If the bright sky is in the field of view, then it is very much *not* what the lens hood does.

Cutting out the bright sky, if it's in the field of view, is actually deliberately vignetting the scene, in order to reduce the contribution to the eye's total exposure from the part of the scene you don't want.

Lens hoods should not cause vignetting, so it's really a completely different thing.

It illustrates, yes, but does not help understanding.

I'm not at all disagreeing with using lens hoods, but they do not work by cutting out a bright part of the scene.

I know you know that, and I know that the 'shield your eyes' analogy is seductive, but it's really not going to help people that want to understand lens hoods.

It might help them to remember to use them, of course, but that's a slightly different issue.

Not sure this is really the right analogy.

What you're actually doing when you shield your eyes like that is cutting out a bright part of the actual field of view, so that your pupils can open up more to 'expose' for the part of the scene you want to look at (in the centre, because of the way we look at things).

More like spot metering (or perhaps centre-weighted), rather than matrix.

Whereas a hood, by definition (since it shouldn't cause vignetting) is cutting out light from outside the field of view.

Certainly I've prevented flare on many occasions, using a hood, or even a hand, when shooting into the sun, with the sun outside the field of view. But a hood doesn't help at all if the sun is actually in the picture.

As I say, I probably should use a hood more often.

I don't see why. IMO there are too many knee-jerk calls (largely not acted upon by the mods, I'm glad to say) to close threads these days as soon as a discussion becomes less than completely anodyne. It's mostly a perfectly mature discussion, and I'm not aware of much stress.

Each to his own, which is fine. Why would I be offended if someone thinks I'm crackers? Maybe I am

Well, when the camera's out of the bag, and somewhere I might want to use it at short notice, yes. Touch wood, I seem to be successful in not bashing the camera about - and for the most part even fingerprints on the filter are rare.

That is a point, of course. I keep meaning to have a careful look at whether there's much difference with and without filters. I was quite interested in someone's observation that AF seemed faster without them.

I probably don't use the hood enough - something else to look into in terms of IQ.

Not at all. As I say, each to his own.

I have UV filters on most of my lenses.

Saves me messing with lens caps, and the camera's always ready.

Even if I haven't wiped the fingerprints off, at least I don't miss the shot when I bring the camera up to my eye and realise that I've forgotten to take the cap off (again).

Another interesting question.

Yes, my case. I answered 'Quite a few images some of which are good', but it really needs qualification.

I used to reckon on getting 10-15% 'good' in my film days. By 'good' I mean 'good enough to show someone else and not give the game away about how rubbish most of my pictures are'.

It's probably not much different now, with one proviso - I'm a lot more experimental than I used to be, since I can mess about to my heart's content at no cost.

So I might occasionally take dozens of shots, maybe trying to catch an elusive insect, or testing some aspect of exposure, knowing that most are going to be rubbish.

I'd have never done this with film.

Occasionally there are still times where a whole series is either good or rubbish, but that's more rare.

Be very sure that you actually need a circular polariser before spending the money. Linear polarisers work perfectly well on the K10D, despite all the received wisdom suggesting that AF and/or exposure issues will result.

If you're on a budget, it's worth checking if this is also true for the KM - LPs are much cheaper than CPs.

I think the book looks great, John. Very nice indeed.

Just one minor thing that struck my eye - is the heading on every page necessary? Having 'ADAPS Year Book 2010-2011' on every page doesn't really add anything that I can see, and I found it a slight visual distraction.

The only other thing that occurred is... 2010-2011?? We're hardly into 2010!

But I'm just being picky, really. Very nice. I have a book to make, and I'll certainly have a hard look at Blurb now.

It was discovering precisely that, and noting the number of films (and hence expense) it would take me to get any good that I switched back to film, and stayed there..

Just like digital then

Actually, I'm really not. I'd be pleased if it did well, but only for Pentax to get more of a foothold in the market so that they can continue to develop their APS-C DSLR range. I have no interest in owning a 645D, and I hope that the 645D doesn't mean that the APS-C developments take a lot longer.

I just tend to think that criticism, especially from the well-regarded, should be fact-based, measured, and contextually meaningful.

The rant in that 'review' fails on at least two of these.