Gotta love them Elphs! I've got a stash myself.

I ordered from B&H. Should be here tomorrow. It was signature required, and I wasn't going to be home so I just had B&H redirect it to local FED EX down the street. Fortunately, ppot has such high regard for fedex, I have little doubt anything could ever go south!

I wasn't really expecting it until next week. If it gets here, its a pretty fast delivery, and was able to talk to a person at BH with little/no wait. No "long wait due to excessive call volume" type stuff.

For many years at my job in the photo lab we would often have a new employee. Any job becomes a "JOB" when the pressure is high, and the final product has to be damn near perfect, if not perfect. We might be down there late at night finishing a project and I would remind them that "We do for a living, what thousands of people all across the country rush home from their job, to do as a hobby"

No one ever has a hobby digging ditches or practicing medicine or dentistry or filing paperwork as a secretary.

I literally was sitting in class in high school and the professional photographer that shot the pictures for the yearbook that I could not do since I was in class, leaned over and asked me if I wanted a job. Of course I said sure, and he hired me that day after school.

That is when I started working as a true professional photographer. One of our contacts was with a newspaper in Birmingham. After school I went right to the state legislature, and shot photos of the law makers, and met with two full time reporters that worked for the same paper. I shot what they needed, processed and printer and used a glorified FAX machine to transmit the photos to the paper, and UPI, and Time Magazine.

Since then every job I have ever had, involves photography. I have never done anything else as a job.

I shot my first job for money when I was 14. A wedding at Fort DeRussy Military Reservation. The man that got me hooked on photography was supposed to shot it, but he had to be a best man and witness. I shot a roll of film, handed it to the groom and I got 20 bucks. He was a Sgt, on home on leave from Vietnam and his faience met him in Hawaii and they got married. I always wondered if he survived the war, and how that marriage went.

I've only shot one wedding, my daughter's. I kind of wish she hadn't asked but was pleased that she did. It wasn't a big wedding and they were happy with the shots I took. I would've liked to have participated more in it instead of 'observing' and shooting. Ah well. As a Christmas present to us she told us she's pregnant again so this will be #4.

I'm in awe of the professional photographer's ability to go in and get the right shots, and not waste excessive time taking needless shots. Especially the ability to direct people at weddings to get the right angles. Amazing.

My wife gets us professional pictures at the beach. I can't believe how few pics the photographer takes, but each one is right on the money.


I did a mtn bike race about 10 years ago. I just showed up, no expectations on me. No pressure. Made about $500 using smugmug, but... it was one day of taking pics, and about 3 days of processing/organizing pics. By the end of the process I was happy to be done with it. When you factored in gas, equipment expense, site fees, software, etc.. and time, there wasn't much profit.

I wasted a bunch of time on duplicate pics and post processing. A professional would streamline that process a bunch over my diddling.

T'was a good learning experience.

Experience matters.

I like the sound of that 100 to 500 lense.

Yes, Canon's have come a long way since I got my Canonet when I was about 7. It's still around somewhere.

What kind of shots are you going to take, Ron? Any examples of stuff you could share?

I got the last Leica SL2 out of Germany right at the start of the pandemic shut downs.

I need to buy more lenses and am debating which one next.

I understand that comparisons are made by some people between the Canon R5 and the Leica SL2.

Kind of a bunch of stuff, from landscape, animals, sports photography, etc. I'm not at my home computer, Here's two weird soft almost out of focus type pics I scrounged up from the net.

A dude running through a firepit about 10 years ago. The fire department is in background. The heat created the effect, no photoshop.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640780062.jpg

This is from the bike race around 2012. Canon 5DII, which has a dog of an autofocus system. It is not a sports camera. 400mm 2.8 shot through dense fog/ rain at top of a very large climb about 60 miles into the race. The rain created it's own softening effect. Having done this ride myself a number of times, I feel the pain. Both face expressions are perfect.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640780322.jpg

That came from here, the picture taking conditions were miserable. I didn't take the flash photography pics. Ten years later these pics are so so... You see a lot of cell phones getting better shots these days. The key word is 'hobby' and the Fedex word is "package is on vehicle for delivery" :)
https://www.velonews.com/news/mountain/gallery-shenandoah-mountain-100/

Got it.

45 megapixel good cropping. Some first pics. (now I want 100 megapixels darnit! :) ) Shot at 2.0 across the street, so even at a narrow depth of field snagged the caliper.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640818731.JPG

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640818955.JPG
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640818955.JPG

This one pic made it worth every penny. Ol' girl is sweet.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1640818955.JPG