A million people a month have decided they want one, so that's just fine. If I don't want one I won't buy one.

Slightly tongue-in-cheek, I want one that plays the Nokia tune so I can bellow "Hello!!!" into it....

That was what I meant. I suspected that was the case, and it is an advantage to those who don't want to mess about with computers but just want a device to use.

One of the problems is that whatever a section is labelled as and whatever it is designed to do there will be lots of posters that do something else and others that will get cross about it.

This section is for everyone to show images. If you want critique, just say so, if not then make that clear also. If we had two sections I suspect there would be even more confusion and the two would get mixed up constantly.

The intention was that the gallery was provided and it would be easier to post images there, and some people do. The same applies - ask for critique there if you want it, say so if you don't.

The only drawback to the Gallery is that it's a different place on the website, so isn't automatically browsed when looking at the forum. And vice-versa of course.

Personally i think this forum has plenty of sections. I've seen plenty of forums with more and it just gets over-facing and laborious to trawl through everything.

I'm a big fan of Keeping Things Simple.

Not only forums, but Facebook and similar are places where people make extraordinary admissions to the world.

Leading a blameless life will of course avoid most of these pitfalls.

I know Barter Books well and always make time to have a long browse when I'm in the area.

They do have an inflated view of some prices, but that's probably because I'm looking to buy things that lots of other people might like as well. Supply and demand...we all want to get good prices for our rare items!

In any event a 200mm f2 lens will not help in this situation.

When I shoot a wedding 90% of the shots, indoors or outdoors, are shot using the 16-45mm f4. I used to do weddings on a medium format camera with just a 75mm lens, so am well used to concentrating on getting images rather than worrying about lots of lenses.

A fixed focal length is a bit limiting these days as expectations are much higher, but something from 31mm to 40mm should do the trick.

Keep it simple, use an appropriate aperture to control DOF and outdoors use a bit of fill-in flash to soften the shadows on faces.

They only need to be about 200K for the forum and they are quite a bit more than that. It just means it slows down the loading of the images.

Have you checked the file size of these images as they are very slow to load?

You're right to use this technique and there would be nothing to stop a photographer of flowers and plants carrying a small water spray just for this purpose. It has been known. If you do though, don't spray leaves that are in the sun. The droplets act as lenses and focus the sunlight, burning the leaves.

I like the idea of what you have done but do wonder if some more interesting plant would not be more deserving of your attention. However, you've made something of the subject that you have and full marks for that.

Carry the spray forwards into the world?

Royal Photographic Society
Licentiate of theRPS
Associateship....
Fellow of the....

These are RPS awards, but to keep the award you need to keep paying the membership fee every year. Is this still around £100 per annum?

I don't know why these threads descend into over-reaction like this. We have to accept that it is reasonable for people to express their views.

Feel free to disagree, and express yours as well.

As long as it's discussion it's fine, but when it becomes argument that's a different matter again.

I think the idea that you abandon ship because of the opinion of maybe three out of ten thousand members is IMHO over-reaction, and I too am entitled to an opinion. That doesn't make the forum less friendly.

Again, feel free to disagree, but in the right spirit of things.