As the handful of you who frequent my little corner of the internet have likely figured out long ago, in addition to Dutch Dogs, and chasing birds, I really enjoy photography.  Nik and I have had a Nikon D60 for the past nine years, and it has served us well.  In fact about eighty-percent of the photos in my book where taken by that very camera, and much to the dismay of Craig, my publisher, none of the photos were shot "RAW" and many weren't even "fine JPG" either.  I've lugged that camera around just about everywhere, even my buddy Dave had to use it to capture some photos for an article he was working on when he forgot his own rig.  As my photography needs grew, it became apparent the D60's auto focus system wasn't fast or accurate enough, nor was it's frames per second adequate - 3fps, which we thought were blazing back in 2008.  I've spent the past two years researching DSLR cameras and pounced on the new Nikon D7500 shortly after its release.  This new body gives me much of what the D500 offers without the added expense: an amazing processor, a deep buffer, 8fps, yet still holds onto Point and Shoot capability for when that's all I want to do, and Snapbridge - which set up easily and has worked flawlessly for me.  Pretty much all wins across the board for me - yay!  

​On the side, I've fooled around with various editors, most weren't that great either in their power or flexibility or cost.  I've become a big fan of Google Photos over the years, and use it extensively - but still I wanted more, and I wanted it for free.  Getting the new DSLR has put me to search, and I have gone with Tony Northrup's recommendation to use Photoscape X and Raw Therapee to meet my emergent needs.  These programs don't adulterate the original file and are much, much more flexible and powerful than either MS Photos or Google Photos, and you don't have to fool around with adding an Andriod OS on your PC to use cool apps like Snapseed.

This photo was shot on the US-Mexico border, conditions were clear skies and bright sun light.  Original un-edited from the camera on the left. a bit washed out, with deep shadows on Booker's face.  MS Photos, was able to bring back back some more natural color, and manage a simple crop.  Photoscape X helped bring up more natural color, and through masking I was able to ease (lighten) some of the deep shadows on the left side of his face and make his eye visible - pretty sweet.