Yeah you had to have a special cable or something for Auto to work.

For the primary lenses I use, I’d want the Z versions (the wide, and the 24-70ish). The converter might be nice to have access to the 70-300 until I get around to replacing it with a Z version. I have a few others, like a 50 mm 1.8, but it’s not critical I have access to it on the new camera; I rarely use it on the D750. I’m also not above buying used, as long as they’re in good condition.

I like the idea of a touchscreen but I want to try it out and see how it feels to use.

I know it’s an investment, but at the same time, there’s no point in throwing money away. It’s a tax deduction, but that doesn’t mean it’s free; I still have to pay for it. (It just reduces my tax bill.) And there are some advantages to the Z6 over the Z8, like the articulating screen you mentioned. There are times when it’d be nice to be able to set it to a weird angle. (We’re often crammed into a corner, trying to hide out of view of the camera…bathrooms, again, with their mirrors, are especially interesting. I often have to crouch down to avoid being “caught” in the frame.)

I did just spend a bunch of money on a drone, a 360 camera (for doing walkthroughs), and a phone stabilizer for doing videos, none of which I had before, so I already have spent money on higher priority things.

The D750 is obviously doing the job, so I don’t really NEED a new camera, strictly speaking. That’s why I’m not running out to buy one. But, if something happens to that camera or lens, I’m making $0 until I get it fixed or replaced. The camera is central to every job - without it, I won’t get many, if any, jobs. If my drone (for example) fails, I’ll lose a few opportunities, but I should still have photo jobs.

Yeah I don’t know why I’m worried about weight - most of my shooting is with a 14-24 2.8, which is going to weigh a lot no matter what. (I do real estate photography.)

I saw the battery life comparison and chuckled. But most of my shooting is with live view, so I’m getting similar life out of my D750 now. I carry five batteries with me when I go on a shoot - one in the camera, two in my pocket, two in the car. I probably really only need one in my pocket, but I’m fairly new to doing this professionally and therefore nervous. I haven’t needed more than 1.5 or so in a day, but I haven’t had a full day of shooting yet, and I want to be prepared. (I also intend to invest in another battery charger to keep in the car… Overkill, I’m sure, but…)

I need to hit the camera shop. Maybe after Christmas.

Yeah, like those security lug nuts. Guess what, guys?

We’ve had two vehicles come with them. I remove them the first time I have a wheel off for some reason.

Bought a house like that once. Lived there 10 years without repainting. When we sold it, we had someone come in and paint it, and we left colors up to him.

It. Looked. Amazing. He did muted greens, blue, etc. I said, “Wow, should have done that years ago.”

No, the original argument was about not even leaving a voice mail, just expecting someone is going to answer their phone every time it rings regardless of the situation.

How do you like your Z8?

I’m currently rocking a D750 that I bought in ~2018, but with the pandemic when I didn’t take many pictures, it’s still practically new (less than 20k shutter clicks, if I remember correctly). I’m now using it professionally to do real estate photography, and considering an upgrade, and keeping the D750 as a backup.

I actually think the Z6 III would be best for me at the moment, being slightly smaller, lighter, less expensive, and slightly better low-light focusing ability (you’d be shocked at how often I run into that issue, especially in vacant houses). But the Z8 offers better video resolution, so it would future proof a bit more, if the company I contract with ever decided that 4k-60fps was no longer sufficient.

On the other hand, the DJI Pocket series offers high resolution and frame rate video for much less, and has a built in stabilizer, so the camera video might not be a factor at all.

We actually have a camera store nearby, so I intend to go there and try them and see. I’m a few months out from any purchase though. I’d also want to get the Z series lenses instead of using the adapter.

We’ve had a couple long outages. It’s especially an issue for us, as we’re on a well, so if the power is out we also have no water.

We have a generator with a transfer switch that will run the pump and water heater and some other things (fridge, freezer, pellet stove, lights, etc), but not the main heat or air conditioning. But we also have an RV, so if we can get water from the house, we can use the RV as a lifeboat, running the air conditioner or furnace. The fridge in it runs off electricity or propane. We’ve done that a few times, mostly in our previous house - we haven’t run into a long enough outage at this house to need to do that yet. (I suspect they know we’re on wells in this area, so we have some priority in getting power restored.)

It really sucks, I know.

How do people listen to this and go, “Yep, he’s great!”

I just don’t understand it. I know, cult, but… Wow.

This is insane. Why wouldn’t they leave a voice mail? Why do you expect people to be available at all times?

For example, what if I’m in the middle of a bike ride when this person calls back? Or driving? In the shower? Taking a dump? In a sensitive conversation? On the phone with someone else?

This is the whole point of voice mail. There are plenty of reasons people might not answer the phone, even before the “spam call” issue comes into play.

Your “basic logic” is extremely flawed.

We’ve gotten a few of those catalogs, and I looked through them out of curiosity. It always seemed to me that their prices are high, or at least no better than other sources.

I don’t remember specifics, but a few things I looked at were cheaper on Amazon or other sources; often it was the exact same item with a different brand name on it.

LOL Sorry, I had to laugh. I started with Slackware back in the 90s, and I finally moved away from it in 2017 or 2018.

Installing it is easy. Where it starts to get headachy is dealing with dependencies when you install something that isn’t a standard package. (I remember, I wanted to install the Ubiquiti Unifi software, and I was just like…“I do not want to deal with this.”) Then, I’d get nervous about updates, “What is this going to break?” And that’s bad from a security point of view.

I understand they do have some dependency management now, so it might be better than it used to be.

I ran it on my desktop, laptop, and my server. The laptop and desktop got switched first, initially to Kubuntu until a few years ago, but now they run Debian. The server was last to be switched from Slackware, and for that I went to Debian. (Debian on the laptop and desktop came later.)

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Slackware, and subscribed to the automatic CD delivery for years. But Debian has just been so much easier to maintain, and more mainstream, so more things are packaged for it. It’s pretty rare that I can’t find a .deb for a piece of software.

Avoid Tuya wifi devices. They’re nothing but trouble, requiring all kinds of hacks to get working locally, and even then can still be a headache.

If you really want the lock, try to see if you can run the Tuya cloud cutter on it, so it’ll be a truly local device. Then control it via HA, using a VPN or HA Cloud if you need remote access.

Fortunately you won’t be anywhere near them!

Oh she is, but it’s not just her - the AI is beautiful, too, and the detail on the set pieces, like the desk a few days ago, is incredible.

I will admit wondering why she way using the desk backwards the other day (drawers were on the side we could see, but she was sitting at the other side).

It’s a Broadway play now.

We visited a few years ago, had some time before our show started, so we just walked around Times Square. I just wanted to take in the atmosphere for a few minutes. One of the most famous places on earth, thousands of people, all kinds of things going on.

I probably wouldn’t go there regularly even if I lived in the city, but occasionally it’d be fun. And my wife would want to go to a lot of Broadway shows.

There’s nothing like it in DC, for example. But then people in DC rarely visit the Smithsonian.

Spring break!

I love the artwork of this series.

I don’t understand the connection to fireworks - maybe the sound hides the sound of the explosions from the bombs for a moment, but do they think people are going to just not notice the damage?

If this is as reported, they sound like idiots.

I’m not sure I understand your “framejob” comment. Do you think they weren’t trying to plant explosives? If they were planning to do it, even if they wouldn’t have been very effective, it’s still a problem. They could have still hurt or even killed someone.