Full frame is overkill for a beginner. Lenses are much more important than bodies or format. You’re much better off getting a second-hand APS-C body from a few generations back, and invest in lenses, than getting a top FF body and just a kit lens.

Depends on the budget of course. But you’ll want to experiment and try different lenses, so that’s what you need to budget for.

Which system/brand is the best - neither, it depends on your preferences.

First you should decide whether you want a DSLR (with an actual mirror) or an EVF camera. That’s pretty important for the feel, and it’s to your preference.

Second is the ergonomics of the system. Fujifilm and Olympus (or what’s that they call themselves now) generally regarded as very “classical”, Canon, Nikon and Pentax have their own styles that have evolved over 70 years, and Sony and Panasonic are more modern and more video-focused.

And then there are lenses. There’s quite parity between systems so it doesn’t matter that much which you choose, with the exception of Canon M system which has weak support and is dead. So the M50 is good only if you can get it cheap and treat it as a one-off for learning. (Ed: actually I think you can mount adapted APS-C DSLR lenses so there’s still an upgrade path.)

I used to have Nikon DSLRs, but I’m not a huge fan of their new EVF offerings.

Sony is the biggest brand out there but I never liked their ergonomics and style.

Canon is kind of a gold standard, but always make weird choices re what can be in which model, and lately seem confused.

Pentax probably has the best ergonomics and controls ever, but is an extremely niche brand at this point.

OM system is lovely, but their smaller 4/3 sensor makes lenses different and is on life support.

If I was starting from scratch today, I’d probably go with the Fujifilm X system. Lots of various choices, been around for a while, good support, open lens system.

I suggest you look at Thom Hogan’s sites bythom.com and sansmirror.com

That’s how I learned to tie my shoelaces as a kid. I was “taught” by a cousin iirc, who was barely older than me and couldn’t demonstrate it properly. I figured it out on my own by visualising it. It’s the bunny ears method that I use to this day.

I wouldn’t be so stoked about it. Retail chains use alp kinds of dirty tactics to get products cheaper, this is probably one of them.

*customers, please. I don’t consume batteries.

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If you mean non-rechargeables, all batteries of the same technology are really the same in capacity. Doesn’t matter if you buy an expensive brand or the cheapest bulk store brand, the difference is a couple percent and depends more on the age of the cell and how it was handled.

Just get cheapest store-brand alkaline if you must, but really best avoid altogether and use rechargeable.

I have a case with a ring/stand. I also often use one-handed mode in the keyboard or in the UI.

That’s why I’m saying we need new forms of government and new kinds of people, someone willing and able to question everything. It’s possible that eventually it will be moot as AI becomes too good at manipulation, but for the time being, we at least need people to read through AI-generated emails and articles before hitting send. And with more advanced features, people with enough expertise to critique the results AI is giving.

We already have AI running all the shit. If you’re looking for a job, AIs look through resumes, they can hire you and fire you and do everything else around it. AI determine if you can get a loan and with what interest rate.

I don’t feel like we’re better for it.

AI can design kickass cars and fusion reactors, but removing people from decisions about people doesn’t seem like a great idea.

Besides, even if AI was actually better at it, the fact that it’s not as fireable or held accountable like a human can (at least in theory) makes it an issue.

Basically I’m ok if AI gives suggestions, even at the top level, but there need to be people able to go “hol up, that’s not something we actually want” if it declares something stupid.

I do think we’ll need new forms of government and different kind of people to coexist with AI at those governments.

I’m not against gif in general as a format, nor for the specific use case I mentioned. (Even tho afaik webp or others can do animations and transparency too.)

But you know that when people say “gif” they really mean “short video”, and don’t know the difference. And so when they are making a short video and saving it, they see “gif” in export options and choose that, because they think that’s what it is.

A while ago I was debating with someone who was looking for an optimal way to encode gifs - as actual gif the format - of gameplay videos. Like, several minutes of HD gameplay, and they were using gif for that.

Similar problem is with PNG which people use for just about anything, like screenshots of Instagram posts.

If using more modern, better formats means killing old formats but also making the whole internet faster and me needing less storage space or not needing to go through conversion process every time, and maybe even eventually eliminating the ridiculously overcompressed or 100x recompressed or 8-bit dithered crap that are supposedly images and “gifs” these days, then I’m definitely for it.

Oh come on, every cpu in the last 15 years has hardware support for multiple simultaneous playbacks of h264 video, and in the last 10 years x265 too.

1000 gifs on a screen, yea that’s definitely not a page I ever want to see, thanks. Why the hell would I need that?

And yea sure obviously gif is efficient on bare metal cpu, because it’s a format made for 33 MHz CPU without a floating point. It was also made with a handful specific use cases in mind and specced accordingly, so it has absolutely no place in anything else than animated clipart loops. Don’t even argue, please, this is so silly.

The greatest DYKWIA I’ve ever seen

I think that’s pretty normal, honestly. Especially for an artist where praise is the only reward, having low engagement can be depressing. It’s just what it is.

I don’t have any advice, and I don’t think advices “think of…” or “take it as…” are any useful. Maybe I can say try to do the art primarily for yourself rather than for others?

Or if you feel like it, you can try doing more niche/different stuff. People who like very specific, oddball things, tend to be more appreciative, and there’s less “competition”, if you will. And challenging yourself to do something different and new can be good for you too, but it depends on what you wanna do.

I can only guess it’ll eventually bump out, maybe you’ll post less, or find a small hardcore audience, or maybe stop caring about it. Or not. An artist’s life is weird.

Weird. Did you try through catbox.moe? That’s what I use to post images. I don’t have experience with animated stuff though, sorry.

This animation bugs out even when I just view it in plain browser or in jerboa, looks like a compression problem. Is that a converted gif? The artifacting looks consistent with gif compression rather than webp, so probably the software you’re using to convert it is reading it wrong. Try some of the online converters, maybe this https://cloudconvert.com/gif-to-webp (it’s what I use to convert gifs to mp4)

Nothing except that it’s a horribly obsolete, bloated, barely compressed format with shit quality that’s misused for a completely different purpose than what it’s meant for.

When I download gifs of stuff I can’t find anywhere else, I convert them to mp4. A 50 MB gif turns into a 300 kB mp4.

So… I guess that’s wrong.

Death to gif

Downloading on FF mobile is veeeery hit or miss in lots of aspects, one of those things where I wonder if the devs ever use this thing.

Lingo Deer is pretty much the same thing for Asian languages, iirc

This is behaviour that gets you killed. Musk may be rich, but not “weapons manufacturer” or “oil magnate” powerful.