GAS GAS: Please Share your Latest Acquisitions Big and Small

Mine is also Asus, the TUF EVO OC edition. I have a 10400F processor with a Corsair Hydro 5 liquid cooler, 16gb of 2666MHz DDR4 RAM, and a couple of SSDs (240gb for my system files and 1tb for my libraries).

I built the system in its first iteration back in 2016, but over the past couple of years I upgraded the MB, processor, storage, RAM and now finally the graphics card. It's a modest but effective system which I know inside and out, so I'm not afraid to tinker with it.
Sounds a bit like the woodsman's axe, Andrew. Two new heads and three new handles ... Otherwise, original! My old PC from 2010 had passed the point where it could be sensibly upgraded. So I had my supplier build one to my specifications. First time in about 30 years that I haven't built my own. My back can't tolerate the bending over required.

Does your motherboard take NVME.2 drives? They are unbelievably fast. Mine tests at about 7,000 MBps for both read and write. About 20+ times faster than my SATA3 SSD.

You would probably get further a big benefit from adding additional RAM. Mine is often sitting on 16 GB in use. With 32 GB RAM and the 6 GB of physical RAM on the graphics card, mine really sings, and has no difficulty handling the 200 MB RAW files from a Hasselblad X2D.
 
Mine is also Asus, the TUF EVO OC edition. I have a 10400F processor with a Corsair Hydro 5 liquid cooler, 16gb of 2666MHz DDR4 RAM, and a couple of SSDs (240gb for my system files and 1tb for my libraries).

I built the system in its first iteration back in 2016, but over the past couple of years I upgraded the MB, processor, storage, RAM and now finally the graphics card. It's a modest but effective system which I know inside and out, so I'm not afraid to tinker with it.
Sounds like a nice, never been a fan of liquid coolers though I prefer a nice Noctua block.
 
Sounds a bit like the woodsman's axe, Andrew. Two new heads and three new handles ... Otherwise, original! My old PC from 2010 had passed the point where it could be sensibly upgraded. So I had my supplier build one to my specifications. First time in about 30 years that I haven't built my own. My back can't tolerate the bending over required.

Does your motherboard take NVME.2 drives? They are unbelievably fast. Mine tests at about 7,000 MBps for both read and write. About 20+ times faster than my SATA3 SSD.

You would probably get further a big benefit from adding additional RAM. Mine is often sitting on 16 GB in use. With 32 GB RAM and the 6 GB of physical RAM on the graphics card, mine really sings, and has no difficulty handling the 200 MB RAW files from a Hasselblad X2D.
My MB is mini-ITX so I don't know if it has the m2 slot. I should check. It's also only 2 RAM slots, and I've been too cheap to buy 2x 16gb sticks, they tend to be pricey. I haven't come up against limited RAM very much so far.
 
My MB is mini-ITX so I don't know if it has the m2 slot. I should check. It's also only 2 RAM slots, and I've been too cheap to buy 2x 16gb sticks, they tend to be pricey. I haven't come up against limited RAM very much so far.
If your system is from the last 5 years, it's very likely to have an M2 slot. It's likely going to be just above the x16 slot, hidden by your GPU. Sometimes they sneak it on the back of the board on mini ITX.
 
My new-to-me 55-200 XF arrived today. Fairly cheap for a relatively fast lens. It does tend to hunt for focus in low light though. Should be good for subject separation, and renders pretty nicely.

I also sprung for an upgrade to On1 while they were pushing a sale. Went from version 2020 to 2023. On1 handles RAFs really well, and the No Noise AI is actually pretty nice, without overcooking. I compared its output to DxO PureRAW v2 (trial), and I actually liked On1s result a little better, and it was faster, too. A low light cat test at ISO 5000:
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Got any experience to share on it yet? I have been dragging my feet, but I can see the use of this over the Manfrotto 209 I have, even though I really like the little manfrotto, getting the center column for it, costs almost as much as the MT29 Tripod/Ballhead combo.
Yes I have been using it a little, feels very good quality. Actually I added a ballhead I had to make it better for a "low profile studio tripod". It has it's limitations due to there is only two different angles (you twist the ring on the base and then you can fold out legs even more), and to make it higher you just twist one leg at a time, pull it out, twist it back (you have to be a little careful because there are threads here). But I could recommend it if you are looking for a such tripod.

TBau4Li.jpeg
 
Just got a new-to-me Fujifilm XF60mm macro lens from eBay, once I discovered that used copies of this lens were available for less than the Laowa! I held out for an AF lens because I wanted to do focus stacking, and my wife doesn't like looking at fly eyes so I didn't need 2:1 macro capability anyway.

The best part is that I ordered this thing from Thailand on Wednesday night and it showed up at my house in California Saturday morning! I don't think even B&H could beat that, especially with free shipping!

Some of my first few shots: Fractal vegetable and my dear cat Osho.
 
Holding out for all hope that OMDS would release the EP-7 here in the states, but it looks like that may never happen. So off to MapCamera I went and picked one up.

Was looking hard at a GR IIIx at first, but just couldn't justify the cost, that coupled with the fact that I'm already ensconced into the Olympus system, it was a no brainer to go this route.

Looking forward to seeing how this latest iteration pans out.
 
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