Rotating an image in Windows Photo Viewer then opening it in Elements seems to preserve the rotation, if you see what I mean.

That's the problem with birds, even big ones. This was taken with from a distance too, and cropped, it's the sort of parakeet that infests our ornamental plum trees every so often, a ring necked parakeet...

Now he tells me!

I don't normally go for B&W shots, but I rather like that.

Congratulations on your win.

Unfortunately, my kidneys are not in good enough condition for me to sell one to be able to afford such a beast...

Yes, I’m back. Again. Probably for a bit longer, this time. Depends. Let me explain. It’s a longish story, so pour yourself a drink and get comfortable...

A few months ago, due to a strange combination of events (boredom, the internet, a bet with myself and the smallest possible lottery win), I ended up the owner of a low-mileage N!k*n D80 with a N!kk*r AF-S DX 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR kit lens. I’ve censored the names for the more sensitive souls who like to pretend P3nt@x is the only DSLR manufacturer. Oops! Sorry about that, this censorship lark is a tad habit forming!

Anyway, I’ve used it for a couple of months and it’s pretty good for a ten year old, 10MP camera. The nice colour handling was one thing that stood out.

Then, by coincidence, I dug out my old Pentax 33LF (see the thread in the Your Photos sub-forum). Even fewer MP (3.5, iirc), but similar colours. Interesting….

So I did some checking. Both use CCD sensors, as opposed to CMOS. Mind you, so does the Olympus C-1 Zoom I got given, but that has only 1.5MP and really low ISO limit, so harder to tell! And the colour handling is apparently also down to the software used to convert the files to JPEG. A bit more checking. The last Pentax DSLR to use such a sensor was the K10D. Start the search! Found one going fairly cheap on the SRS site, with kit lens and a low shutter count. Out with the credit card...

Obviously I ordered at the wrong time (Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Techno Tuesday/Whatever Wednesday etc) as it took five days to turn up from SRS. It usually takes just a couple and I had assumed the worst - “one of the part-time staff went to get it from the store-room and accidentally dropped it in the vat of liquid nitrogen we keep there for no obvious reason, and it shattered!”, that class of thing. But it eventually arrived this afternoon and I guess they were just snowed under with orders for the sort of very expensive gear I can’t afford and my order got buried under those for K1s and so on. Oh well, c'est la vie, as we say down the ol' Frog and Trumpet.

So how do they compare? First impressions are as follows…

Both are ‘semi-pro’, which means both are well made and solid, and things like battery grips are available, assuming you can find them. They also both use re-chargeable batteries and SD cards, which makes life easier, not to mention cheaper. Both have image-stabilisation, just in different places.

The D80 is lighter and marginally better balanced, in my opinion. But ergonomics are a personal matter and it is a close-run thing.

The K10D is noticably heavier (body at 793g as opposed to 668g, though they both have heavyish kit lenses, which evens things up a bit), which affects the balance a bit less than I expected, but could be relevant if I was carrying it about a lot.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll get it set up, get the feel of it and try it out on my usual test subjects, and see how it compares that way – expect some of my more tedious pictures to turn up early next week.

All in all, I suspect they will get an equal-ish amount of use – well, the new one is a Pentax and can probably expect a bit more work!

One last thought, it strikes me as a shame that it’s so much easier and cheaper to produce big CMOS sensors compared with CCD, I suspect a big-CCD based camera would be quite impressive...

The parroting, you mean?

They are horrible birds. Moderately pretty, until you realise there are hundreds of them (slight exaggeration - I did once count about 70 on one occasion) filling the trees around. They are loud, strip the buds off the trees, drive out other birds and cr@p over everything.

iirc, there is talk of a cull in the UK because of the damage they do to fields of crops.

Probably a ring-necked parakeet - they are pretty big and becoming common round our way (SE England)

http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/r/ri...

ETA: Further research (including your location. Oops!) suggest green rose-ringed parakeet is more likely.

http://mudfooted.com/rose-ringed-parakeet-amsterdam/

11 to 14 (especially 14) stand out for me. But then, landscapes rarely if ever do anything for me.

That's me (only temporary, I'm afraid) and a Pentax of mine...

I know I stopped being a Pentax DSLR user some time ago when I went m4/3 (though I did acquire a Nikon D80 recently and have been using that a bit, but that’s another story), however…

I was doing some tidying up yesterday and came across my old Optio 33lf, my first digital camera. So, I gave it a clean (and, boy, did it need a clean), put a 64MB card and a couple of batteries in it and turned it on. Nothing. Just some beeping and the little red and green LEDs flashing. Oh dear. This morning I had one of my rare bright ideas and put a couple of lithium batteries in it, the 33lf being known as a bit of a battery hog. Voila! It works. Still slow though.

Anyway, it was a nice day, so I took it for a walk.

First down by the river, to get a pic of Staines Bridge. And the heron…

3 Bridges with Heron by Steve Higgins, on Flickr

Across the bridge, to see a building of relevance…

The Ricoh building by Steve Higgins, on Flickr

Back, via the old Town Hall…

Staines Old Town Hall by Steve Higgins, on Flickr

Then round the back of the Two Rivers shopping mall, by the entrance to the Moor…

Staines Moor map by Steve Higgins, on Flickr

and a big skip (a twenty yarder?)…

A Right Big Skip by Steve Higgins, on Flickr

Then home, to see a couple of late flowering periwinkles in the garden…

A Late Flowering Periwinkle by Steve Higgins, on Flickr

It was a nice walk, if nothing else. And interesting to see how far digital cameras have come, though there is some life in the old dog yet. The images have been slightly cropped/straightened, and sharpened a bit after shrinking down for posting, but the colours are basically as in the camera. Interestingly (well, to me) it has a CCD sensor like the D80, which also produces good colours uusually.

Not a camera I will be using much, if at all, but an interesting exercise.