...and just had a quick look at your website - really like those doll shots even though I found a few of them strangely unsettling. Great work!

Hi there Belle - welcome to the forum.

There have been several discussions about this in the past; have a look here:

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/Laptop-as-viewfinder-5850/p-0#comm_48688

and here:

https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/Instant-view-on-laptop-5483

for starters.

It seems that some members have had a degree of luck but not using Lightroom. Capture One seems to do the trick though. Have a look at the threads above and if you've got any further questions feel free to ask away!

I didn't think of Quainton windmill - must go up there sometime.

Waddesdon was glorious on Wednesday; the sun was shining, the air was still, the tourists were low in number and all the trees were on the turn. Certainly one of my favourite venues! By coincidence, the bride at the wedding I was best man at back in April works at the Dairy - they didn't use it as a venue though because she didn't want to get married "at work", hence it took place at Notley Abbey instead (also a good venue photo-wise if you get a chance to pop over there). I have to say though, that I would personally prefer the Dairy given the choice.

Serendipity: It could be worse, think of how all those Mac users feel...

That is interesting actually, so it looks like the one I eventually chose (by luck rather than judgement) is the only one of mine that vaguely fits the definition - given that it's a view between long rows of trees. Cheers for that Kris!

lol!

So would this sort of thing be better?

[IMG]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd37/hefty1969/IMGP3837.jpg[/IMG]

I had discounted it (and many similar ones) on the basis that the focal point (statues in this case) distracted from the overall scene. Maybe I've got the wrong definition of vista in my head? Must dust off my dictionary...

I'm far from disappointed, I'm always keen to listen to other peoples' views.

You raise an interesting point about having people in photos though; I know most folks seem keen to include a little "human interest" but I've never understood why?

I go to great lengths to exclude people (it gives me a sense that the scene's all mine) - take that second shot for example; I had to wait ages for there to be no wandering members of the public in my sights before I pressed the shutter (those in the background are actually statues so I'd have had a very long wait for them to clear off! ).

Shots 1 & 3 also involved a great deal of patience waiting for the benches to clear before the pictures were taken (actually, I just kept walking past those spots and doing some flower macros whilst I bided my time).

So are there any others out there who think the presence of people ruins an otherwise perfectly good picture or am I, as I suspect, on my own on this one?

I went out on Wednesday to one of my favourite locations in order to take some pictures for the new bi-weekly competition (Vistas) and ended up with 135 shots to sort through.

So after weeding out the ones that obviously weren't vista-esque (I couldn't resist a few flowers, leaves, buildings, etc) and those that just weren't very good, I ended up with just four and I've been pondering them ever since. Anyway, I finally chose one to enter which I'll stick with (see competition section) but I'd be interested to know if anyone thinks I would have been better off with one of these three instead?

C&C most welcome as ever!

[IMG]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd37/hefty1969/IMGP3795.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd37/hefty1969/IMGP3801.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd37/hefty1969/IMGP3868.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/dd37/hefty1969/competition%20stuff/IMGP3775.jpg[/IMG]

Wednesday 15th October 2008.

I love living in the Vale of Aylesbury!

I'd be suprised if the lens was made by anyone other than Phenix - they are an optical manufacturer after all...

As for whether you got a bargain I think you've now answered your own question - if you like the pictures it takes then a bargain was had!