Brian

4TB G-Drive: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1024614-REG/g_technology_0g03050_g_drive_4tb_7200_thunderbolt_usb3_sata3.html Yes, the more space you have available for PS, the happier it is.

Just remember, you DO NOT need 75 RAW photos of your lunch from 3 years ago. LMAO!! If it's not going to see the light of day, or hasn't in the last few years, it won't. Good luck culling. The feeling is like shooting your kids, one by one.

Your situation with the scratch disks is "better," but is nowhere near being completely fixed. You need more storage.

G Drives are "better" in a sense that they use better components and parts. I use them. Chase Jarvis primarily uses them. They are tough drives that last. Especially the "Professional Grade" models. They aren't your $79 Special from a Big Box store. You are running into dangerous territory AGAIN. That external is almost filled. You need another HD ASAP. In reality, you do not want to go more than 75% full on ANY HD, internal or external. 5GB free is NOT GOOD AT ALL. Today's GB are yesterday's megabytes. People think that a "Gig" is enough. It's not. You might as well have 5MB free if this was the late 1990's Combine that with your D800, and there is no question on why you are running out of room. Either you become ruthless in culling your photos, or you are going to need to get a 4TB HD in the near future.

I have one USB EHD for my TM backups (Backs uo the Main Internal HD) and a 3TB G-Drive EHD for my photos and important data.

4TB Thunderbolt G-Drive 2TB USB 3.0 G-Drive meant for Time Machine ONLY

Yep. That's a G-Drive. They also have a 4TB model.

Your target needs to be between 80GB - 100GB free. That's Gigabytes not Megabytes. Basically 1/3 of a Mac HD needs to be free at any given time.

Oh, with only 941MB free out of 250GB, your HD is in danger of corruption. So be ruthless in culling and what gets stored on it.

The main problem is your HD is only 250GB. That is microscopic by today's standards. You will need to move EVERYTHING off the main drive and use an external Thunderbolt drive. I recommend the Thunderbolt G-Drives, but they aren't cheap. Basically, only the OS & programs will be on the main HD. You are going to have to be ANAL on what gets stored on it. No images, no iTunes library. Just the OS and programs.

Well, Adobe's products are using the graphics CPU chip and video memory now more than ever. That said, they still haven't figured thing out 100%. (Black Boxes anyone?) Honestly, I would still get the stock $1799 27" iMac. Then when you get it, head to Crucial.com and run their scanning tool. It's free and harmless. After you run the scanning tool, it will take you to a page with your options. You are looking for a 16GB kit. After you install the crucial RAM, you will have 24GB total. Now all that's left is for you to purchase a 3TB or 4TB Thunderbolt G-Drive and a 2TB USB 3.0 G-drive. The USB 2TB drive will be used for Time Machine backups and the 3TB/4TB Thunderbolt EHD is for your images.

No. Well, let me clarify. I'd rather you spend that money on an external Thunderbolt G-Drive.

Yeah, photos is a real pain to disable. If you want to auto-import photos from your phone, I use the free version of Dropbox. It syncs you phone to a folder in its cloud service. Granted, the free version is only 2GB, but it does give you a chance to put your photos somewhere so that it doesn't end up in Photos. After importing, you can always move them to a folder on your HD.

When it comes to Photoshop, there is only about a 5-7% speed boost with an i7 Intel CPU. That said, if you were to do anything with video, then a i7 makes a world of difference. Honestly, having more RAM will benefit you more than a faster CPU. Whatever you do, skip the 21.5" iMac and head straight for the 27" variety. Get a 16GB kit from Crucial.com to take you from 8GB to 24GB.

Final thought: It's really crappy for Canon to do this. It's just not the 5D Mark II either. Many other Canon bodies suffer the same fate. It's pathetic and unacceptable for a company as large as Canon. My (Retired) Entry Level Nikon D40 with its 3 whole AF points runs circles around a Digital Rebel from that era when it comes to focusing. A friend of mine stopped using his AF system completely. He manually focuses and his results are way better than his Canon body's AF system. People pay good money for this sh*t and they shouldn't have to fork out $3000 for an accurate AF system. /end rant

In addition, you need to practically be on the surface of the sun for a 5D Mark II to lock on your subject. Of course I'm exaggerating and having a bit of fun, but I'm also serious. You need to have enough light and contrast swing in order for a 5D Mark II to lock on consistently. Of course, there are exceptions and others might disagree with me, but you aren't the 1st person to question accurate focus with a 5DMK2.

Oh! The 5D Mark II only has ONE RELIABLE FOCUS POINT!! It's the CENTER AF point. All of the others can be hit or miss. So it may not be you or your lenses. Why you may ask? Canon is a company that likes to cut corners with their camera bodies. The 5D Mark II uses the same focusing system from the 5D Mark I, which was from 2005. It only has one cross-type AF point, the center one. The newer Canon 6D is the same way. Canon's solution? Purchase a 5D Mark III.

It is the correct place to ask this question. Basically, you are asking about Cloud Storage. I think Backblaze is the one that most use. You have to really pay attention to the fine print with these Cloud Services. Often they will delete your files within 30 days if they aren't installed on your computer. So if you move a bunch of photos from your computer to the Cloud Service, and not keep a copy on the HD, you will get a nasty surprise of deleted photos when you need them 60 days from now. Not fun.

I haven't really had much personal success with this sort of stuff. I'm very fortunate to have my lenses and camera body that play well together. There are plenty of DIY things you can print out, but I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND PRINTING THEM ON A B&W LASER PRINTER. The "OfficeJets" and ink-jets of the world may not produce crisp enough lines for something like calibration charts / guides. Of course a tripod will be required, along with a remote trigger of some sort. If your camera has a Mirror Lockup function, be sure to use that, as it will cut down body shake from the mirror flipping up.

Yes. She should change it back to RAW. I'd honestly switch to JPEG, set it to "Large" or just leave it at "Medium" (which sets it to 24MP) and choose JPEG Fine for the quality. In reality, if she shoots Raw, it doesn't matter what the JPEG is set to. Oh while you are messing with stuff, change the camera to sRGB.

Yes, it's time for an upgrade. The 5D MKIII is a fine camera. I highly recommend it. In your case the 6D, is also an option. Fortunately, with the current Nikon announcements (Nikon D5 & D500,) Canon is about to release a few new bodies of their own. So by the time Spring / Summer rolls around, you might have some new choices. In addition, before you take the plunge to Full Frame, we will need to review your current lens line-up. The majority of the time, crop-body-only lenses really cripple a full frame camera and really are not recommended. So if you have any EF-S lenses, they are CROP BODY ONLY lenses. It's the EF lenses that are full frame. So it can be a shock to some that the average cost to switch to Full Frame runs about $4000-$4500, conversationally speaking. (Figure a $3000 FF body and a few prime lenses or a single zoom lens for around $1500 or so.) So lets talk lenses, tripods, camera releases and then camera bodies. You have plenty of time.

I would contact the manufacture's customer service and see what they recommend. The Geek Squads of the world will want to nuke your HD and then charge you lots of money. The software on that recovery partition is very specific and it just can't simply be deleted, unless the manufacturer's tech support gives their blessing.

Lenses will improve the ability to let light hit the sensor. Which means you won't have to crank your ISO as much in "typical" situations. So indirectly, yes...it does help with ISO. Having the option to zoom out to 200mm @ f/2.8 is two whole stops of light. Which means if you are shooting at ISO 1600 with your current 55-200VR, if you use a 70-200 f/2.8 VR II, you could shoot at ISO 400, because you are gaining two stops of brightness. In reality, the two go hand in hand. So to really recap, here are my thoughts. Both the D750 and D500 are excellent choices, but I feel that you are so used to the limitations of the consumer-grade kit lenses, you think that buying a bigger body will solve your problems. Of course, that's what the camera manufactures want you to believe; keeps you thinking that a new camera body will make you a better photographer, produce better images. While that is true to some degree, as newer technology will almost always trump older technology, nothing can replace good technique and having the best lenses as one can afford. There is a huge difference between the glass you are used to and the professional-grade stuff. Here is a lens that I routinely shoot with, it's much bigger and heavier than your 18-55, but the images from that lens are so much better: Nikon 17-55 f/2.8G Seriously, it will blow your 18-55 out of the water. Here is one of my favorite photo taken with my D300s and 17-55 f/2.8G. My D300s dates from 2009 and I'm about to make the switch to Full Frame: Kristen & Benjamin (I'm in the process of redoing my website, so FB will have to do for now.) The 17-55 is the "24-70" for crop bodies. It's a pro-grade lens, released when the Nikon D1 and D2 eras were new. Up until the Nikon D3, the "Professional Grade Bodies" were crop sensors. It wasn't until the Nikon D3 did we have affordable Full Frame Sensors. (Yes...for most people, $6000 isn't "affordable," but for the photographers that were forking out $10,000-$20,000+ for the 1st digital cameras, it WAS affordable at $6000.) Anyway... Back to the D750 vs. the D500. D750: You will get Full Frame. Low ISO capabilities, but the only lens that will make the D750 work as intended is the 50mm f/1.8. All of your DX lenses will throw it in "crop mode" which really cripples things. You could purchase a AF-S 85mm f/1.8, which will perform how your 50mm does with the D5300. With a crop sensor, your angle of view changes due to the smaller sensor. So a 50mm f/1.8 performs like a "Portrait Lens," even though optically it's still 50mm. With a full frame body, 50mm is 50mm and 85mm is 85mm. With a FF body, the angle of view is more "normal." Bottom Line with D750: Great camera. Highly recommended. I recommend spending the little extra in getting the D750 vs a Nikon D610, which is a ENTRY LEVEL FX body. Downside, you are going to need glass and even though you saved up, you are going to need to save more. The average cost to switch to Full Frame is around $4000-$4500. D500: Brand new. Hasn't hit the shelves yet. Has a lot of technology from the new Flagship Model: The Nikon D5. Weather sealing is better than what comes with the D750. It's built better, AF system is more robust. Basically, it's the "Professional Grade" DX body. I've shot plenty of gigs with my D300s and am now just starting to long for something better. That said, I've been buying pro-lenses the last few years in order to prep me to switch to Full Frame. Cost should be $1999 and it will work with all of your current lenses. Bottom Line with D500: For your situation, it is more affordable. Though I really would HIGHLY recommend upgrading your lenses. You could even rent them to see what I'm talking about.

Oh. In addition to 12 and 14 bit settings, you can cut (turn off) the megapixels in the camera's sensor which help save space and can speed up shooting. That's how you increase the fps from 5 to 6.5, by putting it in DX mode which creates 16MP images. (I think.) I don't know anyone personally that has done this. Going from 36MP to 24MP, sure.

That recovery D: drive is just a partition on your main HD. Think of a hard drive like a bookcase, and the programs / data are the books. The individual shelves in the bookcase are the HD partitions. You just have a single bookshelf that's really full. As long as you haven't put ANY files on that recovery partition, it should stay the same forever. If it keeps growing, you have another issue and I'm thinking you'll need to talk to support. In either case, create the recovery media.