I lived and worked in Oman for 3 years. Many weekends I would go on a photography trip with my driver, a wonderful guy named Salim. I once took 2 female friends with me to Wadi Ghul, which is Oman's "Grand Canyon." I had taken the precaution of packing a roll of toilet paper in my camera bag, which made me the hero for my two friends. When we stopped for a bathroom break, they were extremely grateful!

I use prime lenses in the home studio, where I am generally doing portrait work. My go-to prime lenses are the 50 mm and the 85 mm Nikon lenses. When I am shooting outdoors, I use my Nikon 70-200 zoom lens.

Both

This is an interesting topic. Yes, I have thousands of CDs and DVDs and I continue to buy them. I have recently purchased a relatively high-end CD player from Cambridge Audio. It's remarkable for playing CDs, even very old recordings that have been remastered sound like they were just recorded yesterday. The Cambridge Audio CD player feeds a Cambridge Audio receiver.

Why do I continue to buy disks? First of all, I like having physical media. For DVDs, I can watch or rewatch old favorites. With streaming, some films and older television programs have been modified or self-censored. Some episodes are not shown on streaming platforms because of current sensitivities regarding race, ethnicity, sexuality, etc. I don't need someone else to decide what I watch, I'm fully capable of deciding for myself.

Second, I listen to a lot of opera, and I like gapless playback of my CDs. Also, rare or older recordings may not be easily found on a streaming service. I can play complete opera DVD recordings via a Blu-Ray player through the stereo receiver.

Third, I am not totally against purchasing electronic versions and downloading them. When I was overseas for about 15 years before retiring, I often bought downloadable music or ebooks, because otherwise I had to wait 2-3 weeks for delivery. Now that I am stateside, I can get things delivered in a day or two and I always purchase CDs, DVDs, or hardcovers.

I am fortunate to have a hardcover of Bert Stern's "Marilyn Monroe: The Last Sitting." It's $400+ on Amazon. It has 2,571 photos of the lovely Marilyn, and the viewer gets a sense of what the model and the photographer were thinking as the photoshoots progressed, because every shot is included. Had Stern edited his collection to include only the best shots, I think something would be lost.

2004, I bought a Nikon D100 just before moving overseas. I still have that camera, but I will be giving it to my 13 year old niece. She wants to learn how to be a photographer, so I think this will be a good introductory camera. I used the D100 on safari in Tanzania in 2006, and the photos were pretty decent quality. A couple years later I bought the D200 and then the D700, my first full frame camera. Now I use a Nikon D3, I love that camera despite the weight (especially when I have my Nikkor 70-200 lens on it). The D3 is pretty old technology as cameras go, but it does everything I want. I have no interest in video, so I have not felt any urge to modernize or go mirrorless.

https://www.amazon.com/DIGITNOW-Capture-Grabber-Cassette-Converter/dp/B079CBGDST/ref=pd_ybh_a_30?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KWZNB0J9BSZ1D05H8C9N

I've been using a V600 with my Mac Pro (late 2013) desktop for the past two years with zero problems.

I agree wholeheartedly, and it's not just limited to camera equipment. People can be persuaded to buy just about anything, as evidenced by new iPhones, $350 sneakers, $5 coffees, etc.

I still use my Nikon D3X almost exclusively, and I print on an Epson 3880 and an Epson 9890. I can get beautiful large posters and canvas prints with this equipment, all of which has been around for at least a decade or much longer.

Someday, I will upgrade to a Z9 mirrorless camera, and when I do it will likely be when at least two more new generations of Nikon mirrorless devices have come along to replace it.

My Nikons use Compact Flash cards, and I once did the same thing with one of those. Washer, dryer, cold water, no bleach, some detergent. CF card still worked fine.

I told this to a model that I was photographing, and she told me a story about posing for a photographer while standing waist-deep in the Atlantic, and the photog went out to get closer...and forgot he was carrying his CF cards in the pocket of his shorts...in salt water....

Sooner or later, we are all wearing the red shirt...

A photographer may edit his photos, crop them for the best composition, brighten them up, adjust the white balance, etc.

A photojournalist does NOT edit his photos in any way, or he is no longer a photojournalist. He is unemployed.

Interesting article for sports photographers, who discuss how they managed to photograph the astonishingly difficult football reception by the New York Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. They discuss the gear, the moment, all the details. Great read!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/sports/football/catch-by-giants-odell-beckham-jr-made-for-a-great-picture.html?emc=edit_th_20141125&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=5402173

The U.S. law essentially says that you can take photos in any public place. In reality, we occasionally have problems too.

Check out this story from last summer, about one photographer's problems with the police

http://www.buzzfeed.com/bennyjohnson/why-you-should-not-take-photos-of-the-7-ugliest-buildings-in

How important are megapixels? Well, if you make large prints it's nice to have them. With my 24 MP D3X I can may 24 x 36 prints at 300 dpi.

In addition, I can crop more if I need to, and that often improves the composition.

That said, if you are not into large prints, the extra MP are probably not a big deal.