... the Nordics ignore ¨, as they view it as being another letter (29 alphabet letters here, with the last ones being ä, ö and å). For Germans it's a modifier and therefore replaceable with ae; many anglo-saxons would not know the reason behind the ae and therefore for purely "mass compatible" writing, the straight a is probably better. We did discuss this at work and tend to stick with the nordic line as it's also mildly easier to read.

I would personally really, really like a Voigtländer 180 in close focus version. . Who needs AF, anyway?

Bret

1 Ultra II failed recently. That was dying for a while.

That's the first in 10.

I would take a laptop and secure / backup, but that's me.

Bret

diced foam?

I have a Peli in the garage waiting for a new lease of life....

Bret

.. if you can find out who he is, I'd seriously place a (at least a) twenty in his hand....
Good to hear you got it back.

Bret

Yes, it is. You know why? It demeans the value of average ability. Only those who can market and provide excellent, thought-provoking art will survive. And even they won't make money, except by selling tuition to those who want to be better but don't have natural talent. See X-Factor and the hate campaign for the christmas number one.

Then again, the attitude of the average user towards professionals... as in the comment reported on another site - "get a single large print, then we can copy as much as we want" followed by a "you're not allowed to do that" sums up the lack of understanding and willingness to pay for quality in most cases.

I think 90% of the dSLRs now sold will be with a kit lens and that lens will stay. Users buy them because they want to burn some cash and have a "nice" camera. If you want ease of use, get a G11. Or an X70. Don't buy a dSLR; they are for control and those who want to learn. And not beginners who aren't interested. Still, they'll buy them.
I don't care what marketing has to tell me, and yes, you can call it elitist - but the same thing applies to computers, too. And cars.
It's slowly all being dumbed-down and it's not good. Anything that used to require skill - and the resultant feeling of a job well done - has been shortened and filtered for a generation of "NOW". I've seen it on another forum - a succession of nice dSLR bodies that hardly get used, a couple of lenses ... and they gather dust. Fools.

Today, I got my new work phone - an N900. It's taken me the better part of three hours to sort it to something close to I want - and the number of posters on forums asking for help because they've installed something they were told not to is frightening. Why do they do it? Because they must have the latest and greatest. Bah humbug say I - get something and hit its limits first and *then* replace with better. Understanding why you want something before pulling the trigger is, IMO, the only real way forward.

Who said kids portraits aren't useful? I will be recording the christening and chaos afterwards for a friend, very deliberately, because I think the atmosphere is important. And flash, if used well, does not detract from the mood.

Bret

the priest, thankfully, is a friend of the parents. And I don't see that there will be an issue with a full setup for the group shots - as long as I don't disturb the ceremony, I'm fine.

Bret

loan of a 50-200 here if you want....

Bret

I have to shoot a christening in a couple of weeks; I know I'll be pushing things to 800+ in the church, and then for the fixed portraits I'll be bouncing / softboxing / umbrella'ing 600W/s of elinchrom d-lite delight. I want those to be good. Will be interesting to see just how far I have to drop them down

isn't that duplicating content from pentaxforums?

OTOH, they don't link to Bojar's K-mount pages, either. Why not?

Bret

... but part of that is also the forum software, which is some of the strangest I've used. Are there any Stickies? Yes, but not many. What about using those to contain a set of links to "useful" topics?
there's the "helpful" button. How often is it used?

We have a wiki over on one site I administer. The bottom line: "who is an authority and why?".
At work, it's pretty simple. You go and ask the person who wrote the software "is this true?". In photography, where there are many, many ways to string a cat, it's not so easy.

I also got rebuffed on wikipedia the other day. Problem is, it's original information. How do *they* know I'm a decent source? How do you? I understand who the person is and they give the strong impression that they understand what they are talking about and that they have "sources". Doesn't count for much.. but then, if that's discounted, then how does new information ever enter Wikipedia? It doesn't. Which means its value as an ever-growing encyclopedia is extremely limited and its reliability even worse.

If such a thing was to be done, then great. But please keep it written in a way that's usable for n00bs (or it won't get used) and also stick to non-controversial subjects - and someone, somewhere needs to be seen to be responsible.

Yes, I do have to do with this kind of thing professionally and I'm very aware of the issues of trying to get good, useful information out to users in a way they'll understand. It's difficult to do well.

Bret