Brian

The Canon 7D, especially the Mark I, was notorious for focusing issues. They do have a Canon 7D Mark II version, which is around $1400 or so. (US Dollars.) For a new Full Frame Body, you are looking at a Canon 5D Mark IV, which should be around $2500. Personally, I would upgrade to full frame. Once you go Full Frame, it's tough to go back to Crop. Mirrorless...it's all the rage with the Measurebators. It gives people who write blogs about cameras something to write about and YouTube personalities something to talk about. While there are adapters to make your lenses compatible with a Mirrorless Body, in reality it's sometimes better to get the Mirrorless lenses to go with the bodies in order to take advantage of all the camera's features. I will say this, I am interested in Mirrorless, but I'm also waiting. Sales of Mirrorless aren't as great as Marketing makes things out to be, and DSLRs are still being sold. Plus, I really don't want to buy a Mirrorless Version of the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 to go with a Nikon Mirrorless Body as that will make it my 3rd 24-70. This Shit gets expensive, so I'm waiting. Hopefully a Pro-Grade Mirrorless Body will be released soon. For the Canon side, the Canon EOS R6 looks interesting, and is the same price as a 5D Mark IV. I'd check YouTube for some reviews, and take things with a grain-of-salt, then make a decision. Either way I'd recommend Full Frame be your next purchase. Keep in mind you might have to purchase extra batteries and remote cables, plus memory cards.

Yeah, you want to install Video Driver updates from DELL and not the manufacture. Even if it's a NVIDIA Card and you see a driver on NVIDIA's website. Dell does tweaking to the hardware / drivers that they put into their computers and it's always best to get these drivers via their software tool. Sometimes you can put in the Microsoft Drivers and they don't do much, if anything, at all. Most of the time you need to go to Dell and get updated drivers from them, especially for the video cards. The other stuff, like Chipset and USB seem to work with either the Microsoft or Dell versions. I would go ahead and install those Dell Updates. One of the Updates is for your BIOS. Just make sure when you update, do not have anything else running and it will force you to reboot. With a BIOS update, things might sometimes appear to have locked up; I would leave it alone and let it do its thing. The downside is that there doesn't seem to be a video driver update, so you might have to call Dell for Support. Something is screwy with your video driver, Photoshop / Bridge is complaining & acting weird, especially since it won't update properly. Actually, thinking about it, it's probably detecting a Update on NVIDIA's website, so a phone call to Dell is likely in your future.

OK, families, about 8-10 people max, conversationally speaking. I'm assuming that you are lighting them with your 86" PLM outdoors? What are you using outdoors currently? I need more info before I just tell you to buy a bunch of stuff. Remember, it's not just a light, but light stands, modifiers, mounting hardware, extra batteries, etc. etc. Walk me through your typical scenario when shooting families outdoors. What are you using or is this just natural light stuff? What is your end-goal in the "Look" of what you are trying to achieve? Can you link to an example?

I'm back. My Holiday...It was Windy. OK, so you mostly have Full Frame Lenses, so no worries there. Now it's time to talk budget. At this point, you could go up to a used 5D Mark III that's in good shape or a 5D Mark IV. Unless you want to stay with a crop body. The reason is the angle of view is different and you won't get that "Magnifying Effect" or "Crop Factor" as you would with a Crop Camera, like your Canon 7D. If you shoot wildlife such as birds, this might be an issue because 200mm on a full frame, will be 200mm instead of acting like 320mm. Now, I get it...optically 200mm is 200m...200mm is still 200mm, it's just the Angle of View Change happens at the sensor, since it's smaller on a crop body. Meaning, your 24-105 will be "Wider" than what you are used to at the 24mm end. Make sense? Right now your 24-105 acts like a 38.4mm - 168mm. (Canon Crop Factor: Focal Length x 1.6). So you may not need to go rush out and get a 11-24 L Lens, your 24-105 might work better for you. So you have full frame glass, so your overall overhead won't be too bad. You can upgrade to anything that you want. This is good news because if all you had was crop lenses, like your 10-22, then we are talking over $5000+ to switch to Full Frame. Now, you can go in any direction. So I guess it boils down to what you shoot?

Photoshop does not like your video drivers. I'm wondering if this is the source of your problems. What Make / Model is your computer? Is there software that checks to see if there are any driver updates?

What sort of Antivirus Software are you running? When was the last time you installed Windows Updates?

Lighting...it’s a slippery slope. Yes, your thinking is correct, but the reality is you do truly do get what you pay for. I can recommend a $2000 Profoto Light or go even higher, or go less. Combine that with mounting hardware and accessories. So we will need to talk budget and give me a typical scenario of what you lug around on location. What are you photographing? I’m sure it’s people, is it families? Headshots?

We will need to start off with your current lens line-up and what kind of budget do you have in mind?

Yeah, there was problems initially, but usually 3 months or so after these major updates get released, they seem to be stable for the most part.

If it makes you feel any better, I am at D50 and around 80-ish on my 27" iMac. Everything else just is too off the mark. I'm also 2-3 ticks from the left in terms of brightness. Even after calibration, the Mac screens are just too bright. So don't be afraid to lower the brightness yourself, regardless what the calibration software says. Honestly, D50 makes the screen just warm enough and not as cold as the Apple Default, and my colors are so much better. Also, after calibration, I see so many different gradient levels, especially in the darks.

You might have to un-install your Spyder5 Pro software and download a fresh copy and install it. OR Check your manufacture's website for any Driver Updates, especially USB or Intel Chipset Driver Updates. You could be correct, Windows could have screwed something up and you need OEM drivers to get things to stop being Wonky. Microsoft has gotten really good over the years with drivers, but they aren't 100% fool-proof.

Awesome! It's still good to add Photoshop and Bridge to that list in the Privacy Tab / Section. It keeps various error messages from popping up in those programs. It's just a glitch with Mojave.

Also, head here: Known Issues with Photoshop and Mojave. You are going to want to read halfway down and Add Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Bridge to the Privacy Tab in the Preferences. This gives permission to Photoshop and Bridge to do stuff on your Mac, especially modify files. Here are the instructions from the website with a little added from me: Open System Preferences. Select Security & Privacy Click the lock to make changes, then enter your system user name and password for your computer. Select Privacy from the top set of tabs, then select Accessibility from the left-hand column of options. Click the + (plus) button under the list 'Allow the apps below to control your computer'. Navigate to the Applications folder and select the Photoshop application (Photoshop and Bridge) and click Open. Both programs should appear in the list under the Privacy Tab. Click the Padlock and then close out the Window. Restart the computer.

Give this web page a read: Change permissions for files, folders or disks on Mac Especially this section: You can't do a "Select All" and change permissions for a bunch of files, but you can do that on a folder. I would try doing this on a folder that is located on your HD.

This doesn't look good. Where were these files from? How did you copy them over? I'm assuming the were originally on a DVD Disc? Because "Digital Rot" is a very real thing and those images might be gone forever. Other terms are "Digital Decay," "Data Rot," or "Bit Rot." In-a-nutshell, various media degrades over time, bit by bit. Almost like a fallen tree-branch slowly degrades and returns to the Earth. Various devices such as hard drives can even suffer from it, but DVD media that you make yourself / burn is notorious for only lasting for so long and is VERY SUSCEPTIBLE for Digital Rot. Especially if you used a really cheap Disks, like a Memorex 100 pack for $19.99. For example, Discs that were made, say in 2002, might be completely blank by now. That's right...your images will just go "Poof" over time as the media degrades without you doing anything. It wastes away sitting in a drawer somewhere for years. Even the Library of Congress has Digital Rot issues and are trying to find ways to combat it. Basically, your generic DVDs that you burn are the worst medium to have important data that is intended for long-term storage. Fortunately, we have Archive Grade DVDs now, but even those aren't 100% Fool-Proof. As a real-life friend of mine, who goes by the Moniker 'Missy MWAC,' has a famous saying: "Print what you want to preserve..." From what I can tell, the cr2 files that have blank / white icons did not transfer over correctly and are more than likely gone without any data recovery possible. I would try copying the files over again and see if you can get any to pop up. As far as the Ratings, Bridge is a Damien thing. I'm thinking the .xmp file isn't playing nice. I would just try copying over JUST the .cr2 files to a new / test folder; especially ones that you are having issues with, open them up in Bridge mess with a new rating, and then open up in ACR. Then save. Let's see what happens.

The Middle One. The RTX 2060 8GB. You don't need "Super" unless you are a Gamer.

I just installed it. The 2004 update seems fine now. Just re-run Windows Update after it completes. Sometimes there are updates for the update.

There are the possibility of two things going on here. The RAM Module in the 4th slot is faulty. (Very Likely.) The Slot itself is faulty. Your crashing problems / beeping noise all point to a bad RAM stick. I think you recently upgraded your RAM? You might want to schedule a RMA before it gets too late. Oh, one more important thing, make sure you touch something metallic to ground yourself out before handling the RAM sticks. RAM does NOT like to get zapped by a static discharge, no matter how small.

Yep. You can either do a Select All and then right click / choose copy and paste those folders on the other EHD, OR you can drag on EHD over the other while one the desktop. Either way works. For me, I'd rather open up the first EHD and do a select all, to make sure I get everything, and then paste it on the 2nd EHD.

That's up to you. Honestly, how often do you go back to these photos? If the file sizes, and folder amounts match up, you should be good. As for the Topaz thing, I'm not sure, I've never used Topaz products. Try opening one of those files and see what it does. I'm thinking for whatever reason, the file is associated with Topaz. Maybe you edited those files at some point with that plugin.

The distortion around the edges isn't usable stuff to work with. That's why sensors / film cells are always slightly smaller than the what the lens projects.

You are thinking like an Engineer. LOL!!

No idea. Can you post a screen shot? Preferably with the file format types. I wanna take a look at these files. Here is an example of what I'm looking for: This is a prime example of why I always recommend to copy and never move files. Just thing if you moved the whole folder? Those 22 files in that folder would be lost forever. Those files could also be duplicates of some kind that the system created, but this is 100% pure speculation without seeing what isn't being copied over.

A couple of reasons. People have been creating art in squares and rectangles for thousands and thousands of years. So it's a habit that is not going to change anytime soon, if ever. Even with Caveman drawings, they were usually linear and could easily "fit" in a rectangle or square. It's how human's are "wired." The distortion that is cut off from the round lenses that we use with a rectangle / square sensor. You really don't want 100% of the round images captured. You will be cropping every single photo anyway, probably to a rectangular shape. The rectangle is kinda what the human eye...well human brain, perceives / works with our stereoscopic vision. The brain automatically flips the images (the eyeballs "see" upside down) that the eye creates and cuts off the distortion around the edges. Very similar to how the camera sensor / film cell works and believe it or not, is in a shape of a rectangle. The human eye also sees about 180º Horizontal and 130º vertical, which is basically a rectangle. This in turn also helps humans perceive depth and utilize multiple axis. (X, Y and Z.) A round lens will focus light without geometric aberrations. A rectangular lens that matched the shape of the sensor would distort the image near the corners and if you had a round sensor with round lenses, it would produce the same but different distortion. Think of a really wide fish-eye lens that produces images that aren't pleasing to the human eye. Cost. This is the biggest thing. If you were to have a circular or hexagonal sensor, the manufactures would have to add layers of software in camera to compensate the distortion to get the "look" on how humans perceive things. Why bother creating circle photographs only to convert them to rectangles? If Adobe can't get the "Secret Sauce" from the Manufactures in order for ACR to "Read" the Raw files correctly, I don't see extra software being given away for free either. We have enough trouble as it is with ACR. Golden Ratio. Some of the greatest and best works of art (buildings, sculptures and paintings) use the Golden Ratio. A rectangle is the easiest form / shape to utilize the Golden Ratio when it comes to artwork / paintings. Manufacturing benefits. It's easier to create a bunch of rectangles, and to ship these rectangles and to install said rectangles in rectangle things. Otherwise we are creating circles that will end up in square / rectangle devices. Just think how uncomfortable it would be to hold a round camera. Just like camera plates when photography first started, it was cheaper to create / mass-produce something rectangular or square and even to transport it.

One more thing! I just noticed that MacPaw makes a version of CleanMyMac X for Windows, called "CleanMyPC." It has a uninstaller built in and is just as easy to use a CCleaner. So you might want to check it out. Here is the link to the software. Chances are, just like CleanMyMac, it will do a scan for you and report back to what it finds. If you want to delete those files, you will need to "Pony up the $$" to get it to work fully. But I'd at least try it.