Nite Mike. The only thing exciting about Government is voting them out every 4 years!

What do you have for a spare flash Mike?

Chris, don't know if Mike is still on or not, but I THINK it may be a speedlite (?) whatever that is.

Still here, as I'm winding down.

Chris,

It's a Canon 550 EX. Let me know if you'd like to see some pics of it.

Yup, I have the basic 300mm as well for the Rebel. I think lens quality is the main difference as it seems like Canon offers a cheaper line of lenses than Nikon. Nikon seems to keep their lens quality up and it is reflected in the price. I am looking forward to trying the vibration reduction feature on the new lenses. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

I think you're right about the lens quality (at least on the cheaper ones Patty and I can afford). But they work so I guess can't really complain. Poor people have poor ways and learn to make do.

Thanks Mike, just wanted to see if it was something I can use but it looks like manual only on the Nikon body we have on order.

Hopefully you can get a good price for it!

We may already have some affiliation with them. Stripes is a pretty big organization.

I saw you and another person here had a few gray areas about Stripes in earlier post so here is the skinny.

Stripes has three main offices, Pacific, Europe and Middle East and a headquarters in D.C. We are not propaganda by any means, but were in the distant past. We are now the only editorially independent news agency in the DOD. We print papers all over the place, not just in our main satellite offices - Tokyo and Kaiserslautern, Germany (both Europe and Middle East is headquartered in K-Town).

All the final touches to the different editions is done in D.C. then sent digitally around the world to something like 50+ countries to get printed and distributed. We even had a paper route in Haiti during the U.S. military's relief efforts. We always use local printers to save money on shipping and it's a lot faster, so the troops aren't reading old news. If there are U.S. troops there, there are most likely freshly printed S&S.

LA Times approached us last year and wanted to do a feature on our paper routes, "The Bravest Paper Boy," and "The Most Dangerous Paper Routes" was few of their proposed headlines. Once the reporter from the Times got downrange during a pretty big U.S. offensive and saw what it actually took to deliver a paper to a forward deployed combat unit, he had a change of heart and got on the next flight home.

Would have been a good story though and it would be to self promoting to do it ourselves.

Now you know, and knowing ...

I wondered if you would stop in! Welcome to the Death Chat. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

JJ I knew about the typsetting in DC and then sending around the world for printing. Always sounded sorta stupid to me, but now in the computer/internet/email age just sort of makes sense. I mean ONE central office and staff instead of duplicating it all around the world.

Don't take it wrong, that is what I have had for the last 4 years! I've been able to take some great (by my standard) shots with it that still put a smile on my face!

I am actually thankful to Canon for making them available as I would have had to pass on them otherwise and would have missed dozens of shots.

I wasn't dissing Canon, lens, Like you I also am VERY glad for what they put out. But the canon lens, at least the ones Patty and I have handled don't seem to have the heft of some of the Nikon ones, but then again, the Nikon lens we looked at were more expensive than the Canon ones.