Right, I've dug out my ME Super and CR. The shutter release has a hole in it, into which the cable release screws. The bit that screws in is just a way of anchoring the release, so that the metal bit that comes out when you press the cable release goes through the hole, makes the contact, and fires the shutter.

Now, here's a pic of the bit that screws in. Note that the thread varies in diameter. This is what enables it to fit into pretty much any screw thread in the release button. You just screw it in until it's tight enough to stay put, no tighter.




Anyway, it's a generic beast. This one is made by Rowi. I wouldn't get one shorter than the 50cm mine is.

This is probably the sort of thing. Not sure if I'd get it from China though !!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Rowi-50cm-Shutter-Release-Cable-Made-in-Germany_W0QQitemZ1...

I expect Jessops stock them or similar,

HTH.

Does it need a special one? I've had an ME Super for years, and a generic screw-in CR does the job just fine. I think I bought it from Jessops.

There are several generic ones on eBay.

Agreed. You can crop it to get much the same view as the original though. It's the left hand side that's rubbish in this one.

This is true of course, since you have total control over every pixel in software. But the worse the initial capture, the harder it is to fix all the things that are wrong with it - and the more it ceases to be photography and becomes painting with software.

More to the point, as I've suggested, the result often isn't all that good, even after a lot of effort.

Ok, I've had a few more thoughts on this, but let me say this before I articulate them.

I think, in general, people are far, far too free with superlatives. Words such as "excellent" should be rare, since excellence is rare. Undiluted honesty is going to make me improve far more quickly than sugar-coated flattery, so that's what I want to hear.

So, in that spirit, I'll say this in response to Pete's request for feedback.

As a first exploratory exercise in a PhotoShop technique (one, I might say, that I haven't tried myself), I think it has great value, and may lead to great future skill. It's an interesting technique, and has lots of potential. So I salute him for having a go, and for his willingness to put his work up for scrutiny, not to mention his good humour when he gets a good slagging.

Talking of slagging, as a photograph to be assessed in its own right, I think it's pretty unremarkable, and has a few things about it that I really don't like. It's quite an achievement to get a shot of the sun as good as that, facing directly towards it, so long before sunset. But it still looks garish to me, with the white circle, the yellow ring round it, and the orange surround with its harsh border.

The blurred flowers ruin what would otherwise be a lovely foreground, and exposing for them should yield the rich colour that I'm sure they had. The silhouette of the tree is quite nice, and frames the sun, but how much more majestic would it have looked if the whole of the tree had been in the frame.

So as a photo, my reaction is quite negative, I'm afraid. For having an initial first stab at an interesting technique, one that might be useful in the future, top marks.

Having seen quite a few of Pete's shots now, my overriding sense is one of very unremarkable initial capture, followed by a lot of messing around on the computer that doesn't really recover the situation.

I strive to get the initial capture right. Usually I fail. But I think it's there, rather than in the subsequent sodding about that I think Pete should really put his efforts.

Just my tuppence worth.

If ALL the images show out of focus flowers, it's unlikely to be movement of the subject unless your shutter speeds were very slow, and you didn't say what these were.

The reason I asked was because if you take three shots, even only seconds apart, the subject really has to be extremely still to lose no sharpness at all when you combine the images.

If they were all individually sharp, but the end result not, the loss of sharpness would probably have been due to movement between the shots.

If they are all out of focus, it's either camera shake, or simply that you didn't focus properly, or shutter speeds so slow that movement during each shot is significant. But this is different from movement between shots.

Well of course it can cause slight movement.

The issue is whether it's enough to cause the amount of blur you've got there. And given that the tree seems quite a bit sharper than the flowers, I'm guessing that it isn't. But it's only a guess.

Rather than guess, why don't you do a proper experiment using your tripod, and the 2s and 12s delay settings on the camera, set to the same shutter speeds you used for the flowers. The 2s one locks the mirror up before the shutter opens so in theory there should be less chance of vibration.

Come on, this time, do a properly thought-through, carefully conducted experiment, and get a result that actually means something.

Interesting. Are the foreground flowers any sharper in the one you exposed for the foreground?

I'm wondering if superimposing three shots like this loses definition due to any slight movements of the flowers from one shot to the next due to air currents.

It doesn't really show anything of the kind, nor indeed anything at all.

If you wanted to actually compare the sharpness of the three camera/lens combinations you picked, all you need to do is take the pictures under identical conditions, and then enlarge selected portions to a size viewable on a screen. Then you can make a meaningful visual comparison, even if you don't actually measure resolution in lines per inch.

But all you've done is take three shots on three cameras in wildly differing conditions, and in fact they show nothing at all.

Sorry Pete, but if you're going to start a thread with the word "test" in the title, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that you'll test something. But these shots don't test, or even compare anything.

Complete waste of time, in my view. Sorry, but there it is.

All this "who needs A2 printing anyway" stuff is fine if you use the whole frame.

But assuming that a) sharpness of the lens is not limiting, b) you can get the damn thing in focus anyway (not always the case) and c) noise is not an issue, any time you need to crop and enlarge, the more pixels the better, I would have thought.

My recent moon shot




was heavily cropped - I only had a 400mm lens and the moon in the original occupied maybe an eighth of the width of the frame and about a fifth of the height. It's not as sharp as I'd like, but I can't help thinking that even this wouldn't be possible with a sensor with less resolution.

I'll check them out