The Thursday Thread of Preemptive DooooomFollow

See, that's almost the right way to do it.

You just forgot to put something on the edge to protect it, like a layer of this stuff. (Then you just have to clean the adhesive off afterwards, which is easy enough.)

A moving blanket would have helped. Or, hell, any old blanket.

Oh, yeah, sorry I missed part of that. Umm...any old cardboard under the blankets, then. Extra padding!

Just look good at what lens you get, if you don't intend to photograph animals, airoplanes or other stuff that is far away you don't really need 200mm and an 17-50mm lens will probably work for you as well.
On the other hand, if you do really like those things (and bugs/macro photography) you might want to look at still getting a 17-50m but also buying a 70-300mm for the extra range.




Also, be happy that you don't want to go for concert photography. I got the cheapest solution zoom lens for that which cost me €340. The good lenses are 4-6 times that.
But I do use that lens for just about everything, 17-50mm does all I need as I prefer to get up close and use wide angles wherever possible.

Edit: Personally I would never go for a D5000, a good chunk of the price goes to the gimmicky screen that you won't have a use for more than once in a blue moon. The D90 is not much more expensive and simply better and with the D7000 almost here to replace the D90 the price for the D90 might even drop further.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2010 11:33am by Aethien

The cameras I named are Nikons, yeah. Because Shador linked the D5000 and I think the D5000 is pretty pointless and gimmicky.
Nikon puts the D in front of whatever number they thought of and canon puts the D behind the number.

The great thing about having an 18-55mm is that if you want to zoom in you're going to have to get closer to your subject and that nearly always improves the quality of the photo, the risk you run when you have an 18-200mm is that you just turn the zoom to get closer instead of actually walking towards whatever you want to photograph.
To quote Robert Capa "If your photo isn't good, you weren't close enough".
Of course, if you want to photograph wildlife or airoplanes and such you simply won't be able to get closer so that's where you need the extra range.

The main difference between a zoomed in photo from afar or a photo taken from close up is that in the close up photo the relative difference in distance between things you have on your photo is larger which gives a depth to the photo. A zoomed in photo tends to look flat and thus also less interesting.

Are Samoans your version of our Mexicans? Cheap illegal labor?

Samoans, like most Pacific Islanders, are huge, strong, relentlessly cheerful, and will carry heavy stuff about all day whilst listening to ukelele music and eating corned beef sandwiches and wearing only a grass skirt. Illegal? Maybe. But thats just a government label isn't it?

I don't remember any mexicans that were like that, but its difficult to judge because they are all covered up with great big sombreroes.

Photoshop is also, like $900+, IIRC. Unless you're going pro, Photoshop Elements ($100) will do just fine.

Dollars yes, time as much. My Father has a really nice SLR bag that I've used a bit, and I quite like it. I was going to get the same or a similar bag from the local camera place I've been visiting. It is super convenient.

I managed and I'm a poor student.

I have 5 kids with one in college and 100k in student loan debt not to include credit cards etc, I will be poor for a long time...

In high school I got a Kalimar K-90 (which apparently is a knockoff of the Pentax P-1000 or something) used for about two years of random stuff and it hasn't had film in it for over ten years.