Experience begets Wisdom

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Originally Posted by loosecanon

There are also many good compacts about, easy to carry but capable of excellent results. For a travel holiday a much better option.

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Not to mention bargains like my recent purchase - a Panasonic GH1, used but once, for just over $250 US. Needs a lens but they aren't terribly expensive these days, like the 14-140mm which was in fact the kit lens for that model.

https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicdmcgh1
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Originally Posted by Tronhard

I must admit I am extremely unlikely to lend my gear to anyone else. While that may sound churlish, it came from experience when the times I did so it came back damaged or really dirty. I have always believed that if you look after your gear it will look after you, so I am pretty anal about keeping it maintained, protected and clean. By not lending at all I don't have to go into why I will lend to some people and not others.

On a couple of occasions I have given stuff away rather than put either the borrower or the lender under the pressure of worrying about how it will be returned.

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That's why you NEVER lend your chainsaw or your wife, they both come back in a similar state (alternative description)

I would never lend a chainsaw to my spouse unless she was in a favourable mood towards me! :D

Perhaps flowers and chocolates along with the protective gear! :)

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Originally Posted by Ken MT

That's why you NEVER lend your chainsaw or your wife, they both come back in a similar state (alternative description)

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I certainly don't lend out my gear. I have done so several times and had the gear returned either dirty, damaged or incomplete.

Tell him to buy (or give him as a wedding present) an Olympus TG-4 Tough. It's simple to use, indestructible, zooms from 25-100mm equiv), shoots raw (if you later want to show him how to pp photos) and, most importantly, shoots underwater to 10m. There's a lot of water around the edge of Australia and no doubt he and his bride will spend a lot of time in it.

Greg, I'm glad you chimed in...I wanted to tell him not to go to Australia because of all the
dangerous flora and fauna (land and sea) that resides there. Am I completely FOS or not?

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Originally Posted by chauncey

Am I completely FOS or not?

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You'd better warn the 24 million people that live in Australia about how dangerous their country is.

According to the travel medicine doctor I visit regularly before heading off to a developing county, the single largest cause of injury or death to travelers in a foreign country is getting into a traffic accident, either as a pedestrian crossing the street or while traveling in a car.

I'd say the FOS is very high on your advice.

By the way, I know of people from Europe who are afraid of traveling to the USA because of the risk of gun crime or being attacked by wild animals (wolves, bears, alligators). I suggest the FOS argument to them as well.

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Originally Posted by GrumpyDiver

You'd better warn the 24 million people that live in Australia about how dangerous their country is.

According to the travel medicine doctor I visit regularly before heading off to a developing county, the single largest cause of injury or death to travelers in a foreign country is getting into a traffic accident, either as a pedestrian crossing the street or while traveling in a car.

I'd say the FOS is very high on your advice.

By the way, I know of people from Europe who are afraid of traveling to the USA because of the risk of gun crime or being attacked by wild animals (wolves, bears, alligators). I suggest the FOS argument to them as well.

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I'm definitely one of those who'd be scared of the guns and bears in America (never understood why your constitution gives you the right to arm bears, or something like that). I've lived in some of the wildest parts of Aus and survived. Having said that though I've literally just sat down at my desk having failed to remove a small snake from the house. I normally just catch them and release them 200 metres or so away from the house. This one's just a harmless Children's python that is now comfortably ensconced in a safe (for it) hidey-hole under the seat of an office chair. I can't get it out. Teenage daughter who spotted it is unimpressed at having to now sleep 5 metres from it.

But Manfred's right. Many orders of magnitude more people die from traffic accidents, heart attacks, cancer and suicide than from wild animals. And do you know what is by far the world's most dangerous animal? The mosquito.

Don't think that a mosquito is an animal!

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Originally Posted by Ken MT

Don't think that a mosquito is an animal!

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Vegetable or mineral? pick one.

Yes, actually a mosquito is most definitely an animal, it's an insect belonging to the order Diptera, the True Flies

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Originally Posted by Ken MT

Don't think that a mosquito is an animal!

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I love the fact that people use cell phones to take photographs. It allows far more funds to be spent on research into sensor technology than DSLR sales could ever justify.

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Originally Posted by Ken MT

Don't think that a mosquito is an animal!

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In taxonomic classification at the Kingdom level there are 3 types of cellular life: plants, animals and fungi. The classification of mosquitoes to Family level is as follows:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Diptera
Suborder: Nematocera
Infraorder: Culicomorpha
Superfamily: Culicoidea
Family: Culicidae

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Originally Posted by Ken MT

Don't think that a mosquito is an animal!

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It sure is an animal (insects are animals) and as Greg has pointed out, being the vector for malaria, which kills well over 400 000 people per year. They also spread dengue, yellow fever, Chikunguny, West Nile and Zika. Nasty creatures, and even if they don't spread disease, the bites can be rather itchy.