The first time I came across this sort of thing was when I was looking to buy a camera, walked into a shop in Bolton and asked to see it. "We don't demonstrate cameras" was the reply. I enquired whether it was a photographic dealer or not. "We just sell boxes," was the reply, "Go over to Susan Wilding's, they'll show it to you and then you can come back here to buy it."

The same shop on another occasion was the scene of this observed exchange, edited down for brevity:

"My camera hasn't arrived."

"We sent it."

"But it hasn't arrived!"

"So, we sent it. Nothing we can do."

"But don't you insure the package?"

"No. Not at our prices. If you wanted insurance you should have asked for it."

So there were two reasons for me to never buy anything from that establishment. Overall value is the thing, and that does not necessarily mean the lowest price. Any idiot can give things away, and probably many do.

I think this one could have quite deep implications. "Who watches the watchers?" is a question that all societies tend to ask.

So I wonder who does watch the people who watch us... :

On Skaro, it's "Doctor catches robot"...

Thanks to all, judged and judge!

OK Daniel, what's it to be?

"I see you with sightless eyes, an eternity of scrutiny of my bones."

I hope you mean that despite using a tripod collar on the lens... ...I can't imagine that trpod mounting the camera and then attaching such a beast to it would result in anything less than the lens mount detaching from the camera body.

One useful technique is to use two tripods. One supports the camera and the other supports the front of the lens.

Don't forget your local Photographic Society. A good one will cater for beginners and offer suitable assistance.

Wherabouts are you?

OK, it's a fair point about "right at capture". Yes, the images were correctly exposed and were not in need of cropping. So levels and sharpening and the job's done.

However, we're photographers with a mass of technology at our beck and call, so why shouldn't they be correctly exposed and surely we should aim for a good composition right from the start?

I'm not actually advocating JPEG over RAW per se but I'll tell you a little tale that illustrates why I caution against the common misconception that to make good images you must use RAW capture.

T came to the club to learn how to use her new DSLR so she could go on a long and expensive trip and get some great shots. Unfortunately she took on board the "must shoot RAW" mantra and went and shot over 600 images. The real problem is that they take too long to process and she's found her PC just isn't up to the task. Interminably slow.

So her real needs were overlooked because of the enthusiasm of those who wanted to process on the PC and be at the forefront of the technology. Now she returns with 600 basically unuseable shots and she is very very disheartened.

It's a great pity she didn't take on board my advice to keep it simple, shoot best quality JPEG and conentrate on shooting the images. Then she would have had 600 easy to process images that would not have stressed out her computer.

I champion the simple life for beginners for this sort of reason. We shouldn't believe that the theoretically best route is the universal answer. I tell epople to start with JPEG, get the image quality right and if they then feel a need for RAW capture by that time they will know why they are doing it.

For myself, I shoot JPEG and expose and compose as though they were colour slides. Sometimes they need hardly a tweak in Photoshop. Other times my imagination runs away with me, as a glance at my EPZ portfolio will reveal!

Sorry, screwdriver, but I think that misses the point.

The end result was a series of A3 prints, yes. One set from JPEG captured files and one set from RAW captured files.

Now if people can't tell the difference when looking at the prints from a normal distance, then there is no difference and no point in shooting in RAW.

As it happens, with a variety of subjects, there were differences when the prints were examined closely, but it wasn't conclusive. Some RAW-originated images were better but, surprisingly, some JPEG-originated images were better.

This seemed to depend on the sort of subject matter.

I can only report what was found and no-one had any axe to grind one way or the other. The point was to find out something and the conclusions were drawn from what was seen rather than the theory of it.

I would encourage anyone to try for themselves and see what the effects are on the sort of photography that they do. With an open mind of course!