We don't need to be lawyers ourselves because sites like EPZ and many others helpfully provide summaries and links prepared by those who are. AP has issued its own guidelines as well, prepared with legal advice.

The L&CPU have similar advice on their forum and the ADAPS website also provides links.

This has been well publicised now, and sharp photographers are well aware of their rights and obligations, more so than the police are sometimes.

I would point out that the original posting made clear that the photographer in this case did not ask for generic permission, but rather permission to photograph flowers. It was probably unwise to ask at all.

Regardless of all that, suppose the photographer carried on anyway and took his pictures of flowers. What would be the consequence of this?

As far as I can see, nothing. Who is going to sue him and for what damages? Who is going to arrest him on what criminal charge? Would the police even respond to a call "There's a man in the park taking pictures of flowers, come quickly!"

Lack inspiration? Can't think of what to shoot next? Here's a couple of ideas to start off a thread, and, hopefully, others will add some ideas of their own.

1. Start a project. Shoot your stamp collection, or local buildings before they are demolished, or different types of telephone or post boxes. In other words, apply photography to some other area that interests you. Maybe make the end result into a book using Blurb or similar.

2. Simplify. As a challenge, go out and just use a compact camera for a day. Make it work for you and really try to bring home some eye catching images. Alternatively, take out your DSLR with just one lens. Not necessarily the standard lens - why not try with just a 300mm, or maybe just the 10-17mm fisheye. Make the disadvantage make you work.

If you do try something like this, do please post some results for us all to see!

The lens is superb and at that price it's tempting to buy a second one to resell later...

Those three are Rather Splendid, and I'm extremely impressed by them. Classy.

A conversion is the "proper" way to do it, but the earlier DSLRs such as the *istDS are better at recording IR images than the K10D or later. Presumably from the K10D onwards IR was more heavily filtered out.

An *istDS is good to play with to see if you like the IR effects enough to have a camera fully converted.

But it doesn't mean anything apart that from out of a sample of photographers that was the distribution. I suppose you inferred that the majority must know what's best, but it might mean something entirely different. It might mean that Canon had the best special offer that week...or that their camera was the cheapest and that was a deciding factor...or anything.

Compliment, n, An expression of regard or praise. Example: I must compliment you on your choice of camera.

Complement, n, That which completes or fills up. Example: I purchased my 50-200mm lens to complement the use of my normal 18-55mm. (The longer lens completes a range, fills a gap.)

English is a rich and complex language, and slight alterations in a word change the subtelty of the meaning.

Hope that helps!

I'd like to add Crab Soup at Craster...and a delightful little place called Preston Tower. Cragside is superb, as mentioned, and we'll be back there again soon for sure.

The Farne Islands are worth a boat ride, although beware low flying birds. They seem to think my head is a Helipad and perhaps yours as well. Wear a hat!

Dunstanburgh Castle is another romantic destination.

Wherever you go, there is masses to see. As for getting there, if travelling from the NW try going up the M6 and then straight across on the B road past Housesteads Fort - an incredible, wonderful drive along the longest and straightest strip of tarmac ever designed....

Yes, lots of people use two systems, and in some cases I wonder at the logic of it.

I once had a Mamiya 645 and using that alongside my Pentaxes was dreadful. The manual focusing turns the opposite way, the aperture ring turns the opposite way. It does make a difference and it hinders seamless and smooth operation.

A more sensible mix would have been Bronica and Pentax, but in the end I moved to the Pentax 645, which is what I'd wanted in the first place.

As regards 35mm/DSLR options, Nikon and Pentax are a more sensible mix than Canon and Pentax for the reasons that matter to me. Your priorities might be different to mine. But I agree that the lens mounting in reverse is a nuiscance. Not neaqrly as much so as the original Nikon lens mounting, setting to f5.6 and then rotating the aperture ring to each extreme so that the maximum aperture was indexed for the meter. Dreadful, but thankfully things have moved on.