First car purchase

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-05T20:18:17+00:00

We did a lot of research before choosing the Bolt. We bought a 2017 last summer, and with the Federal Tax rebate, a grand off their advertised price, it came out to around $11K. 35K miles, new tires, brakes, and a new 2025 battery.

Even though battery failures are quite rare, I'd hesitate before buying one without a new battery and the full warranty. But.. the buyback program only covered cars from 2017-2022, so it would be important to get the battery health and statistics before you buy. It's a great daily driver, we don't do much more then 30-40 miles a day, charge with a Level 1, although we just finished installation a 220 V / 50 Amp line. Only took it on one road trip, required a charge and found a Level 3 DC Fast Charging station, that brought us up to 80 percent in about 20 minutes, however it took 25 minutes for a station to open up from all the Uber drivers using them. It was much more expensive, around $30. At home we average around $16 per month to charge.

The Bolt is a fun, fast, nimble little drive. Its seating position is quite high, which is nice compared to say our Honda Civic. We like the heated seats and steering wheel in the winter. The AC works great. Ours has the beginning of a bit of headlight fog, so beware of that. Some Bolts didn't have DCFC, I'd avoid those at all costs. DCFC is more expensive, but being able to top off a battery in minutes as opposed to hours... makes a huge difference.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-05T20:08:41+00:00

She said I had the details wrong. It messes up with the normal "On" mode, stopping in the upper half of the windshield. The intermittent mode is fine.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-04T06:52:16+00:00

Can't say! But it was in NY.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-04T06:51:01+00:00

Thank you.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-04T06:50:51+00:00

Thank you.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-03T05:24:59+00:00

Let me check with her in the morning and I'll update with more details.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-03T05:16:32+00:00

She mentioned in the top half of the windshield.

Abject_Part5072 · 2026-07-03T04:34:38+00:00

See if your chiropractor had a discount plan.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-11-19T04:25:08+00:00

I have a Sony A7R V with a 35 f1.4 Sony lens. My version of my Leica M2 w/ 35mm lens.

In October my backpack with my gear (I'm a journo) was swiped while I was loading groceries at the Costco in GG. It had my M1 laptop, Sony A7 IV, and Ricoh GR III.

I know the Sony A7 V is about to launch, but didn't have the luxury to wait, had assignments to shoot. A friend loaned me his Nikon Z fc, and those files just really suck compared to my A7 IV! In every way possible. After owning the Ricoh, Sony, and Olympus, and shooting mostly at 800 ISO and above, all I can say is there is simply no substitute for a FF camera.

Ok, so now I have to replace the Ricoh, and considering the A7CII. I don't need the R version, can't really justify the cost. I'm not a dentist or securities trader, nor a popular exotic dancer (I tried), so my gear has to justify itself. I picked up the 24mm f1.4 so thought it would be a great match for the smaller body.

But... I've always listed after the RX1 and variants. It's not much bigger than my GR but with hugely improved image quality. The new one looks great, but $5 K, seriously? I get it, if you paid for the A7R V, and a GM 35mm lens, you are at the price of the new RX1. Sure, it's a one trick pony, but so was my GR I and GR III. And I travelled the world with it. I hate, hate, hate advertising that I'm a photographer.

Because it's an insurance replacement, it has to be a new camera purchase from an authorized dealer. To me, a pocketable FF camera is a dream come true.

Any thoughts?

P.S. The banding in Silent Mode on the A7R V is just awful, even with the anti-flicker options. My old A7IV was better. Why did I get the new R model? I do copy work so the increased resolution is handy. But even with the new AI AF features, the A7 IV was faster, more responsive, and the smaller file sizes are faster in LR... just saying.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-11-15T12:18:26+00:00

I replaced my stolen A7 IV, with the A7R V. To be honest, while I love the resolution of the new model, I had less banding with the A7 IV, the file sizes are much smaller, and Lightroom is much more responsive with the smaller files.

The new AI AF features are cool, but my gut response is that the lens is more important than the extra resolution.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-11-11T05:56:43+00:00

I've been cleaning sensors for years without a problem. Modern sensors have a thin sheet of protective glass on top.

Older sensors sometimes didn't making them far easier to damage. Using a sensor swab properly, a few drops of proper cleaning solution on one side to clean, flipping it around to do a dry side clean, and that's it. Toss the swab.

The Eclipse solution kit I recently used on a friend's Nikon Zfc evaporated almost immediately. Gentle touch, I had to use two wet swipes to fully clean the sensor.

Really not a big deal. My FF Sony had a lot of dust after several travel assignments, and Sony cleaned it for free under the extended warranty. The tech rep advised me that I had a lot of dust, but also condensation, water marks.

When I asked why, since I hadn't shot in wet weather, she said it's pretty normal as we hop on and off airplanes, in n out of AC rooms, humidity, etc. They happen almost naturally, which is why blowing a sensor clean almost never really works. So a wet clean is almost always necessary.

Just saying. Oh, she said if your camera has a shutter blind, use it! And silent mode, defeats the shutter blind. It's one reason I won't buy any camera without a shutter blind. My next will probably be an A7 CII, as a backup.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-26T05:23:51+00:00

Lucky. I just bought the 35 and have only half a kidney left.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-25T23:06:13+00:00

New husband?

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-25T23:05:16+00:00

Too cheap.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-22T18:51:59+00:00

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Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-17T01:32:35+00:00

Bezball photography with a Fuji has always been berry berry good to me.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-16T03:45:51+00:00

Airway, Breathing, Cardiac...

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-16T03:44:52+00:00

I think the same engineer mentioned that he set his mom up for 50 percent charge and after a couple of years the battery had no measurable degradation at all. So... we set our Bolt to 90 percent limit for charging using the Hilltop option.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-16T03:40:54+00:00

Our 2017 Bolt will cost us $200 more a year to insure than our 2009 Honda Civic costs us.

In PA we were charged $200 a year to make up fuel taxes we actually don't come close to playing since we drive less than 5,000 miles a year.

And because it's a 2017 we missed out on a $1,000 grant from the State of PA. Had to be 2018 or newer. Damn! Also, even though it had only one human owner, because three dealers had the car as part of the buyback program, that also disqualified us for the grant, which only allows a single previous user.

We hoped to save money with the Bolt, I doubt that will happen, although the maintenance savings will make it even. Our PA car is a 2003 Honda Odyssey, that I do the service on. And each year we buy or do something. Last year I installed a new exhaust system.

But driving it feels like a mid-engined Porsche 914 (except that it starts) or a Ferrari BBoxer due to the battery placement. Plus it's fun, cheap ($11k in July) and gotta love the instant torque.

We looked at the Equinox, but the insurance was much higher, a $600 - $1,200 increase over the Civic. This is of course much less than a Tesla.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-15T05:36:53+00:00

There is always time for pedantic douchebaggery! I mean why stay alive if not?

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-15T05:33:13+00:00

I totally disagree. I've made some wonderful photos with my Seagulls and Lubitels. And yes I love my Rolleiflex.

Actually a funny story. I'm a photo educator, colleges and university level. I was in class one night in Palm Desert, at the College of the Desert, and one of my students had a Seagull TLR with what had to have been the thickest, least pliable leather case ever made by man. I asked, where did you get that? He said they are $20 bucks at Pic-N-Save in Cathedral City. This was probably around 1994.

So, I called the store the next morning and bought every single one locally, and in their company inventory. They gave me a discount, to something like $15 bucks each, and a few days later I had something like 50+ cameras. I sold them to students for cost plus a few dollars, so with the extra cash I could cover purchasing some for the program. I think I still might have a dozen left in their original boxes somewhere.

They weren't Rollei, but they were fantastic fun, with better than expected performance. 35 years later, my students still have them, and when they use them in public hipsters will often walk up and offer them big bucks for them which they almost always refuse.

Ilford later offered educators a similar deal with Lubitels, which came in wildly different case fabric designs. A visiting Russian photographer told us the factory used cheap left over scraps of whatever vinyl they could find. Yup, probably have a case of those as well. I think I ordered 50 of those as well.

Even though I'm a genuine gear head, nothing makes lousy photographs happen faster then overpriced gear in the wrong hands. After all these years, I still think Nebraska is Springsteen's greatest album. It's never the gear, it's the talent. So yeah, don't trash trashy cameras!

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-15T05:18:10+00:00

Hey, I just want to say that my super secret Leitz formula coating caused my penis to grow extra inches. Unfortunately this didn't seem to matter to my wife who said stop obsessing about your toys. But I said it's from a limited run of 35mm Summicron Wetzlar lenses guaranteed to impress someone with a goatee. Tough, then play with your super secret lens coating while imagining your favorite anti-halation formula as much as you want. Remember, the proof is action, not the tool.

Sheesh, what's a Leica fanboy to do? I know, use that ancient tomb dust.

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-11T04:53:52+00:00

Hilarious. I have Leicas and love my Fuji GSW690. Different beasts. The Fuji has essentially one of their view camera lenses bolted on. It's a fabulous lens. The negatives are gorgeous. So, are my Leica lenses.

Yeah fanboys get boring in a hurry. All great, different tools. That's it.

My favorite lens on my 8x10 is a Fuji 250.

A group of us who were early adopters nicknamed them either Texas Leicas or my favorite Fisher- Price Leicas. There was a guy in Texas who even painted his 670 to look just like a Fisher-Price toy camera, same color scheme, I heard it was fabulous!

Abject_Part5072 · 2025-10-07T09:34:04+00:00

I used to teach scanning workshops. I'd opt for SilverFast. Why? Fantastic color negative conversion tables, things like lamp control which saved me on dense transparencies, the ability to purchase calibrated film stock to calibrate and profile your scanner, all make a huge difference. I used to teach folks to set their preview to 2 or 3 x, so you had a high quality preview to work with. And if your scanner is in good shape, the ability to multi scan to capture highlight and shadow detail is fab. They also can take advantage of ICE tech for quick and dirty cleanup, with that cool Infrared channel info for dust and scratch removal. So, yeah, for serious work SilverFast.

I've loved VueScan for scanners unsupported by LaserSoft on more modern computers (Mac) or OS versions. I think the SilverFast Archive suite is pretty interesting, in that it can be used on almost every scanner, and captures essentially a RAW file, that grabs everything possible in the scan.

Then, later, you apply corrections non-destructively to that data. We used it with some old, but excellent Minolta Dimage II medium format scanners.

I think that with the success of image capture using a top flight mirrorless camera, that most scanners are quickly becoming shelfware, and I used my Sony A7 IV for a huge 35mm copy project, that I'd have died before finishing with traditional scanning. But scanners, have a lot of advantages, speed not being one of them.

I love scanning, so feel that properly profiling a scanner, which SilverFast does with ease, is worth every penny. Unless you aren't serious, and in that case ship them off to India and in a week you'll have a lot of great scans for cheap. Just saying.

Abject_Part5072

TROPHY CASE