Following last Winter’s drama with Melbourne IT, Arts Montana is back up and running. The site is now at ArtsMontana.net.* The change in plans has ended up being a good thing. Although I lost a few months of posting, I came back to it with a new focus. The emphasis now is on artist and arts links, and the links are now coupled with thumbnail excerpts of the artists’ works, so visitors can get a small taste of what a particular artist or designer does. The site also has a page for visitors to contribute posts, and I hope that will be a way for folks to spread the news about their shows and events, or anything else going on with their work in particular or in the arts in general. It’s a very simple form, no log in required, and allows for image uploading to go with the post. * I had hoped to recover the artsmontana.com domain name, but in the end it was not about the exorbitant rates that Melbourne IT demanded after my domain name slipped through their loopholes, it was the principle of the thing. Instead of putting the domain name on the open market after their expensive “redemption” period ended, they sold it to a squatter company, one of those ticks on...

I was given a Sigma lens for a Nikon 70 (film SLR) years ago, and then started using it on my Nikon D80 (digital SLR) this past year with mixed results. I won’t go into why I felt short-handed with the old lens, but will say that I was not entirely unhappy when I dropped the camera right on the lens while cavorting with the dogs down by the Yellowstone River. The ground was pretty soft, and the D80 is unscathed, thank goodness. However, I now have an excuse to buy a new and better lens. (I will confess that I am neither a patient or a gifted amateur photographer, but I know very well that fine pictures can be achieved with inexpensive or inferior lenses. In short, I will not blame my tools.) In the process of deciding what to get in a new lens–something that can be overwhelming if you need to brush up on everything you ever sort of knew about lens behaviors, from focal lengths to vibration reduction–I came across this great Web site: http://www.kenrockwell.com. Ken Rockwell is a photographer who knows a wide range of equipment, and–best of all in my former-tech-writer/instructor heart–he knows how to talk about it. I’d zeroed in on the Nikon 18-200mm for its versatility...