The whole Lomo thing has been very commercialised. Some people get great results, but it's become totally ridiculous, especially since Lomography.com started up. They are selling Lubitel 166's for $349, anyone who pays that sort of money for a camera like that is a mug imo.

I use a couple of old film cameras, I have 4 that cost me a total of 12 quid ( A Kodak Brownie, an Agfa Optima, a Zenit E and a Holga). I quite like the randomness of the Agfa, as it's completely automatic save for the focus which you set using a scale on the lens. Someone on ebay is selling the same Agfa that I paid £2 for for $47! The Holga I paid £4 for sells on ebay for $30. It's an appallingy bad camera, even by Lomo standards. I wanted to get a Lubitel, but ended up buying a YashicaMat 124G far cheaper than I could find a Lubitel, which is totally ridiculous when you compare the quality of the two cameras. Now I need a scanner, as I'm collecting negatives and can't get them scanned here.

If you really want to take crap pictures a mobile phone does a far better and cheaper job with all the free filters you can download.

Apologies, just removed my entry, as something has come up and I can't commit to judging next week in the unlikely event I won.

I've not had any sales to news organisations, but I will check and see what I do get in those circumstances. I signed up from Flickr, after they sent me a mail about some of my shots. So far I've made more money from less images than from Shutterstock.

If one of your images is sold to a news organisation by Getty, you get the normal fee (20%)

I'm wondering if anyone else here sells through Getty Images? I have about 30 images with them, and they want another 24. I'm making a bit of money from them but some of their recent business practices are a bit suspect. The one that has received the most publicity is the deal Getty have with Cafe Press, which was brought to light by Remi Thornton. This arrangement means your images can be up for sale on Cafe Press's website, but Cafe Press don't pay anything to Getty (and hence the photographer) unless the image sells. Although this may seem fair, in fact Getty are in effect licensing images without payment.

However, of far more concern to me is the deal they have with Fine Art America , which means they can sell your image as a print (on a site where you could be selling them yourself), and the artist only gets 20% instead of the full amount. The licensing issues are the same as those with Cafe Press, but the implications are very different imo. The main reason I signed up with Getty was I thought selling prints was a separate entity over which I would have full control, but this is no longer the case. Saying this, they don't have any of my images on Fine Art America at the moment, but the most recent batch Getty have requested are largely images that have or I would expect to be sold as prints rather than as stock images.

I'm thinking of terminating my agreement with Getty, though I could lose a nice little earner. I'm wondering if anyone else here is in the same quandary as me, and what if any thoughts others have on this change of direction by Getty and it's implications on the photographer?

Yes it extends to a good height, it has a central pillar which extends, and the legs lock in three different angles. I've used it with the central column extended for exposures of several minutes outside with no problems. I am really glad I got mine, it's excellent quality, light, and fits in my suitcase! I'm not sure where you'd find one in the UK, probably eBay, I bought mine in China.

I bought a Jusino tripod, which is a light carbon-fibre tripod with a detachable leg which acts as a monopod, and it came with a very good ball-head. I picked it up for just over a hundred quid, and I am more than happy with it, very well built, stable, and comes in a bag for eay transportation. A few pics of one here.

Jusino tripod and ball-head

As previously suggested, a jar opener will do it, it'll scratch the filter on the outside though.

The only shots of dancing I have were taken on my mobile phone after a few too many beers....

The only reason I could see for leaving Pentax would be for full-frame. The Alpha 77 certainly would not tempt me over a K5iis. DPreview, while praising the EVF and frame-rate of the Alpha 77, say that it's high ISO performance is not as good as the original K5 (or Nikon D7000). They weren't too impressed with the Jpegs either. It's also described as splash-proof, not weather-proof. The only advantage I can see at all is the articulating viewfinder, which is certainly not enough of a bonus to warrant putting up with worse low-light performance in my book. It does have the same advantages Pentax has in using in-body stabilisation and the ability to use legacy lenses.