I went to the zoo yesterday with the bill payer, son and grandson (for our wedding anniversary). I took the Bigma, as the bill payer has my Tamron 28-300 on the Ds nowadays. Because we had nearly two year old Merlijn with us I didn't take the tripod - too much to lug around with him too. I did have a mini monopod, which I was able to use on some of the walls around enclosures.
However just before we left I spotted this flamingo amongst all the others, and lacking anything to rest on tried a hand held shot. Whilst not tack sharp I am happy with the result, especially bearing in mind it was shot at 500mm, F 6.7 and 1/180s.

[IMG]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c205/Bargwynbu/K20D0216web.jpg[/IMG]

SDHC cards only work with firmware 2.01 and 2.02.
I never bothered with them in the Ds, and never used a card larger than 2Gb with it - you can fit a lot of RAW photos onto 2 Gb with a Ds.

Missed that

Seems to exclude natural bridges to from that definition

Following Martin's point about people working on a Monday - why not change the closing time to midnight on Saturday, giving the judge a chance to compose their thoughts and post the results on Sunday morning?
I think the guidelines must make it clear that the winner is expected to post comments on the entries, not just pick a winner.
For all that I would still be happier with the competition within the forum to stop people joining and only entering the competition and posting in the gallery.
This has nothing to do with experience or otherwise - it's just nicer to have an idea of the person behind the photo.

I have been a member of other forums where the forum died a death because so few people chose to contribute to the forum whilst hundreds of people made use of the gallery. I'd hate to see that happen here - but I see already less and less people actively contributing to the forum and plenty of unknown names in the gallery.

I agree that the competition belongs in the forum, with the active forum members, not those who only contribute to the gallery and competition. I can imagine that judges are more reluctant to make honest judgements when the photo is by a "stranger" than when it is by someone you know on the forum. It was a bit of fun on the forum, a fun way of learning - to take photos but more importantly to look at photos. Now it just seems way too serious somehow.
Maybe better guidelines would help, but that won't stop me forgetting to check the gallery.

I agree that a thread here will be helpful. To be honest I forgot all about this week's comp until this thread was started .
And now it's too late.
Do we expect some judging comments still to come? Has longdog actually chosen this week's winner or has some computer somewhere just randomly selected it? It's not at all clear to me.
I think another problem is that there are contributors to the comp now who do not contribute to the forum, and therefore do not know how things used done with regard to it, such as the judging comments. The explanation of the competition is rather vague in the competition gallery.

I read this on another forum. I can see the advantages of being able to soot short videos. The Bill payer could do this on his Canon S2 and has a few little films which are quite good, including the birth of a wildebeest in Tanzania, and of the grandson. It is nice to see, but I would never buy a camcorder just for the odd bit of video. i wouldn't mind being able to shoot short videos.
It does however increase the chances of digital camera's being subjected to the higher import duties levied on camcorders by the EU

Interesting too that Nikon didn't wait for Photokina next week to announce this. I'd be almost tempted if I hadn't just got the K20D .

A bit far for me sadly. Den Haag is a pain to get to from Soest, either by car or train, otherwise it would be a good one for me to try.

You are of course right Oh Great Isle of Man Pedant Wasn't awake enough, when I wrote that - just followed the OP. Now I have a had a coffee or three I see my mistake.