Yes, obviously they’re for communicating with other drivers, what gave you the impression I meant otherwise? I was responding to this in your last post:

Unless you turn your blinker on to let people know your want over how is anyone going to give you enough space to merge in? […] You need to hit the blinker to let others know you want to move then check for space.

There are a lot of times where it makes sense to wait for a gap in traffic, rather than asking people to let you merge. And in those situations you would check for space before turning on your signal. You should still use your signal, even if you know you already have space to merge.

LA has infamously bad drivers. In many parts of the country people will slow down and give you space to move over when you have your signal on. They’ll also known how to do a proper zipper merge.

Yep. If I know there aren’t any other cars within a quarter mile of me then the turn signal is just a formality. At best it tells other drivers the lane change was intentional, at worst it’s a (miniscule) waste of time and energy.

That only makes sense if you’re driving on a busy road. If seems like half of the commenters here only drive during rush hour, and the other half only drive on empty rural roads.

If there isn’t much traffic it makes a lot of sense to wait until you have an opening and then turn on your signal, instead of turning it on before checking for a gap.

Is this what they call FAFO?

You also don’t need a 16h plane flight to travel. It can be MUCH cheaper, and shorter.

You don’t have to leave the continent, just getting away for a day or two can do wonders.

Not entirely true… If you write libraries for other developers you can use them as beta testers. Your customers have a production environment, but you don’t. At least, that’s what one of our vendors seems to think…

If they send 2 emails per subdomain per year, that could easily be 10s of millions which would make the cost per email measured in thousandths of a cent. And I could see the number of subdomains being larger by a factor of 10, maybe more.

Another angle: someone with IT experience needs to manage the system that seems emails, and other engineers need to integrate other systems with the email reminder system. The time spent on engineering could easily add up to thousands per year, if not tens of thousands.

I’m guessing their figure is based on both running costs and engineering costs.

That seems like a much lower salary than they would get running a for-profit tech company, though. Moving out of SF would also make it harder to hire people with a lot of experience in tech.

I wouldn’t take it on anything more than class II rapids (ie. no whitewater). We don’t get wet on most trips, and that’s without trying to keep anything safe and dry (my phone is waterproof). IMO the risk is only slightly higher than walking next to a swimming pool or river with your camera, you could fall in but most likely won’t.

But someone else pointed out a $90-100 waterproof case, which is a better option that buying another camera just for this.

OK, I found the waterproof case you were taking about and that actually seems like a pretty good option. A $90 case would let us safely use the D3500 on the kayak, and let’s me think about other features when picking out my own camera. Thanks for the suggestion and other info, it’s really helpful.

Edit: Looks like that case limits you to a ~50mm lens, which would be pretty limiting for shooting birds. On the other hand, it sounds like it’s fairly common to have 2 camera bodies to avoid having to change lenses when the camera is wet/dirty, so maybe we could use the D3500 with a short lens in a waterproof case, and also get a weatherproof camera with a super telephoto prime. Lots of options to consider…

Some level of weatherproofing in the camera and lens is a hard requirement for me, and I’m seeing a lot more options for Pentax lenses. But there’s a good chance I’m just not looking for the right thing… Is there a weatherproof super telephoto DX mount lens for under $600? I’m finding Pentax lenses for around $200. Mainly looking at used gear, BTW.

Edit: also, by “stronger market” I meant more supply, which would push prices down. In hindsight that wasn’t very clear…

Seems like waterproof housings cost 2-4x as much as a camera, and I think they only work with special lenses? I don’t need a waterproof rating, I’m comfortable with the risk based on what I’ve read on forums about weatherproofing. And I don’t really expect to get wet on the kind of kayak trips that I’d bring a camera on (I normally have a couple of canine passengers anyway, so it’s usually pretty mellow).

I didn’t realize mirrorless cameras had that advantage with adaptors, but those forums posts I saw about FTZ adaptors make a lot more sense now. Can you cross brands when adapting a DSLR lens to mirrorless body without losing electronics like AF?

For the mount, I’m leaning towards Pentax K mount because that seems like it would give me the most options for reasonably priced weatherproof gear. Obviously the downside is it wouldn’t be compatible with my SO’s Nikon gear, but maybe she’ll switch over since I think she also wants better weatherproofing than her D3500 can offer.

I like how you broke that down. Faster autofocus might help with shooting birds, but a longer focal distance is what I really need right now. Guess I need to spend some time researching lenses…

Thanks for the response. I was leaning towards a DSLR because it seems like the used market is a lot stronger than mirrorless, which I assume means cheaper gear. Does that make sense, or would you still recommend a mirrorless? I already mentioned this in another post, but most of my shooting has been nature/wildlife, so better low light performance might be nice. And autofocus seems almost required for shooting wildlife, but I’ll keep my eyes open for a nice (and cheap) MF prime for landscape shots.

Are you saying you spend a lot more on your cameras than your lenses?

Yeah, I keep reading that on various photography forums. I’m not going to go swimming with it or anything, but I want a camera I can take on kayak trips and shoot on the water. And, worst case scenario, my budget takes into account the risk of the camera breaking.

That makes sense, but at what point should you think about a nicer camera? If I’m looking at $450 used lenses should I spend more than $150 on a camera? Those numbers are somewhat arbitrarily based on a Pentax K50 and a 200mm/2.8 prime lens.