IMALlama

It sounds like the design goals Nikon and Canon were using were similar, yes. On a crop body, it's great for capturing things far away. I used it for motorsports. It was also a good people lens, but at 110mm FF equivalent you had to have some space to use it.

Wish I’d had more ambition to get out this Summer, there’s been a LOT of sunspot activity that I’ve missed.

I can relate to this. Especially when it comes to reach and close focus, your gear can get in the way of the shot. I feel like a lot of this hobby is clearly identifying your use case (reach, close focus, speed, etc) and then weighing the lenses that satisfy that use case against their tradeoffs (size, weight, image quality).

Over in e-mount land, I have Sigma's 35mm f/1.4 (the old HSM version) and Sigma's newer 35mm f/2.0. The extra stop is nice, but I rarely need it and f/2.0 is half the length and weight. Guess which lens gets used more often.

Sometimes you find great deals, sometimes you find Chinese garbage. Luckily I never paid much for garbage.

The nice thing about buying used is you can usually sell it without much of a loss. I've been treating this as "longer term renting" gear to help me find what I want.

Looks pretty cool. The frame reminds me a bit of a piper. Is this home brew?

Agree on older gear being cheaper. I've taken many a great photo on my D40 ($50-75 on MPB) and D5300 ($225-325 on MPB). Depending on the focal length desired, there are solid used F-mount lenses around for fairly cheap as well. My go-to was the AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G IF-ED VR, which is a FF lens, but it still isn't that heavy. I think I got mine used for $350 10 years ago and have to imagine the price has continued to come down. There's a lot of fast thrid and first party glass available cheap too.

Haha, our kids do go under our table at times but they know not to go under other people's tables.

I don't have much tolerance for absentee parenting either, especially if the kids wind up seeking attention from others, by say going under someone else's table, because they're not getting enough attention from their own parents.

As a parent of younger kids, we're sorry. We come armed with as many activities as possible and will take our kids outside if they're too excited until food gets to the table. That will help them focus on eating.

We very rarely went out to eat when they were toddlers due to fear of our kids bothering others and understand that our desire to experience some level of normalcy shouldn't come at the expense of others.

All that said, if the parents are trying to keep their kids occupied, please extend some grace. Being a parent can be extremely isolating and we're simply trying to pretend like we still get to do normal things once in a while.

Yes. I epoxy filled some voids in a wood top for a desk I made a few years back. I used frog tape (fancy masking tape) on the bottom and it worked fairly well. Some epoxy still escaped and some of the tape was a bit difficult to get off. Be sure you do this over something like waxed paper for easier cleanup.

Like you, I tinted my epoxy black.

I used disposable cups for measuring, measured by weight on a digital scale (don't forget to weigh an empty cup), and mixed with a popsicle stick. Pour on the top around the cracks. Don't go too nuts on the first pour and let it fully cure. It will work its way into the cracks if you're using a crack filler - that stuff is very thin. Why not go big on the first pour? It will minimize the mount of leakage you get on the backside.

I sanded the top down afterwards and finished as per usual. The fill is very low key, which is what I wanted.

Pic of the desk being used. Look for the black between the boards.

Get a hear rate monitor and do High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). It's by far the fastest way to increase your stamina if you're untrained and even if you are trained it's a very effective means of increasing your stamina.

This is backed by science.

While significant improvements in endurance performance and corresponding physiological markers are evident following submaximal endurance training in sedentary and recreationally active groups, an additional increase in submaximal training (i.e. volume) in highly trained individuals does not appear to further enhance either endurance performance or associated physiological variables [e.g. peak oxygen uptake (V . O 2peak), oxidative enzyme activity]. It seems that, for athletes who are already trained, improvements in endurance performance can be achieved only through high-intensity interval training

It is generally believed that in sedentary (VO 2max <45 ml/kg/min) and recreationally active individ- uals (VO 2max ≈ 45 to 55 ml/kg/min), several years are required to increase VO 2max to that of the highly trained athlete (VO 2max > 60 ml/kg/min). [21,42] However, Hickson et al. [43] showed, in eight sedenyary and recreationally active individuals, that VO2max could be markedly increased (+44%; p < 0.05) after 10 weeks of high-intensity exercise training (alternating 40 minutes cycling intervals at VO 2max 1day, with 40 minutes high-intensity running the next, 6 d/wk

PrusaSlicer is a fork of Slic3r Bambu's slicer is a fork of PrusaSlicer Orca Slicer is a fork of Bambu's slicer and also pulls in ideas from super slicer (another PrusaSlicer fork).

In other words, they all share a common lineage. Each adds quality of life improvements over the fork, at least in theory. It's possible those quality of life improvements will make it back upstream to the thing that was forked.

As for specific examples, Orca Slicer has a somewhat different set of tuning parameters, some unique-to-it quality things like scarf seams, built in tuning prints (temp towers, EM multiplier, pressure advance, a test to find your max flow rate, etc) a revamped UI, etc. I haven't compared the two in a while, so it's possible that some of this has made its way upstream by now.

This is very cool!

How were you able to capture this image with such a nice perspective? Were you in an adjacent building, airborne (helicopter/dron), using a tilt shidt lens, something else?

TIL there's a slicer called Lychee Slicer.

Sounds like a hot mess. Are you looking for a alternative? If yes, provide info but my off the cuff recommendation for a FDM printer is Orca Slicer.

On my direct drive Voron I could make it through retraction tower test prints fine with TPU, but it would always jam with retraction enabled on longer prints with my usual 0.3mm. Pulling apart the extruder would always reveal some TPU had gotten wrapped around the drive gear. Rather than try tuning until the failure went away, I just went with 0 lol.

Most camera websites tend to be geared towards what's launching now, and will offer comparisons to other current products, but some will let you compare anything to anything. Examples include:

• DP Review's Studio Scene although you have to realize that image quality (sharpness, contrast) can be greatly impacted by the lens on the camera. I would use this comparison for color tones and performance at higher ISOs (for example, the wine bottle label can fall apart at higher ISOs on some cameras)
• Photons to photos will make it easy to compare dynamic ranges. Note that you'll rarely be at ISO 100-250 unless you're shooting very slow/still subject most of the time. I'll have to follow up with an ISO curve of the photos I took over the past year later this evening
• PXLMAG has a nice tool to let you compare the physical size of different camera bodies and lenses

You need to identify what you're going to be photographing, what you want, and let that guide your purchase.

Your decision points are:

• Do you want to go analog or digital? Analog gear can be dirt cheap, but film and film processing adds up
• If you're going digital, do you want to go DSLR (digital single lens reflex) or mirrorless? DSLRs are basically analog cameras, but with a sensor instead of film. Some can also shoot video. They largely all have analog viewfinders that "look through the lens" via a mirror and a prism, so when you take a photograph the mirror flips down, the shutter goes, and bam you get a photo. It's a pleasant tactical experience. Mirrorless cameras lack the mirror. Mirrorless cameras include older point and shoot digital cameras (think Nikon Coolpix) and more recently mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras. Most of them can record video. Mirrorless designs have been replacing DSLRs, so DSLRs are pretty cheap on the used market. If you're thinking about an interchangeable lens camera, most analog and digital cameras have common mounts and thus a very big used lens catalog (see: Nikon F mount, Minolta/Sony a mount, etc) but mirrorless cameras all have different mounts. You can adopt analog/DSLR lenses to mirrorless mounts, but it adds some bulk and cost
• Do you want a fixed lens cameras or an interchangeable lens cameras? Fixed lens cameras can be more compact (see: Ricoh GR and Fujifilm x100), but interchangeable lens cameras offer more flexibility
• What style camera do you want? Do you want a high center mount viewfinder, do you want a rangefinder, or do you only want a screen?
• What sized image capture area do you want? In film land, this is your film size. In digital land, this is your sensor size. I'm going to use digital terms going forward. Smaller sensors are... smaller and the physics works out that lenses will also be smaller. Assuming of course that you can buy a lens optimized for that size of sensor instead of simply using a lens for a larger sensor on your smaller sensor body because they share a common mount and "bigger" glass tends to be more common. Smaller sensors give you a "crop" factor, so a smaller sensor body will increase the level of magnification relative to a larger sensor (example 25mm micro four thirds = 50mm full frame). Smaller sensors mean less depth of field, which can be a good thing (more is in focus!) or a bad thing (less subject isolation) depending on your use case. Larger sensors gather more total light (yay surface area), so they will have less noise at a given exposure than a smaller sensor... but if you have enough light it doesn't really matter.

My take?

Modern glass is really very good, but analog and DSLR glass generally isn't significantly worse. Analog and DSLR glass is also getting pretty cheap as active photographers move to mirrorless since that's the new hotness.

Modern bodies make taking great photographs easier than older bodies in two regards: smarter autofocus algorithms that can intelligently choose a subject and higher burst rates (eg take faster sequential photos). More modern bodies also handle high ISO (low light) better, but you can generally avoid this with fast glass. The rest is pure quality of life - more preset shooting modes, connectivity, etc. Old cameras have been taking great photos since the beginning. High end cameras have been taking low quality photographs since the beginning. Higher end cameras won't help you develop an eye for action or framing, but might make it easier to capture the moment.

If I had to offer a blind recommendation it would be for a Nikon D7x00 (eg D7000, D7100, D7200, D7300, D7400, or D7500). That was Nikon's top crop sensor DSLR ramge, which does mean some bells and whistles but more importantly it also includes a built in autofocus motor. This will let you use any autofocus f-mount lens going back to the mid 1980s (look for AF in the lens name), as well as newer lenses that have their own built in focus motors (AF-S). You'll obviously be able to use manual focus lenses too. The autofocus system is very reliable (use single point and keep it on your subject) and there's plenty of great used glass on the market. I am personally leaning toward fast primes these days, as they generally sharper than zooms and offer faster apertures than zooms, but that choice is very use case dependent. I've taken photos of my kids at our local zoo two years running with a f/1.4 lens during their holiday lights display and was surprised that very few of my photos cracked ISO 500.

So, back to you.

I have a budget of ~1000 bucks

Go used! Also go mirrored - they're in less demand now, and were once very popular, so there's a ton of used product on the market for cheap.

I want something that is light sensitive

Not sure what you mean here. I'm guessing you mean dynamic range? Honestly, unless you're going to be shooting super high contrast (bright bright and dark dark) scenes and don't want to lose information in the highlights and shadows any body from say 2010 onward will probably be good enough. The quality of photos taken by my old D40 is not significantly behind my A7III or A9, or the Z6II I bought and sold used. The only thing to possibly think about is sensor size. If you're going to be shooting lots of low light with motion and horrible lighting it might be worth thinking about a full frame body. Another thing to potentially think about is a body with a dual gain sensor, but these will be newer and higher $$. Unless you're going to be photographing lots of concerts and museums, I wouldn't worry about low light beyond buying a fast lens (f/1.8 or better).

has modern software

Not sure what you mean.

All digital cameras have some level of inbuilt software and it's all varying levels of serviceable. You'll adopt fine to any camera body over time - even on cameras with "old crappy menus". The truth is you probably won't be in the menus very often and can bind physical buttons to your most used controls.

You don't have to use the OEM's image processing software. Many use Photoshop. I use darktable which is FOSS.

Some digital cameras have a companion phone app. Most of these are pretty meh and aren't needed. I do leave the Sony app running on my phone to share location information, but very rarely use it for anything else.

is preferably not Sony

I wonder why. Sony is probably the king of autofocus. Their bodies are also pretty compact if that's your thing.

and has a low minimum focus distance

This is up to the lens, not the camera body. Generally speaking, glass designed for smaller sensors will have closer minimum focusing distances than glass designed for a larger sensor. If you want up close and personal, micro four thirds (M43) is king. It will be closer focusing and since it has more depth of field more will be in focus. Note that everything is doubled and halved compared to full frame if you're trying to compare full frame lenses to M43 lenses. The thing to search for is "lens equivalence". Note that this can be a bit thorny.

There are macro full frame, and crop, lenses but they're less common. Especially in full frame, the shallower depth of field means stepping down the lens, which will cost shutter speed or ISO. That or you'll have to use a flash. Most of my recent photos on beebutts were taken on an OM-1 with the 12-40.

It can be, especially the lens, a few years old, since I prefer to buy it used.

For $1,000 you're also going to be looking at a used body - especially if the $1,000 covers both the body and lens. There's absolutely nothing wrong with older bodies and they can/do take great photographs. A good lens or two is a much better expenditure than a "better" body with a compromise lens.

The thing I would pay the most attention to is the system you're buying into. Even with used gear, you'll still lose some $$ if you sell it to buy something else.

Feel free to ask follow ups. I'll respond, but responses will be delayed.