Interestingly yes, they are starting to, Nikon I think in particular. Clearly there is a potential issue, although I have yet to find a lens that needs the focus adjusting.

In the days of film there was an issue there as well. When film was left in the camera it would form a "kink" where it was left exiting the cassette or passing round the film guides. That meant the second and third shots taken could be way out of focus as the kink moved into the film gate. This was also a problem with TLR cameras, with their tortuous film path.

I suspect, but cannot prove, that we are more aware of defects these days simply because we view our images at enormous magnification on our monitors. Every little flaw can be seen in Photoshop....

Any metering pattern can be used for any purpose, the key is understanding what the camera is doing so that the photographer knows when to intervene.

I use Centre Weighted metering all the time and have the exposure compensation set to the front e-dial. When I know the meter is being fooled I apply compensation.

That's straightforward if you practice and take note of what happens under what circumstances as you learn.

Spot metering has its uses, but 90% of the people I've seen face-to-face with metering problems have inadvertently set the camera to this type of metering. Then they have used the camera in a point-and-shoot fashion, with disastrous results.

There will be quite a few "silent" members who only watch, and also even more who never actually register.

It must be the holiday season, so I've changed the date of finishing to Midnight on Monday 5th July - Nathan will be back the following morning and will be able to judge later on the Tuesday.

Back to normal the week after.

The problem is, reposting the same argument over and over again. I know it's tempting to want the last word, but if all the points in this thread had been made just one it would have been quite short.

People are entitled to disagree, so no need for closing threads, but if it just descends into abuse then it would be closed.

Just respect other points of view, even if you disagree.

Well exposed, sharp and good colour.

If you want to think about ways to lift it to another level, then lets look at the subject. What is the subject? If the subject is part of a railing that's one thing, but if, as I suspect, it's of a house framed by a railing that's another.

Assuming the latter, when we look through the frame, which is an excellent compositional technique, we see the house obscured by a vertical metal pole that splits it in half. The frame itself also has a fancy bit at the top that pulls our eye away from the house. We need to decide to focus on one or the other, so focusing on the house means a crop to the top at least.

However, the problem of the pole remains. It looks as though there's no problem getting onto the bandstand, so how about using the railing at the other side to frame the house? Perhaps then we remove the pole and other distracting elements and use the framing to make an interesting image of the building.

Doing this may well reduce the impact of the railing itself, but we don't need two competing subjects in one image.

Hope these thoughts are helpful to you.

Perhaps the pen would make more sense if the music score had some annotations on, made with the pen. The colour is now just gorgeous and does make a difference.

Definitely never a sticky, but I think it was a single post in the middle of a thread.

There's a place for everything, and this is not the place for that. Snootchies and Matthew, if you have some comments to make please put your thoughts in order and PM me with the result. Then we can see exactly what aspects you are referring to and what is to be done to resolve it.

Very nice idea that just needs a bit of tweaking. The vignette does look uneven, although I don't dislike that aspect as such. Just perhaps try to balance it out a bit more.

I'd also experiment with Sepia or Selenium toning effects, maybe other colours, but certainly those two.

If this was a traditional darkroom print I'd be looking at Selenium toning personally.