Hello all - Newbie alert!

Hi all

Just thought I would introduce myself!

Came into a little extra unexpected cash recently, and thought that it was about time I bought a digital SLR for the gadget collection. Went into Jessops with £500 fully expecting to walk out with a Canon or Nikon after doing a little bit of research. Manager showed me the K10D and after the other 2 it instantly just felt right, so here I am!!

Been using a lot of advice from the forum, so thought it only fair to say hello, and thanks for the advice that is in here. Have recently bought a Manfrotto 055 XPro tripod with 322 RC2 head, after all the glowing recommendations and I'm loving it to bits!

Photography is all new to me (did have a quite a bit of video experience in my teens!), so here's another newbie thats going to be asking loads of awkward questions!

Will put a couple of pics up as soon as I work out what I'm doing here!

Regards

Danny

PS going down to Brighton for the London to Brighton run on Sunday, would really appreciate any advice you could offer!

Hi and welcome to one of the nicest fora on the web. Amongst photographers, I believe it is unrivalled in terms of friendliness, approachability, knowledge, and camaraderie.

Be sure to have the Shake Reduction turned on when running and photographing...

Well kudos to both you and the Jessops manager for exceptional discernment.

Welcome.

Welcome to the forum Danny.

You wont be the first on this forum to buy a Pentax camera because "it felt right"

If you need to ask ANYTHING, no matter how simple then someone here will have the answer, that is anything related to photography of course, dont ask us the meaning of life or why you never see baby pigeons etc

Damn - those where good questions.....hmm

Anyway - welcome Danny - shoot away and ask!

Welcome...look forward to the pictures.

Seek and ye shall find.




G

...and only their mother could love them...

Dan

P.S. I'm so tempted to answer the pigeon one, but I shan't.

Go on...............

G

Oh, all right then...

People expect baby birds to look all 'young' and speckly, like Robins and Blackbirds. Whereas pigeons (Wood Pigeons specifically), once they leave the nest, just look like adult birds, other than not having the white patch around the back of their necks, and they'll get that by the end of the summer when the moult.

So every year, people see 'baby' pigeons, they just don't realise it.

Once you notice them, you'll see that baby pigeons are even more dopey than the adults.

Dan

Well, I thought you were going to say that pigeons nest high up, out of sight of earth-bound mortals.

Also, most birds have to be pretty well fully-grown before they can fly. The baby birds one sees most often are ducklings, because they can get around without flying.

Did you see the recent telly programme showing ducklings leaping from their nests 60 feet above the water at the Barbican, then plummeting like stones into the water? Fascinating.

G

Same two, a bit later. Mum/dad (I'm no great shakes as a pigeon-sexer)
has the colourful breast feathers; the youngsters still show bits of down.




G

Hi Mate,

Welcome from another relative newbie.

I look forward to see some pics when you get the chance,

Good luck for the run

Regards
PaulM

Yes I did, but thankfully, unlike stones, they quickly bobbed back up to the surface. Pummice stones perhaps.

I'm just going to check on my battery...

Still charging.

While we're on a nature theme, here's a couple of pictures of some Harlequin ladybirds, the invasive species which has appeared in the UK in the last couple of years. Known in the US (so I'm told) as Halloween Bugs, as this time of year they invade homes in order to hibernate.






Both K10D, Sigma 105mm, ISO200, f/11, 1/60s, flash with diffuser.

There are hundreds of them at Bedfords Park Visitor Centre near Romford, if anyone's that curious about them.

Dan

Wow really great colours. I always have trouble photographing lady bugs i can never get one i am happy with