Amin, I think you need to get yourself a hot-shoe mounted spirit level, I detect a definite lean in your pics.

A sheet of white paper from your local art shop, preferably A2 size, would be good as a background, I use that whenever I'm doing shots for ebay or any general product shots. Just arrange it so it's supported at the back, then curves down under your subject. Light it right and it will look great.

Examples here.

Dan

Ah, that would be good. Save having to think about composition yourself.

Dan

Seems like Firefox has caught up with Internet Explorer then - it's done this for years!

Dan


P.S. Before I get a million replies telling me of a million things FF does better than IE, the above comment was entirely tongue in cheek. I do use IE, it does what I want, including what Polchraine described.

Grip for me too on my K10D, but don't have a battery in it, find that makes it just that bit too heavy.

The camera feels so much more comfortable for me with the grip, and somewhere to keep the remote release and two spare cards (one in a case where the battery should go) that's always (literally) to hand is priceless.

I chose the *istD over the *istDS mainly becasue of the grip and the second control dial.

Wondering how the K-7 will feel without a grip, but suspect it will be an essential item for that too, there goes another £200+

Dan

But the chances of actually getting the things in frame would have been greatly reduced!

Funnily enough, that's my favourite too. I was wondering if anyone was going to agree with me.

Dan

All wild Peter, but feeding every day at 3pm brings in hundreds of them from miles around.

Chirpy, Gigrin Farm is the place to go, you can book a place in the photo hide too, apparently, but these were from the general hides.

Thanks all for your comments!

Dan

We went to Wales a few weeks ago, and I've been re-organising my hard drives since then, so have only just had the chance to go through my photos from then.

Here are a few of the Red Kites at Gigrin Farm, Rhayader. If you've never been there, and like birds, it's definitely somewhere to put on your list of places to go.

All shot with my K10D and DA*300mm, handheld, mostly ISO100, AF-C, all cropped to some extent, some more than others!



f/4.5, 1/350s



f/4.5, 1/750s



f/5.6, 1/1000s



f/4.5, 1/750s



f/4.5, 1/500s, ISO200

More photos, of other things in Wales, to come.

Dan

Fill flash won't be any use with a shutter speed like 1/3000s though, standard synch speed is 1/180s, so you'd need an aperture of about f/16, which would ruin the nice, shallow depth of field. High speed fill flash is only available if you're using an AF360 or AF540 flashgun, as far as I'm aware.

Nice shot though, captures the moment, and I think it's technically as good as you would have got with your current gear and the situation you took it in.

Try a similar one in shade, see how it comes out.

Dan

Kris, I like the sheep shot, made me smile too, but I found what looks like dust spots in front of the lower sheep's head a little distracting.

The exterior church shot has some strange artifacts in the sky above and to the left of the steeple, presumably done by the HDR software.

Not sure what the flower is, some sort of saxifrage I suspect.

Dan

Dan