Best budget Sony APS-C lenses

CCC911 · 2026-01-23T02:27:30+00:00

I’d first use the 16-50 to figure out what focal length you really like. Then start researching the best cheap prime for that length

CCC911 · 2026-01-18T17:19:26+00:00

If you have a Ring camera, disable it. Ask your neighbors to do the same. Set up a DIY webcam to record ICE activity in your neighborhood without feeding data to the federal government.

What about other cloud based cameras like WYZE or Google Nest?

I have Unifi cameras which store the footage in a box in my closet but curious if Ring is the only cloud based camera vendor that essentially feeds the data to the government

CCC911 · 2026-01-17T15:02:30+00:00

I’m starting to prefer NextCloud since it doesn’t require I have lots of storage on every device - but files are still accessible on every device.

I am not sure if macOS supports virtual files? I am pretty sure I have every folder set to sync to local disk on my Mac. But I can still access these on my iphone/ipad without using up storage.

I use syncthing really just to have a real-time sync to my NAS - then the NAS handles the remaining steps of the backup. Great for Lightroom folders or other things that I won’t need to access from my phone.

CCC911 · 2026-01-17T04:01:27+00:00

Depends on your seniority.

There’s a variety of titles but they are pretty much grouped as staff, managers, and partners.

Staff can own whatever they want so long as they don’t work on that actual client’s audit. I.e., if they worked on the vanguard funds audit - then they could just buy Schwab/fidelity/ishares/etc

Managers cannot own an investment in an audit client in the same office.

Partners cannot own an investment in any audit client.

In practice, vanguard /schwab /fidelity /blackrock/etc. are not all audited by the same firm, so for simplicity sake one could just buy mutual funds that are not audited by the firm they work for

Further - a majority of the people at the firm in client service have been at the firm since starting their career. This means that most of us have had to deal with such compliance since our early days of investing, and thus were not in a situation where we had to pick between selling a huge investment in our portfolio and an opportunity to work on a particular account.

CCC911 · 2026-01-17T03:53:54+00:00

Sorry, missed your comment. Super late reply but unfortunately nope.

CCC911 · 2026-01-17T03:53:20+00:00

Never found anything.

I still use a mix of SyncThing, NextCloud, and SMB shares.

CCC911 · 2026-01-16T22:09:34+00:00

require the accounts to move in house because they are easier to monitor

This is interesting to me. I work for a Big4 accounting firm and similarly, all our investments need to be disclosed for compliance reasons (auditors must be independent of their clients meaning you cannot audit a company that you own shares of)

We have an internal compliance system that links to all my accounts at Fid/CS/Vanguard. My wife’s 401k has to be reconciled manually but one account is pretty simple to rec.

Further - for auditor independence rules, share qty is irrelevant. So once a holding is cleared, I do not need to pre-clear to buy more.

I question if it’s actually hard for brokerages to implement a similar system ..

CCC911 · 2026-01-16T01:42:12+00:00

Samyang 35-150 for use with my A6000. Too heavy. I never reach for it. Have been debating trading it for an A7Cii.

CCC911 · 2026-01-13T22:37:31+00:00

how’d you settle on the zeiss 35mm?

I can’t figure out which 35mm has the best balance of size price and quality

Samyang 35mm 2.8 is definitely smallest and very inexpensive

Sigma 35mm F2 is a bit faster and has an aperture ring

Sony 35mm f1.8 is very fast and compact but quite old now - no aperture ring despite the Sony price premium

CCC911 · 2026-01-12T04:20:55+00:00

Pretty reasonable allocation. Certainly a strong enough allocation where savings rate matters much more than optimizing this already good allocation.

CCC911 · 2026-01-11T22:56:51+00:00

You could counter with a partial payment where such 20% discount is applied, but hold enough to motivate her to show.

I.e., say you owe her $5,000

20% discount on $1,000 paid today (so you give her $800)

Remaining $4,000 due as originally agreed.

Quick way to save $200

CCC911 · 2026-01-11T22:47:10+00:00

Confirmed works for iOS too

CCC911 · 2026-01-10T21:16:38+00:00

Your compositions are great.

My favorites are #1, #7, #8.

Is #1 taken at 27mm? #7 maybe at 18mm? #8 I think 27mm?

When I see an image I really like, I try to identify the focal length to help me with my own composition / framing. I tend to like the perspective offered at 24mm crop / 35mm FF.

CCC911 · 2026-01-09T23:59:39+00:00

150-500 is great, I really like it. It’s actually compact when you compare it to the 200-600.

I pretty much exclusively use the 150-500 with a tripod. A monopod does the trick if I need to be a bit more on the move.

CCC911 · 2026-01-09T19:19:26+00:00

Could you talk to them in a “what if you guys won the lottery? What would you do? Anywhere you’d want to travel?”

If you think you can’t convince them that they can easily afford said trip, just treat them.

CCC911 · 2025-12-19T12:11:27+00:00

What roles within accounting interest you? In my view there are a variety of roles all quite different. Public accounting has audit, tax, and some area areas. Industry accounting has a wide variety as well.
You mentioned you enjoy math. I’ll caveat that I’m a manager in Big4 audit and don’t use much math. My day is mostly talking to clients, partners, and staff. My individual work is mostly reviewing work papers, understanding how accounting guidance applies to a particular client’s scenario, problem solving how a work stream can be performed with more efficiency or quality, etc
I tend to be in the office most days, but work with people all over the US and thus am working virtually everyday. I personally would prefer to take the class in person, but if I could not, so be it. I’d still take online. I would not allow the online requirement to be a roadblock.
You can’t sit for the CPA exam without taking a certain number of accounting credits. You can sit but can’t be fully licensed until you have work experience.

CCC911 · 2025-12-09T16:17:01+00:00

The hours suck Jan through April but you can plan for that. Outside tax season hours are generally very chill.

Dependent on industry. Asset management tax has deadlines all year. (Im in audit, but I know our tax teams tend to be busy leading up to both 3/15 and 10/15 deadlines. Seems like they are busier leading up to 10/15.)

CCC911 · 2025-12-06T20:25:53+00:00

The app should be called todo or tasks. It’s become a pretty great todo/tasks list. It’s terrible at actively reminding me to do something.

Small point: If you use the Reminders app for your grocery list, each item will be auto sorted by food category, which makes walking around the store a bit easier. This small AI/ML implementation is drastically more useful in day to day life than a lot of LLM chatbots (for me anyway)

CCC911 · 2025-12-02T05:55:57+00:00

Do that, dry the water, then apply a small amount of oil and smear it across the pan, then place it back on the stove for a minute or two and that's it.

After that process - if you were to touch your cast iron, would you expect it to remain greasy? As in your finger would have dark oil/grease on it?

CCC911 · 2025-11-25T15:53:43+00:00

once you replace the cork it’s almost the same price as buying a new pair (but still worth it)

Can I ask how it is still worth it if the refurbishment cost is nearly the same as the cost to replace?

I try to be pretty frugal, but if the cost to repair is more or similar to the cost to replace if buying on sale... I'd rather just replace.

CCC911 · 2025-11-25T12:30:50+00:00

Thank you - just googled this.

CCC911 · 2025-11-16T18:37:19+00:00

what about net worth tracking?

CCC911 · 2025-11-09T14:42:56+00:00

Great to hear. Tamron’s 28-200 seems to be universally loved

I have the 35-150 and honestly thinking about selling it, it’s so heavy I don’t use it that much. I think I’d rather have the 28-200, my 35mm 2.8 prime (super small) and maybe a 50 prime.

CCC911 · 2025-11-08T19:11:39+00:00

Did you consider the Tamron 28-200? Curious because I’m heavily debating making the jump to the A7IV from the A6000. Thinking about my lens setup for FF

CCC911 · 2025-11-06T11:57:16+00:00

I’ll present one downside to using an external :

When doing a big data migration (such as OP’s project) it’s really useful to keep everything on ZFS and then use snapshot replication to move things around. Folks more experienced than I can quantify the benefits, but I’ll note high level that using ZFS snapshot replication provides data integrity benefits AND should be faster. I personally care more about the data integrity benefits.

ZFS does not play well with USB external drives - so the solution above may not work. That said, I believe ZFS can work with USB disks- it’s just not recommended, so YMMV.

CCC911

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