u/archtopfanatic123

EDIT: Forgot to put in the title! Moon Dreams :D

Martha Tilton I'd argue is one of the best voices of the 1930s and into the 40s. The Mellowaires are on par with The Pied Pipers and The Modernaires to my ears. And the tune is nothing short of spectacular as are most songs written by the great Johnny Mercer!

If you like later swing era material with a more dinner music attitude to the mood then this isn't one you want to miss.

So far the longest sweep lens I've seen starting at a wide angle focal length (for me that's under 30 mm) is the Nikkor Z 28-400 and also the Tamron 18-400. The Sigma 60-600 is close but that doesn't have a wide angle enough low end to qualify in my book.

Anyone seen anything longer than either of those? And when I say that I mean do you guys know of one that's actually possible to obtain, NOT the 100 thousand dollar Fujinon Super-stupid-duper EBC 24-3000 mm that goes from like F 2.1 or something like that, I'm talking lenses people can actually get 😂

This has always been an interesting debate for me. Canon's seems to be slacking behind Sony and Nikon these days feature wise and glass wise. Which means Sony and Nikon are now head to head in terms of who's got the best camera lineup and I feel that the Nikon Z series and Sony Alpha A1-9-7 etc. are pretty much the best a guy can get but who's winning in the end?

I see a lot of people recommending the Sony E mount cameras due to lens choice however I've come to the conclusion (so far) that Nikon Z is truly unrivaled in that field and in features as well as value.
Thanks to Viltrox we do have a functioning Sony E to Nikon Z adapter which means that not only do you have access to the Nikkor Z glass, which is arguably some of the best around and matches Zeiss and Voightlander for sharpness, the massive 28-400 F4-8 being I think one of the most major lenses in the series (there's no superzoom like it as far as I can tell with 14 times magnification and insanely good optical quality all the way through the whole range), but you've also got access to the entire Sony E mount selection.

Though ok I just checked and the folks at Viltrox are pretty dang thorough since they made a Z to E adapter too :P

HOWEVER. I personally get the impression Nikon's Z series cameras are incredibly hard to beat for the price. I mean the Nikon Z8 costs a full thousand to two thousand bucks less (new or used) than the Sony A1 and other cameras comparable featurewise (especially with 8K RAW 60 fps video, no mechanical shutter at all, a great body design, insane autofocus, and a better ISO range than the A1 in particular etc.).

So why go Sony for the lenses or features when one can go Nikon Z and go with the adapter to get E lenses functioning with it and get seemingly the same or better features for a much lower price?

Does Sony have ANY edge over Nikon at this point? I don't see them having any. I just read the Photography Life comparison between the Sony A1ii and Nikon Z8 and the Z8 absolutely THRASHES the Sony especially considering the A1ii costs almost 3 grand more on a bad day.

Asked on the AskPhotography reddit but no answers :( Does anyone have this lens? It's pretty huge, the price tag is too on used listings on eBay, hard to find one for under 1000 bucks. Is it as good as the price tag would suggest?

I've looked this one up and it seems to sell for a considerably higher amount than the RF 100-400 or the EF 100-400 L. It's always over 1000 bucks even on the "like new" market on eBay from Japanese sellers.

Are the optics as good as the price would suggest or is this lens just being scalped on the market?

(EDIT: My apologies for the error, no photos are allowed in the replies, if anyone could send me some examples directly that would be much appreciated!)

Hey folks,

I wanted to ask those who have used absurdly high (like even as high as it can be set) ISO values on the Nikon Z8 if you have any shots that I could see either unedited or denoised but shot at such extremes of the sensitivity spectrum.

I'm curious to know how strong the noise is (or how unsightly it may be if at all) as I personally have not shot over ISO 6400 on most cameras (I did use 12800 on my Fujifilm ONCE IN A GREAT WHILE but the results, since it can't shoot in RAW at that level, were pretty awful) and the few times I have shot that high for example on my Canon 2000D the noise was quite strong and in the case of a concert I shot I could simply not pull enough signal to get much out of the photos. (I was boosting exposure in Lightroom by 4 stops on the dark shots and some of them worked but barely even after denoising)

Also as a note I'm planning on getting the Z8 in the near future (I hope this year) and this is just one of the many reasons I want to get it, the much much higher sensitivity, as even if the image is grainy as heck as long as there is something visible in lackluster lighting then I can work with it.

Anyone else had this same problem? It's an Amazon Basics adapter, I've had it for a while, never has failed me. Now all of a sudden literally days after it was working fine it decided to stop working with my Mac Air with linux on it and also seems to not work with my HP laptopwith win 10 but I don;t think USB to ethernet ever actually worked on it (I've had that with computers that have ethernet jacks refusing use the usb to ethernet adapter).

Anyhow the adapter is showing an amber light as soon as I plug it in and I do NOT have the brains to build and install the Asix driver for the chip that I'm pretty sure is inside of this thing. Will a new USB to ethernet adapter even work if it's a driver side issue?

I asked about this on the linuxquestions sub but I thought I'd ask here too in the event I can get some more suggestions.

Would be really great if I didn't have to buy another adapter or buy one without knowing if it's going to work....

Thanks in advance to anyone who has anything to suggest!

Hi folks,

Has anyone else had their USB to ethernet adapter just randomly stop working for literally no reason and just show the orange light solid even when there's no ethernet plugged in? I can't get mine to work with my 2015 Mac Air and it was working literally a couple of weeks ago with no issues.

Did a full update which included another Kernel and that didn't help. The ethernet cables aren't the issue, they work with all my other machines, the router is the same one I've used before and has never played badly with the Mac Air.

I looked into the Asix driver that probably services the chip inside of the Amazon Basics adapter I have. Turns out those drivers work up to kernel 6.14 and I think we're already past it.

Does this mean that if I get another USB to ethernet adapter that it too will not function?

The Mac has no ethernet port which would probably solve all the problems if it did but go figure I guess. Pretty defeated with this thing.

Also for some odd reason it isn't working with my HP laptop running Win10 either but it's still showing a solid orange light. If it's showing the light it must be connecting and it registers as plugged in too. I don't understand why it's just suddenly decided to stop functioning.

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd do a writeup on the Canon T7 as I've had mine since 2018 and after shooting thousands of photos, tons of video, making some good and then very bad decisions with lenses, and so on I feel that I can give a somewhat educated opinion on this often controversial (and for some reason really hated camera).

For the sake of brevity I'm just going to put down a pros and cons first and then details later on:

PROS

The T7 back in 2018 was pretty cheap, 350 bucks, for a new camera body I couldn't find a better deal and at the time I wasn't willing to go used.

The EF mount is pretty great and I was in love with the 50 mm 1.8 and 18-135 at the time due to my photography teacher using those two on his Canon 7D and I was a bit obsessed with all things Canon

I bought the T7 at first specifically for stopmotion animation. Same camera that the legendary Michael Hickox uses for his animations. EOS Utility is great!

The camera isn't a brick like the single digit Ds are. It's rather small, it feels good in the hand, nothing to complain about here for me.

As with most Canon DSLRs that have video the 2000D has cinematic video capability to shoot in 24 frames per second FHD which is quite nice since I was adding this to complement by Fujifilm HS-50 EXR that couldn't do 24 fps but it could do 60 FPS at FHD

24 MP photos are pretty awesome. I personally only require 3000x2000 minimum resolution (6 MP) and used to shoot in 1920x1080 for animation purposes then stuck with it for years for general photography. But having a 6000x4000 3:2 native aspect ratio output is pretty awesome.

CONS (AS OF 2026 NOT AS OF 2018)

This camera at MSRP isn't a good deal anymore. You should only ever get this thing if it's lower in price than cameras that outperform it. Brand new at 350 it was a good deal at the time.

AUTOFOCUS on this thing is GARBAGE unless you use centerpoint focus and even then it's a lottery. Seriously, the only way to get tack sharp photos with the autofocus is to shoot like 5 shots of the same thing, pick through and delete, rinse and repeat.

ISO only goes up to 6400. If you're shooting in REALLY dark conditions with a dark F4 lens like I was doing yesterday yeah you're going to have a ridiculous time dealing with noise. This camera isn't noisy in of itself but if you need to boost a nearly pitch black image then it will probably fall short of the newer generation Canons (and will definitely lose to any Nikon Z).

If you're going to be shooting in VERY dark conditions make sure you bring a bright lens or just get a camera that supports ISO 12800 and higher.

Exposure compensation is VERY weird with full manual lenses like my Sakar 28-200 mm from the 1970s. I have to underexpose most shots in P mode by like 4 stops. Full manual mode is fine ironically. But as soon as I get into slightly darker lighting the 4 stops underexposure ends up being actually underexposed. I dunno, it's a pain, don't use vintage lenses with this thing without being prepared to do some manual work (better to just shoot full manual).

Alright so now to go into what I recommend doing to get as much as you can out of this camera.

First of all: Shoot in RAW it'll make the absolutely disgusting noise profile Canon EFs are notorious for completely clear up. If you shoot in JPEG you're going to get that really nasty reddish old TV look and it's really awful. Shooting in RAW makes the noise look at least that much more analog without any compression.

Second of all: Don't be afraid to use higher ISOs once you're shooting in RAW. Even basic luminance denoising in Lightroom for example (set it to like 30 or 50) will knock down the grit significantly leaving you with a nice filmic look to your photos.

Third of all: DO NOT GET THE CANON 75-300 MM FOR THIS CAMERA. THIS THING IS ALREADY BAD WITH AUTOFOCUS IT WILL ONLY BE WORSE. Seriously. I made this mistake. Do NOT get a garbage lens for a camera that is already pretty stripped down.

My Sakar 28-200 is better than that thing in terms of sharpness. It's a tad bit soft sometimes, it definitely produces shots that look the same age as the lens, but even that 50 year old brick of a lens will beat the 75-300.

Budget camera? Might as well go with great value but low priced lenses like Tamron's 16-300 and the like. If you want to do birding with this camera then the Tamron 150-600 or 18-400 are probably the best you can get. 18-400 in particular I plan on getting as the Sakar just doesn't have the reach I need but covers most other things.

Also I seriously do recommend getting the Fotoasy adapters for the OM system lenses from the 70s and also M42. Those lenses are crazy cheap, easy to find, and work incredibly well. Given the autofocus on this camera will miss 9 times out of ten you might as well go manual anyway.

Anyhow that's just some thought dumping on this camera. If the price is right it is VERY good. If you don't rely on autofocus much or don't mind just snapping a ton of photos until it hits then heck there's nothing I can complain about with it.

Hey folks, guitar player of 13 years here, bringing the 12 string beginners here my two cents on the subject.

I've got two 12 strings, a Yamaha FG-230 (1970s Red Label, 5 mm high action probably, strung with silk and steel 10s and downtuned a whole step), and a Framus Texan from 1965 (10 gauge phosphor bronze, 2 mm high action, also down tuned a whole step).

First thing I want to mention right off the bat is that people with moan and groan about 12 strings and say they're niche, heavy, hard to play, hard to tune (no they're not just be patient) and don't suit most genres.
This is about as far from the truth as it gets. In my experience playing blues, fingerstyle, swing, rhythm, chord melody, and other stuff, the 12 string will make almost everything sound better than a six string.

These are seriously just wild instruments. The octave doubles give you what are essentially overtones and middle G especially will give you a hell of a zing to any chord. Harmonics sound incredible. Chord melody playing (Jonathan Stout on John Monteleone's Midnight Special is the most insane thing I've ever heard on guitar) is bizarrely pianistic. Piedmont blues gets pretty out of hand in terms of how it sounds orders of magnitude more colorful with the doubled strings.

As far as weight goes, no 12 strings are really not that heavy, and not even CLOSE to the weight of solid body electrics. Yes they are slightly more top heavy because of the 12 tuners, but this is by no means so much weight as to make the guitar any more difficult to play than a normal 6 string. Takes about 2 minutes to adjust. I find them extremely comfortable and very fun to play.

Playability wise I actually think 12 strings are EASIER in a lot of ways. First of all the neck is usually going to be around the 2 inch mark which means folks with large hands or those who just don't like playing on cramped 1 11/16 necks will have a much easier time playing on these.

Second of all the neck shape on Yamaha FGs for example is a big D and makes playing super comfortable. These aren't baseball bat necks they just feel great and fill and support the hand.

Third of all downtuning the 12 string a whole step will 1. make the thing a ton less stiff to play (my Framus can handle full pitch just fine, Yamaha can't, I downtuned the framus anyway because it was like playing a fence) 2. will make the tone a TON warmer and I seriously recommend it. 12s get jangly sometimes and the lower pitch makes the bass register much nicer and the doubles on D and G (now C and F) will be a lot more audible too and really add a ton of color to the tone.

Now if you REALLY want playability then string your 12 string with silk and steel. My Yamaha has those and goodness me it's just the cherry on top. The thing plays beautifully even with the quite high action (needs a neck reset). I'd have strung the Framus with silk and steel too but my luthier didn't have it :(

Now here's another overlooked tool: THE CAPO

Capos on 12 strings are an absolute godsend. They lower the action first and foremost which will make a downtuned 12 string strung with light silk and steel ridiculously easy to play. You just need a capo with enough pressure capability to cleanly press down all the strings including the octave doubles.

Anyhow all that being said I want to summarize:
12 strings are much easier to play when strung with silk and steel 10s, downtuned a whole step, capoed up or just left in normal key without the capo

12 strings can make any genre sound absolutely bonkers. Nothing can comes close to that level of "sounds like more than one guitar but it isn't" cool.

12 strings are ergonomically on par with 6 strings if not better in some ways.

OH and lastly playing 12 strings a lot will make 6 stringers easier to play too. They're incredible for maintaining calluses and grip strength.

If you want to get into 12 strings then I urge you to try these methods and I assure you you will find a truckload of enjoyment in these monster guitars.

(Edit should've specified using the below mentioned stuff in liquid form)

Seems like this would be a lot more convenient than using IPA or other nasty agents to clean the lenses but I also assume these wouldn't be strong enough to sterilize the lens.