Howard

I agree with the S&W 1911, but I would go (and did go) with the performance center model. The gun is rock solid, much more accurate than I am, and did I mention it looks great. Just look at mine:

I could not find any, just ordered the other day from W. C. Wolff Company (Gunsprings.com)

Well done Bob! Might I suggest that you also rewrite it as a letter to the editor justifying why we should have CCW in NJ and send it to other papers perhaps including the WSJ and NYT.

What is this jpeg thing you speak of:) Raw is the only way to shoot.

Mike I think what you say was true a year or two ago but with the features they have added to Lightroom it can now downy (not all) the things that you uses to need Photoshop for but don't any more

Afaik element is only 8bits and you really want to stick with 16 bits for quality. Download the the trial of Lightroom 5, it is actually much better than Aperture. I know many Mac people that have switched to it.

I'm with you on that. My Nikon 28-300VR is my walk around, but even that is like a $1,200 lens. When I know what I am doing I have my 24-70 f/2.8 or 70-200 F/2.8 which if you are a Canon guy is the equivalent of their "L" glass.

Agreed, if you get a speedlight get a good one. When I first started I listened to someone who told me to get the base model and I quickly learned it was a mistake and sold it.

I have tried two Tamron lenses, and sold them both - was never happy with their level of sharpness. Maybe I was just unlucky or you were lucky with yours. I had first tried their 28-300VR but quickly sold it and got the Nikon, night and day difference. I also tried the 200-500 but it was way too soft. I replaced it with a Sigma 150-500 OS lens which is much better, but still not the same as a Nikon lens. As for heavy lenses on the camera they will wear on your neck if you use the stock straps that come with the cameras. I highly suggest Black Rapid straps where the camera hangs by your hip, you can carry it all day and never be uncomfortable.

Mine in Randolph take about four weeks. What is really nice is they are willing to work with me on when I want them. I turned in a request for four permits at the start of June thinking they might take some time. After two weeks I called to check on status and was told they would be ready soon as all my paperwork was back. I asked if they could sit on them till mid-July as due to OGAM I would not be able to use them until then. They said no problem just call when you are ready. Towards the end of July when I had a purchase planned I called one morning and then picked up the permits the next day with that day's date on them. Now that is service.

Thanks for your kind words. I have to agree with her to some degree about stock or more commonly known "kit" lenses. They don't have the sharpness of a high quality fast lens, but you pay for what you get. I have lots of expensive lenses, but that said these pictures and others I have recently posted were taken with my Nikon 28-300VR lens which is what I would call a higher end kit lens. Its my walk around lens when I don't really know what I will be shooting. As for photoshop, it is probably the most complex program on earth. I rarely if ever use it because I never remember all the thousands of things it does. What I use is another Adobe product called Lightroom. They just came out with version 5 which does 90+% of everything most camera users will ever need to do. Lightroom is a digital asset management program that creates a database of all your pictures - so you can find them by key words at a later date, which is very helpful when you have tens of thousands of pictures. It does most edits you will need to do, and they have added some masking capabilities as well. I would have her check out some of the videos on youtube and other sources which detail it. You can download a full working version as a 30 day trial, and if you like it you can buy a key for it -- it is much cheaper than photoshop, I think full retail price is $149 but you can find it for less.

So, I went shooting twice today. The first was at RTSP in Randolph where I took 50 shots with my Kimber. Then I went shooting in Rockaway on the main drag this afternoon. Must have taken 20 shots or so, and did not get stopped or even questioned for shooting in public like that. Must have been cause rather than the Kimber I was using a Nikon

And don't forget which way, just remember "FORD" which stands for Front Opposite, Read Direct. So if you want it to shoot more to the right, move the rear to the right.

NYT was once a great distribution channel for news, now it is just a empty liberal shell of its former self and will likely find itself out of business before too long.

Could my 10 stop be 10.5? Who knows. Its a high quality B+W filter so I assume is what it claims but its really not an issue. The thing is like pitch black. I compose the shot and lock the focus without it and then carefully screw it on and take the picture. With it on in this scene you could barely see the white water, but that was it. The 10 stop is great if you want to take pictures of things where people are walking around. Raise the ISO some and close the lens down a little and shoot for 30 seconds or a minute and the moving people don't even show up in the photo.

I spent time in BestBuy looking them over, and looked in Costco. Then spent a bunch more time online, and just got more and more confused. So I decided to go with the 6300 too. It is "only" $199 at Staples and they just sent me a coupon for $25 off anything over $100 and you get 5% back if you are their rewards club. But then I searched online and found a new (non-refurbished) one from a networking outfit with 100% feedback on ebay and just ordered it for $139 +$5.99 shipping. Seemed like the best deal around, till they drop in price by 50% as soon as I get it

Wow, with the price of ammo that could get really expensive in just a few seconds -- but looks like fun.

Thanks all. Dave, but sorry you are not even in the parking lot of the ballpark. The settings were aperture f/7.1, ISO 100, and the exposure was 10 seconds. I guess you missed in the original post that I used a 10 stop ND filter. For those not familiar it is a very very dark filter, so dark that you can almost see nothing through the viewfinder. It takes away 10 stops worth of light so that you can take long exposures when you have bright light. This takes away motion and gives water that glass-like look.

I took this one the other day in Speedwell Park in Morristown NJ with the aide of a 10 stop ND filter to allow for a long exposure to freeze the water:

OK after lots of searching I think I am going to get the Netgear WNDR4500 (N900) for $129 - someone tell me if this would be a bad choice please.

Thanks, I could only see two others and they have very weak signals and are on different channels with no overlap. I am on channel 1 and they are on channels 6 and 11.

That is a good question, how do I tell what channel other units might be on? I am in a residential area with fairly large homes and back onto country woods, so I don't think there are too many others that would even be within range, but worth a look.

No its just this is the final straw that is making me go look for a faster router, and while I am at it I want one that will help with the video throughput. I have too much bandwidth being pulled from the old 54G unit from all the toys in the house and I think it has degraded over time as well.

I see what you mean, that is very sneaky. Do I really need the latest and greatest (and probably most expensive) or would that TL-WR1043ND do what I need?

That is only true for YouTube and Netflix and any other stuff that has chromecast support built in. Amazon does not support it so you are actually simultaneously downloading it and then sending to the router and then to the Chromecast unit so you need triple bandwidth. It is even more bandwidth hungry than streaming an avi or mk4 file from your computer.