What Photography Related Item Have You Bought or Sold This Week?

BasilFawlty said:

Just got my UGREEN iDX6011 Pro AI-powered NAS. 6 bays, up to 196TB. I’m making two separate NASs, one with 4 20TB Seagate Ironwolf drives (RAID 5) and the last two bays will be a 4 or 8 TB RAID 1. Plan on doing a lot more video.

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I just did a NAS as well. Mostly so I have access to files in the US when I’m living in Hong Kong, but I put my 6 tb of movies and music on there. I’m running Plex Server on it for streaming, with a WiiM Pro for audio to my Audio Research rack. I really live off multiple 6tb ssd bus-powered drives for Lightroom work. Congrats on setting up the NAS!

mcluckie said:

I just did a NAS as well. Mostly so I have access to files in the US when I’m living in Hong Kong, but I put my 6 tb of movies and music on there. I’m running Plex Server on it for streaming, with a WiiM Pro for audio to my Audio Research rack. I really live off multiple 6tb ssd bus-powered drives for Lightroom work. Congrats on setting up the NAS!

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I’m probably going to run Plex as well.

I purchased an RF 70-200 F2.8, L, IS, USM lens. I have an RF 100-500 mm lens, but when I put the 1.4 extender on it, I can't get photos in the 100-200 mm range. Also, I was debating between the F2.8 and F4.0. I decided on the F2.8 despite the higher weight and cost because I figure the 100-500 has an f/4.0 aperture at 100 mm so I wasn't getting any better low light advantage with the F4.0 version.

BasilFawlty said:

I’m probably going to run Plex as well.

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I did the Synology 4-bay NAS with 6-tb drives. One is all design work, another are personal files, one for photo bu #3, and the 4th are those media files. I picked up the drives a few years ago when they were cheap.

mcluckie said:

I did the Synology 4-bay NAS with 6-tb drives. One is all design work, another are personal files, one for photo bu #3, and the 4th are those media files. I picked up the drives a few years ago when they were cheap.

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I managed to buy 3 of the 4 20TB drives last year before prices started going crazy. I bought the fourth recently from Ebay for over $200 less than from a big box store. It was advertised as band new and when I ran DriveDX on it, it did, in fact, show as being brand new with no hours on it. I lucked out (and per the Seagate Serial Number Checker it is under warranty until 2029.

Yeah, prices went nuts. Actual I think the price a year ago were crazy low and they’re what they should be today. I have a couple of 15TB drives that couldn’t have been more than $200–but I put them in enclosures on my desktop. Since I really have two homes, the best speed bang for my buck are those bus-powered thunderbolt 4/5 SSDs on my M4 MacBook Pro. There’s no way I’m gonna work in Lightroom through a NAS server, but for me, it’s a good offsite back up and occasional file access; my upload speeds in the US are just too slow.

Have you been accessing offsite?

mcluckie said:

Have you been accessing offsite?

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Well, I haven't got it all set up yet, but I do plan to access from off site. That's one of the beauties of a NAS I think.

Indeed, it’s the best reason. I live pretty rural in the US and speeds are pretty sucky. Download speeds are great with no lag in any streaming services, but uploads are different story.

MSH411 said:

You can set how many frames to buffer before you take the shot in the red camera menu. I moved mine to 8 where the default is 15. It helps reduce the culling and so far its worked well capturing BIF.

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Yeah, actually went in and changed the 30 to 20 and I will probably lower it later

StevenAunan said:

Just received the Godox SK400 II studio flash, $50 from Goodwill (plus $20 shipping). It works, came with a standard reflector and extra fuses. 0.1-1.0s recycle time, 150W modeling lamp, 2.4G wireless X system (so my cheap Godox TT350 flash that was $50 used from MPB will trigger it).

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I actually have two of those but you win (on price). I bought the package from a local camera store.

Grumps said:

The EF 135mm L f/2 USM and EF 70-200mm L f/4 USM (no IS on either of those) will be entering the pre-loved market some time next week.

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New replacement below. Cost? The above mentioned - and a bit more. But it has IS. I think this is the first time I've replaced 2 lenses with one. However, there is no weight saving (the opposite in fact).

Grumps said:

New replacement below. Cost? The above mentioned - and a bit more. But it has IS. I think this is the first time I've replaced 2 lenses with one. However, there is no weight saving (the opposite in fact).

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I can't tell if that is the version 1 or version 2. I have the version 2 and it is without a doubt the best lens I have ever owned. I tolerate the weight because I know that the quality is anything but lightweight. Image quality and build quality.

Well, I finally got my new ugreen NAS hooked up. I’ve got it populated with four 20 TB hard drives (Seagate iron wolf drives), and two smaller drives in the last two days. I’m configuring it with one 4-drive RAID5 and one smaller 2-drive RAID1.
It is currently going through the rather lengthy initialization process.

Bryan Conner said:

I can't tell if that is the version 1 or version 2. I have the version 2 and it is without a doubt the best lens I have ever owned. I tolerate the weight because I know that the quality is anything but lightweight. Image quality and build quality.

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It is the II. Couldn't quite stretch to the price of a pre-loved III.

BasilFawlty said:

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I do have two unrelated questions:

In the movie Planet of the Apes:

1: Why doesn't George Taylor (Charlton Heston) after flying to an unnamed planet in the constellation Orion, and crashing on an alien world, wonder how the native species of the Ape family speak perfect English, and never question the planet their are on?

2: For an Astronaut he is also extremely unobservant. One look up in the sky, day or night, would eventually reveal the Moon... a very familiar looking Moon.

Yes, I read the novel and don't get me started on Star Trek!

Bryan Conner said:

I can't tell if that is the version 1 or version 2. I have the version 2 and it is without a doubt the best lens I have ever owned. I tolerate the weight because I know that the quality is anything but lightweight. Image quality and build quality.

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I also have Version 2 of that lens, and I concur on the quality. I paid $1100 for it back in 2023. So far I have no reason to part with $2800 for the RF version...

I traded in the Photo Wagon for a new one on Wednesday. Traded my 2019 Subaru Outback for 2026 Outback Wilderness. The new one is my fourth Outback and the second Photo Wagon. The first 2 Outbacks were Fly Fishing Wagons. They've all been all over the mountain west, mostly in the Pacific Northwest.

I don't do any rock crawling or anything, but it's not unusual to find me running up a logging road to see what's up there. If you take a gravel road far enough It'll start getting rough eventually. I always thought I could use an extra inch of ground clearance. And on smooth gravel, the car starts to float right at 30 MPH. A touch more aggressive tires would be nice. The Wilderness package had both.

I haven't really had the new one out yet. I'm teaching myself all the bells and whistles. Fundamentally, the new one's not that much different than the old one. The interface is bigger (much bigger) and more refined, but the back-end stuff was pretty much all there in 2019. New, better ways to get to things I already know how to use. This is my first keyless entry vehicle, so I'm still learning the nuances of that. I've been sitting in the driveway punching buttons then running up into the mountains and back to see how it all works. The cameras are new and awesome, but I guess all new cars have that now.

Reviews seem mixed on the 7th-gen Outback. It's a little longer and sits a little higher than the 6th gen. It lost its compact station wagon styling and moved to a boxier SUV look. I don't mind that too much. It's got some pretty cheesy plastic cladding and badging on the outside, and I'll admit, that's pretty ugly. But when I'm sitting inside, I don't see it at all, so it's all good.

I did drive it 10 miles up a gravel road this morning. It was raining pretty good up in the mountains and I wanted to get it a little muddy. Make it understand, this is where it's gonna to live now.

Photo Wagon II

Photo Wagon I