I may seek to amuse, entertain even, but never humour

Well, some of it.

But the irony isn't lost on me. Like all these things, it's a balance, and I did say "most of the time".

And ever since I've had a sig at all, it's been small-font, and less-than-two-lines, so I think I'm ok hanging out here on the moral high ground

I don't object to a couple of lines of succinct, pithy information.

But I do find that my inclination to read what people write is in inverse proportion to the amount of stuff they imagine I want to see at the bottom of every single one of their posts.

Basically, I don't want to have to read adverts for people's portfolio, bible quotes, or jokes that were only funny for the first ten million times I saw them.

Give me an 'ignore sig' option, and I won't care.

OMG, is there now going to be an explosion of multicoloured self-publicity albeit in small fonts?

If so, please, Good Forum Software People, give us an "Ignore signature" option. If 'ignore this person's sig' is just too hard, as well it might, I'd be happy just to switch them back on temporarily if I felt like it.

Most of the time, I really don't care about people's kit. I don't care where their images are stored online. I don't care whether they're the proud owner of anything.

And I certainly don't want yards and yards of multicoloured guff separating every post.

IMO, all that self-publicity stuff should go in people's profile, where we can look if we're interested.

I know it's only Tuesday, but I can see myself channelling George before the end of the week...

I forget who explained it to me (thanks again to whomever it was!), but if it helps any, here's what I have in my sig to achieve the fonts/colours:

[ color=lightgray:].[ /color:]
[ size=9:][ color=blue:]Pentax[/color:] K10D, DA18-55 MkI, DA55-300, FA50 F1.4, FA28-200, A28 F2.8, A50 F1.7, A100 F4 Macro, A400 F5.6, [ color=blue:]Sigma[ /color:] 10-20 EXDC, A400 F5.6 (AF), 600 F8 mirror, [ color=blue:]Samsung[ /color:] flash SEF-54PZF(x2)[ /size:]
[ color=lightgray:].[ /color:]

You'll need to remove the space after each opening square bracket '[', to have the text actually render.

Just one request...

Please keep signatures brief. Some people here now seem to have sigs that are longer than a lot of their posts.

And to be honest, I often don't bother to read them because of the sheer visual impact of all the clutter.

It's really not hard to have a brief, unobtrusive sig in a small font.

I wish there was a "ignore sigs from this user" option in the forum

Is the second one slightly oversharpened? There seems to be a slightly gritty look to the fur that's in focus.

I prefer the composition of the first one, since it captures the languor of the cat more, and I like the relaxed look.

In the second it's paying a lot more attention, so with that pose, something of the mood has been lost.

Trouble with the first is that the almost-shut eye and lower lip are a bit distracting.

8/10 for both, I think, FWIW.

I think aeroplanes are much easier than seagulls.

I still use linear ones. I've never had any problem with AF using LPs, and I used to believe that there was no exposure issue either, but I've been corrected on the latter.

However, any exposure issues are so small in practice that I've never felt inclined to get CPs.

Stay, men - doubtless there'll be another shocking pun any moment now.

I don't know Waddington, but I know Farnborough very well, and I'd estimate that the grandstand seating is at least as far back from the fence, as the fence is from the runway (and hence most of the aircraft).

It's also positioned a lot further south-west of where I normally aim for.

So being in the grandstand with only a 300mm lens is going to restrict you a lot, and in particular you'll be struggling to get any decent sized shots of landing aircraft if, as is usually the case, the wind is westerly and they're using Runway 24.

Location is terribly important.

To get a good spot for the Farnborough airshow, I'm at the entrance by 7am, before they open, ready to walk as fast as possible with all the clobber (camera gear, blanket, seat, food, thermos etc) to the pitch I want. Fortunately, my sherpa - I mean other half - seems to like hanging out at airshows too.

And then it's a five hour wait till the display begins
Several possible reasons for this.

- You might be stopping your panning the moment before you take the shot. You need to continue to track the aircraft even as you're releasing the shutter.

- Or, if you have the camera stationary, trying to catch the Red Arrows Synchro Pair crossing, for instance (which is hard), you have to release the shutter a moment before they get there, not at the instant you see them cross.

- You might not be being smooth enough when you release the shutter. This has to be really smooth, else you'll jerk the camera, and at 300mm, a tiny camera movement can have a large effect.

All this isn't easy and does take practice.