Show them the price you could have had, tell them you're happy to continue doing business with them, and guilt them into a good discount (gift certificate?) on your next purchase.....there's always a next purchase....

One might need a heavy, stable robot capable of lifting 200 lbs, to carry it for you.

wonder where one would find that...

science fiction I guess...

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In apples aperture you can map out the dust spots on one (blanc white card shot) and apply the dust filter to those spots on an entire batch of photos.
I bet adobe lightroom can do the same.

there's a podcast on itunes called "Inside Aperture" that has excellent step by step instructions....

"Any studio shoot is not finished till you got the shot....never take ANYTHING down till you've checked your file or developed you film, in case you need to reshoot...." I hear my instructor telling my classmates that every day...

"Who raised you kids? how come nobody ever puts anything away when they're finished with it?".....Quoteth the teachers assistant...

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We'll all have too much time on our hands when robots replace human photographers....javascript:emoticon('')

Thank you Liam I've already got that built...Great minds wander alike...
I'm sure national secuirity (CSIS) has got me on a list, as I've been hunting down mercury rocker switches from old thermostats.
I'm building it to have two modes...manual, and self leveling.

Rodger thought about that one too....I've got a robot I built with my daughter, (2 wheeled, tankdrive steering, soccker player), which I'll connect to a PIC controller to the usb port on my laptop to control the zoom ring of the lens from inside an underwater housing (built from pvc pipe and plexi).
thought I'd have one wheel doing the zoom, and the other geared to slide a nd filter.

both of those projects are not to be attached to the robot til next fall.

I'm building a crane type, boom arm with power window motors to hold it all.
the arm is gonna cost more than the robot...because it's gotta be smart and programmable to handle video camera movements without bumping any obsticles.

yeah my kids too.
the one in the photo, is proto/test bed.
the newer one is more box like, but it fits everything better, and is stable, as a tripod, and moves fairly smoothly for video (motorized dolly).
fits in my van and will hold 200 lbs of gear!
with the computer and lcd tv (running my ad for free advertising), is sort of a home entertainment/ digital media center on wheels.

when I get more money I'll be adding some sensors, and a robotic arm to program it to do some interesting video cam movements. but adding pic controllers and programming will take more time than I have right now...but it's comming.

I'm working on a robotic platform...with the twist being that it is geared towards photography/video work.
it's 24 volt wheelchair motors (wheelbase shortened and narrowed) provide good access to most places indoors and out.
It has both ac inverter, 12 volt dc (cigarette plugs) power.
laptop, printer, battery chargers for aa's, and cameras.
storage for camera accesories.
magic arms, to hold lights and accesories.
Networked cameras (anybody remember my earlier efforts to web enable canon g5/pro one?) for remote picture taking.
live video feeds.
auto type security system.

Any other ideas or suggestions on what might make this usefull for photography?

if you do slidehows with projectors, you want slides.
digital projectors cannot compete, and sadly the market for ultra high dpi/wide color gamut, ability to get full res for horizontal and verticle images, is too small for manufactureers to dump tonnes of research and development into.
If you want your projected image to reflect the glory of your original digital file, you're screwed.
Projecting an e6 slide on the otherhand...peice of cake.

I'm with JR on this one, I used to love fast film for general shooting, but always used iso 100 or iso 50 c-41 films for low light/night photography due to 3 reasons:

A) you'll need a tripod no matter what....(fast film during the day can lighten your load under a variety of lighting situations)
B) slower films were always less expensive...(you will be bracketing alot)
C) reciprocity failure throws your exposure readings outa whack once you get past one second exposures. slow films suffr less ill effects than fast films.
digital shooters can use the free transform tool to squeeze the final image a bit to get the moon to appear less oval in a long exposure.

Sounds like a bargian...not.
Still a fine camera though....just doesn't compare to Pentax in my books.

There's a subaru wrx, out there with a funny looking front end and Saab emblems, a high price tag, if you still got money to burn after buying the sigma.