Nobody has disputed for a moment what the emphasis should be on.

So succinct yes; erudite, no.

This article is a pretty reasonable explanation of what happened with Adobe's CC the other day, and why moving everything to the cloud is still a really Bad Idea.

I think you're right, but it's not so much things going downhill IMO, it's a gradual change that's been taking place over several years.

Anything except people being super-nice is heavily stepped on; discussion of or comparison with anything non-Pentax is prohibited, and quite a few of the best photographers have gone to other brands.

It's not a recipe for animated discussion, controversy, direct feedback, or indeed an improving quality of images to discuss.

There are very few 'characters' here any more. The Smegster is one of the few I can think of that can always be relied on to post non-timid critique, and consequently there's way too much saccharine and nowhere near enough salt-and-pepper.

Since the gallery is an exhibition area rather than a C&C area, there's a strong disincentive to post anything other than anodyne compliments, and so the dross doesn't get called out as such. So there's no likelihood of improvement there.

Sadly, I think there's no particular prospect of change without some bold changes to moderation policy at the very least, and I don't see that happening.

A vote against square, here.

I think the fading line of lights needs the space on the left to fade into.

Thanks for posting this. I hadn't come across either the Raynox or the diffuser before - a very inexpensive and versatile macro option.

Not just that.

No. "Photo" isn't written with a trailing apostrophe.

"Photo" is a long-established contraction which has been a word in its own right for decades. Its plural is simply photos.

As I said, an apostrophe simply to make a plural noun out of a singular one is always wrong. Unusually for English, no exceptions.

Some nice pictures there.

But please, please, change "Photo's" to "Photos".

The plural of photo is photos.

Just an "s" required. Using an apostrophe to just make a plural is always wrong, and although you often see it written wrongly like that, for presentation purposes, it's really not on.

Haven't decided yet. The tickets have got bloomin expensive over the last few years.

What I usually do is look at the weather a few days before, and then if it's going to be ok, get a weekend ticket and then go on the day with the better weather. It becomes something of a military operation - the alarm goes off at 5.30, the stuff prepared in the fridge goes into the coolbox, the coffee maker goes on and thence into the thermos. Then at 6.30 we drive down, I drop off the OH with all the stuff and go and park. Then I leg it back to where she is, and we carry all the stuff to the gate. Then when they let people through security, it's a fast march to the spot I like.

Then we can relax for five hours until the flying starts

In many ways I prefer Wings and Wheels at Dunsfold, cos we fly in. Much less stressful.

Tbh, I'm thinking of doing less of the FJs and more of things like this, simply because flying in makes the whole day 100x more fun.

May still go to F'boro though, not sure.

'Hated it' is way too strong. I was disappointed with the IQ, especially towards the edges at the longer end of the range.

But the focusing was very fast and it's very compact and WR, so I've been considering it again as a walkaround lens.