ilyfrankh

IMO the $25-75 difference between a 50mm 1.8D and a 35mm 1.8 DX (or 50mm 1.8G) is well worth it 2x times over. I'm assuming he was okay with the Pentax lens because it was something he already owned. If he's going to drop money on an entirely new lens he might as well go for something more modern and fully functional on his camera. I usually don't even recommend manual lenses on lower end cameras because the viewfinder is tiny (hard to nail focus).

For a local government: all the PCs are Optiplexes equipped with an i7 2600 + 8gb. Most are still running Win7. The civil engineers have slightly newer machines, with i7 4770s + 16gb RAM.

It won't autofocus with a D3xxx or D5xxx camera (not sure what OP has though).

There's no 'risk' really, it'll just perform really poorly. I wouldn't bother adapting older non-Nikon lenses to your camera when there are plenty of Nikon F lenses floating around. A very inexpensive manual option would be something like the Nikon Series E lenses. But if you're upgrading from a kit lens why even buy a manual lens? Grab a 35mm 1.8 DX ($100 used) or 50mm 1.8G ($150 used).

Yeah, the optimization is just complete garbage. Pretty sure Adobe is just raking in the money with the subscription service so they've becoming complacent with pushing out performance patches.

Lightroom on the desktop already starts chugging with 30 MP files... Performance has been slowly going to shit ever since Creative Cloud. I'm just waiting for the release of a better alternative (DarkTable, CaptureOne or RawTherapee anyone??).

If you have a Best Buy (or even Staples) near you, many of them have mechanical keyboards on display.

I definitely get your sentiment, but getting a properly exposed photograph is by far the most important thing to nail. Because if you're shooting in a dimly lit room, there is no compromise to make. You either get a usable photo or you don't. Here's two Fuji X100s shots @ 4000 ISO (same sensor as the XT-1, 2013)

A big draw to many of the current X-series Fuji cameras are the presets and straight-out-of-camera JPGs. I know a few photographers who bought Fuji's as secondary (personal-use) bodies for the Classic Chrome setting entirely. Pretty much any modern APS-C from the past 2-3 years can produce very usuable images at 6400+ ISO.

I just built my SFFPC in a Raijintek Metis Plus, but the max GPU length is 270mm. Take a look at the InWin 901/301 or Ncase N1 (very $$$).

Well here it is. The first build I've completed since my 2012 budget PC (Phenom x4 955 + GTX 460, later upgraded to an FX-8320 + HD 7870). The jump is insane. Overall, I'm super pleased with how it all turned out. I opted for a SFFPC for the ability to haul it to/from a studio I work at, friends' houses, several upcoming StarCraft LANs, and the a e s t h e t i c s. My main use case is light gaming (StarCraft 2, CS GO, etc), photo editing, and light video editing. PCPartPicker Part List Type Item Price CPU AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor Purchased For $148.00 CPU Cooler Noctua - NH-U12S 55 CFM CPU Cooler Purchased For $60.00 Motherboard MSI - B450I GAMING PLUS AC Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard Purchased For $120.00 Memory Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory Purchased For $70.00 Storage SanDisk - Z400s 256 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive Purchased For $0.00 Storage ADATA - Ultimate SU800 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive Purchased For $80.00 Storage Western Digital - Blue Mobile 2 TB 2.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive Purchased For $80.00 Case RAIJINTEK - Metis Plus Mini ITX Tower Case Purchased For $60.00 Case Fan Corsair - ML120 75 CFM 120 mm Fans Purchased For $23.00 Custom Silverstone ST45SF-G 450w Gold Purchased For $35.00 Custom Nvidia GTX 1070 (OEM) Purchased For $180.00 Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts Total $856.00 Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-06-13 00:39 EDT-0400 Some parts were bought used from friends as they upgraded, and everything else was bought on sale. It totaled to a bit over $900 after taxes. Temperatures: CPU (3.7GHz @ 1.1v, Thermal Grizzly): 42c idle, 67c load (AIDA64 CPU/FPU/Cache) GPU (repadded, Artic Silver 5): 45c idle, 72c gaming load (Battlefield V) Pictures: Fitting a 269mm GPU into a '267.5mm MAX LENGTH' case. Front panel IO: ✔ Back 2.5" media drive. The mess of cables as I figured out how to route everything. You'll notice I removed the dual ML120 fans on the Noctua heatsink and added a default NF-F12. I found the dual fan setup to have a pretty neglible effect on temps and it just added noise. The finished station. Full build notes: I tried a bunch of different configurations (rebuilt this thing 3 times), so I got a really good feel for the case and what it can do. GPU -My GTX 1070 is a no-brand OEM that I shucked from a prebuilt... If you look at the PCB markings and the cooler design though, you can see it's actually just a no-branded MSI Aero. I was initially unsure if the GPU would fit because the length of the card is officially listed at 269mm and the max GPU length for this case is supposedly 267.5mm, but I read on some forum posts and a Dutch (?) review that you could actually fit a 270mm GPU. So I went ahead and risked it... it's tight, but it does indeed fit. -Other posts warn that if you're using a 267mm+ card, the front IO won't fit. I found this to be untrue. It's tight and you have to kink the cables a bit, but I did get all the front IO plugged in and working. The best way to do this was to remove the IO, install the GPU, then rescrew the IO in after angling the cables. YMMV though because cables might not reach the headers depending on your mobo's layout. The USB 3.0 and power pins were especially difficult, but you can see how I ended up routing it (under the GPU). -I had no trouble whatsoever with the GPU's temperatures. I found out that even without the top intake fan it peaked at 79c which is acceptable. My GPU is a blower-type though. PSU + Cable Management -I chose to orient the PSU leftwards so the intake isn't fighting with the CPU cooler for air, then I oriented my Silverstone SFX-to-ATX adapter so the mesh-holed side was on the same side as the intake fan (giving the PSU a bit more fresh air). This also give you more room between the PSU and case allowing you a space to stash cables. -I saw a bunch of reviews and posts where people cut a hole into the SFX-to-ATX adapter to get the power cable routed through. You don't need to do this. The case comes with a little "riser" that has a gap for the power cable to route through. It's hard to explain this part (didn't get any pictures), but the best way to attach the PSU is to remove this little 'riser part' (there are 4 screws holding it), attach the SFX-to-ATX bracket to the 'riser,' attach the PSU, then finally attach the 'riser'+ SFX-to-ATX bracket + PSU to the case. -Can't really recommend anything special on cable management. Just try to remove as much excess length on the cords as possible with zipties. Drives -I have 3 2.5" drives in this thing. I stashed one behind the motherboard tray and velcro'd the other two onto the PSU. I like the velcro'd method because it hides a lot of the cable management. -I did initially try putting two of the drives on the bottom tray, but I don't necessarily recommend it. It becomes a tight fit with a tower CPU cooler (some CPU coolers won't fit at all if drives are down there) and it adds more headaches with the cable management (it's another different 'area' you have to route the cables to). Also, the rubber standoffs for the 2.5" aren't thick enough IMO and it becomes difficult to plug in the SATA/power cable. Fans + Cooling + CPU cooler -The top fan is set to intake and the rear fan is set to exhaust. The CPU cooler is exhausting rightwards, expelling heat out the rear. The idle temperatures are high with this setup, but the load temperatures aren't. -Pretty sure the second fan on the CPU cooler doesn't do much, so I'll probably remove it for decreased noise. -I did run this build for a while with the stock Wraith Stealth cooler and it got unacceptably hot with the above fan setup (85c+ CPU under load). This is because this setup has a lot of 'dead spots' with no airflow and the ambient case temp just climbs. With the stock cooler, I found it better to use the rear fan as intake, then flip the PSU around so its fan acts as an exhaust. Not ideal for the life of the PSU, but it knocked temperatures down a full 10+ degrees.

The three red motherboard choices you have are: 1. ASUS Crosshair V Formula-Z 990FX (Black & Red) 2. ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX (Black & Red) 3. Biostar TA 990FX E (Red, White, & Black) Alternatively, you can get an all black motherboard which shouldn't be that bad (LEDs tend to overshadow, or "drownout" the motherboard color).

No problem. ^^ when I first got the mobo I was like "how the hell do I change the multiplier?" I dug around and found it. ;)

I'm currently using the Biostar TA 990 FXE. Use the custom Pstates.

But that voids the warranty, no?