, AND Lightroom CC (with less storage than the stand alone option). The Photographers package though is just like your current Lightroom and Photoshop where they reside on your computer and all your photos reside wherever you want them. I have been very happy with my newer versions, particularly LR as I was on LR5 and the new one has many new features that are much more powerful.

I have an 810 and the 200 to 500 and have been extremely happy with that combination. The 200-500 has very fast focus, particularly if you limit it to not include the close up distances. The 810 does really well at high iso's and I have gotten some really nice shots at 1000-1600 ISO and high shutter speed hand holding. I would highly recommend it.


Regards

Thanks from Texas also. I served from 1966 through 1974 but also never was sent to Viet Nam but several other foreign assignments. Like so many, I lost friends and will never forget when I had tours back in the states, seeing the C 141's come in loaded with our fallen.

I live in rural Texas and we have the same problem here. We pretty much all have ponds on our property and all my friends tell me about the cotton mouths they have. I have 3 ponds and in 15 years, thankfully, I have never seen a real cotton mouth. Yellow bellied water snakes, yes, all the time but they too are harmless, except for the very foul smell they emit if you disturb them..

I've heard that quite a lot recently but I have to say I have not had that experience. I switched to digital about 10 years ago and somehow missed the place in the camera manuals, (several of them) that said you could just delete your photos. So after I download for the last 10 years, I just format the cards in camera. Have never had any kind of problem and still have some of my original cards that get used from time to time. They were usually a lot smaller back then so typically now I don't keep them in camera, but do grab one once in a while.

BTW I did look up deleting photos from cards without formatting not long ago and now have a delete option on my custom menu for just deleting photos and leaving folders intact. I don't typically use folders anyway so it doesn't really make a lot of difference.

Thank you Dave. Very good info. I was actually wondering about the sensor resolution differences. You have convinced me to put the big lens on the D810. I'll still take the D300 for a back up.

Thanks mvetrano2. On a different line, the week of June 8. But have the same plans. I'll leave the long lens on the D300 and use the 16-35 for the scenics. Have a great cruise yourself. We can compare notes and pics afterwards.

Thanks everyone for your comments. Confirms what I thought I should take. Hopefully we will come back with a decent shot or two.

Thanks for the info. We settled on the whale sighting trip in Juneau, but something tells me this won't be our last time to do this one. Debating a monopod. Most of where I would use the big lens would be on moving, vibrating vessels so not sure it would help much.

Thanks for the info. We settled on the whale sighting trip in Juneau, but something tells me this won't be our last time to do this one. Debating a monopod. Most of where I would use the big lens would be on moving, vibrating vessels so not sure it would help much.