I quite like this shot, I disagree with Malo though. The darker trees on the outer edges hold the thing together and stop the eye wandering out of the frame, as George says not a great pic but very acceptable nontheless.......and way better than some of the cr@p that comes off my sensor.

I've said this before and I'm going to say it yet again......my advice is look for a used Pentax 80-320, the lens is (IMHO) very underated. Even though I now have the Bigma 50-500 I would not dream of parting with the Pentax, and with the K10D I can often get away with shooting at f8 which as we all know is the (alleged) optimum aperture for best results.

Pwhoooar Clarky!

DEFINATELY one of your best yet, or maybe its because the subject is so cute

Glad to hear its not venomous but how big is it?

.....and your Tamron macro is the exact same model as mine, I didn't realise it was a bit of a rareity, I must do some research on it.

Lilly, I think its fine without the crop, or maybe at least take some of the "blank canvas" off the top, I'm not a portrait peron but I think its one of the nicest shots weve seen on this forum for a long time.

Now i'm going to be really nitpicky and complain about that shadow over the guys left shoulder. I also think the guys face wants burning in a little.

I'm afraid I cant give it a 10 so how about a 9.9

PS; "I" knew Fender made fiddles

I'm with Clarky & Lilly, No 2 is definately the best of the bunch. But I'd have been happy with any of them.

I am sure that using older lenses (K mount at least) will make the camera revert to centre weighted metering, this is fine if your aware of it and know how to compensate under tricky lighting conditions.
Your swan pic would have taxed even multi segment metering, definately a case for bracketing your shots, even more so if using the Cosina.

Welcome to the forum, dont be too hard on your American neigbours they have the weight of the world on their shoulders As for this forum you will be made extremely welcome (see, your loyalty to King George paid off in the end )

Sounds like the camera is trying to use auto fill in for the contre-jour lighting, my MZ7 does it if set to Auto, it can of course be turned off I would have thought the Olynpus should have a similar arrangement.

Anyway, serves the infidel right for not buying Pentax

This story seems all too common, I was at a christmas party and the host had just got a new 6mp compact from santa (kodak as I recall) anyway he asked my advice but totally ignored it by letting another guest change the jpeg setting to the lowest possible resolution, I gave up and went back to enjoying myself.
I can just imaging the "Oooos" and "Awwws" when they get their 6x4 prints from the instant print lab......."these are much better than when we used those disposable things aren't they"

C'mon Pete, put us all out of our misery. Youv'e got enough tongues wagging to create a butterfly effect