Making these images good will be quite a challenge if you haven't done this sort of photography before.

I would recommend lots of portrait practice before the first proper shoot and make sure you are totally familiar with both camera kit and lighting.

The 70-300mm lens is very long and not necessarily the best place to start. The standard 18-55mm lens at its longest end is an ideal portrait lens.

As regards the lighting, keep it simple, one main light, one fill in and maybe a snoot to catch the hair. Simple backgrounds are good (I like black, but white is the in thing).

As regards the model don't forget to talk to her and guide her. Pay attention to detail and make the session fun.

There are lots of books on portrait and glamour and these are really essential reading.

Hope that helps a little at least.

Just post where you feel most comfortable.

I've raised the matter because the system shuts the competition automatically but is doing so at the wrong time.

Hopefully next week will be fine.

It's a limitation of the system I guess, but if you put in a request via a Report then you will be advised of your membership number.

It is on the wrapper of your PU Magazine as well.

That depends on which auction house gets the best results and the highest bids.

There are a few pitfalls in descriptions on eBay - "as new" is another of them. It seems innocent enough if accurate as a description, but it's a banned phrase in titles.

All in all though it ain't too bad and it does do the job.

George, there was an almost instant reply to your report. It's now gone off the list as it was dealt with a few days ago.

You can edit or delete any image in the gallery that you have posted. Just click the delete button when you've brought up the image.

Anyone who posts a report should see the reply soon afterwards. I haven't seen any yet that have had no reply.

Hope that helps!

Don't forget to let Pentax Dan know you haven't received your magazine.

What all this shows is that there's a lot more to making a deal work on eBay than just the bare postage cost and this is something that lots of buyers don't appreciate. So when they make low ratings on especially the shipping costs section of the feedback they are not really doing so from a position of proper consideration.

The same thing might apply to accuracy of description because absolutely accurate descriptions could be misunderstood and rated lower by the buyer. Then they make a rating that may be unfair but to which there is no defence for the seller.

My overall feeling was that the original feedback both ways system was better in that it gave both sides a say. If I saw a negative then I always checked the other party to see what the response had been and tit-for-tat negatives were easy to spot. The more complicated it gets the worse the system tends to be because many don't do it properly.

Any thoughts on the star system?

It's a problem area and one of the things I don't like about the feedback star ratings system. Buyers aften feel outraged about postage and whether it's justified or not can often be a moot point.

I don't sell as a business but I put in an estimate of postal charges that inlcudes a bit of headroom for the packaging and printed lables I have to buy. And indeed it costs real money to drive over to the Post Office and a small amount of headroom is reasonable and allowed under eBay rules.

I also estimate postage, otherwise the workload doubles. Now I pack and send. If postage was more exactly done I would have tp pack things, go and have them weighed, then invoice and wait for payment and then go back to actually send them. I haven't got time for all that messing about.

Now if I over-estimate I just send a partial refund, unless it's trivial. This tends to surprise people because I don't mention it, and it's a nice surprise! If I under-estimate I just absorb the error because generally I don't think buyers care too much about that!

There are however some villains who want to send a lens in the UK for £30 first class post and that sort of thing. But that's life and we don't have to buy from them.

In defence the £1 also will include no doubt a reinforced envelope, labels and a little something to cover any incidental costs such as fuel.

I wonder if a lot of eBay purchasers expect the actual postage to be what they pay, forgetting that a Jiffy Bag for instance is quite an expensive item.

There are three different types of clip on meter, plus some variations.

Basically we have Model I (round), Model II (square) and Model SL (square). The last of these is for the Pentax SL, basically a Spotmatic without the TTL mater.