Sorry George, I'm a bit slow tonight . I think "delicate surgery" not only makes you fat round the middle it slows your brain cells as well

I can assure you chaps I have nothing to do with the above image, I have never met Rodger, I did not put him up to the shot, Nor did I plant a spider the size of an outstretched hand in ANY house....etc etc etc.

All I can say about the image is, CUTE! she is a beauty and can come and live in my house anyday, as long as she doesn't leave cobwebs all over the place!

Good job you didn't use pro film stock or you would have been well and truly stuffed!

Kodak Ultra tends to be ok stored at room temp, "amatuer" film stock is designed for long shelf life and the manufacturers are aware that Mr Joe Public isn't aware that film should be kept cool.

As for long past it sell by date, It cant be said for certain what state the film will be in, you might be lucky and it'll be fine.
Unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule that says "Oh a three or four year old film, we better give it X amount of extra development or Y amount of under development to get it to come out right"
There are so many factors that affect the "storage" life of a film, the batch itself, light, humidity, storage temp. or the degree of variation in any of those.

If all the film was of the same stock and sell by date, and all shot at the same time and stored together then just get one roll developed and see what its like, if its OK then its likely the other two will be as well, if not then its up to you if you want to risk wasting cash on the other rolls.

EDIT; just use a reliable lab, they wont be able to do anything special that any other lab could.

Gran Canaria, Ahhh! I thought I recognised the quality of the light

Did you get up into the mountains Pete?

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j168/impotentspider/IMGP2303a.jpg

PS; I bet now you know about the clasp your eyes are drawn to it everytime you look at the pic, I find looking a photographs a bit like proof reading, proof readers can spot the mistakes the author has made.
I've had loads of things pointed out on my images that I haven't noticed myself.

Hubba-Bubba.....

Nice shot Pete, I'm not really a portrait person so probably the last to offer comment but I do have to agree with Rodger, she looks a bit peeved, did you take too long setting the shot up and she got bored
Otherwise nice lighting, did you use a reflector?

One nitpicking thing, the clasp on her chain has worked its way round her neck, I find it a bit distracting, try cloning it out.

IMHO

Having not yet got into RAW, (have dabbled with it) I can only say that I agree with John, but also add that if your shooting images for yourself, then shoot jpeg, if on the other hand your shooting these with the potential of selling or entering into competitions then I can see the merits of have a RAW "negative"

Its OK having complete control but to be honest who wants to return from holiday with hundreds of images and have to process each one individually?

John, you didn't thoroughly read my OP did you

I was shooting birds, y'know, the feathered variety, they dont hang around for a 2sec delay.

I have tried it with the IR remote but that flashing light makes it look like I'm showing off , especially when I've prefocused on a particular spot and I'm just hanging around waiting for something to perch, plus I have no idea what that light does to the battery life (minimal I would think) but in cold weather with no backup I need every ounce of power I can get.

DOH!!!!!

Hang on, i'll be back in a minute, just going to bang my head on the wall........


.......OK I'm back, feel much better now, even checked the exifs on the shots, ISO was up and down like a YoYo. Thanks!


Everybody else, thanks, will also try it without the SR, but as gwyn said, this lens is a beast, even my shiny new Velbon CF630 trembles under its weight and as I am still using the shutter button I will probably still get a little movement.

Just had a wierd experience with the above combo, I was out shooting birds and had the aperture wide open (f6.3), I was getting a shutter speed of 1/180th (in Av). as I was using a tripod and using the SR I thought I would try a smaller aperture, Now this is the strange bit, I went through f8 and f9.5 but the shutter speed remained at 1/180th, (no it wasn't the light level changing) the shutter speed didn't change till I stopped down to f11, then it dropped to 1/125th.

I put the camera into P and it came up with a combo of 1/180th f9.5, switching back to Av gave me 1/180th again at f6.3

I also tried changing the exposure comp, again it didnt shift the shutter speed untill I got over +2 stops.

The lens was at max 500mm.

Has anyone else experienced similar problems.

Lilly,

you cant "paste" an image into your posts, you need to upload your images somewhere else then provide a "link"

I use http://photobucket.com/ its totally free and you can link to images posted there.

No doubt forum veterans will explain it in more detail.