Another thought: if we are talking about stage lighting and mixed lighting, does it have to be a "correct" colour balance at all? The lighting colour can be part of the impact - providing it looks good, accuracy may not be so critical.

One of the basic points would be that tungsten light is way outside the limits at which AWB functions, so it's no surprise that the results are too orange. I would suggest using the tungsten setting, and things will improve dramatically.

In CS2 there are photo filters, so if you want to correct your colour cast use the 80 filter and then dial in the amount you need. In film photography an 80A would be the lightest, 80B darker, and so on.

In PS7 you could try Channel Mixer or Hue/Saturation andsee what you can achieve.

In extremis, converting to monochrome in channel mixer will side-step the whole issue.

AS for JPEG and RAW, it's all been said! Personally I still use JPEG for various reasons, but another thread has covered that one already...

Green dots must be the ones we look at with envious thoughts.....

We're almost chatting in real-time here!

The M series dot is white and the A-series dot is yellow.

It should line up with the lens release button to show you the position of the lens before you insert it into the bayonet. Once the lens is clicked home, it won't line up.

It has been dropped from current lenses.

If you line up the plastic dot with the lens release lever on the camera body, you can orientate the lens correctly for insertion by feel, as opposed to searching for the red dots in perhaps poor light.

It's just there to help when changing lenses.

Well, we have two and they perform the same and are perfectly sharp across the frame at f8 and f11 at least.

Perhaps you do have a poor example - it happens.

I agree absolutely.

I have been using the 18-55 with my *istDS, as Sue has with hers, and we've both been very pleased with the results, even at A3. But then the aperture has rarely been wider than f8, so the lens has been allowed to give its best.

I have just taken delivery of the 16-45, but this was purely to go slightly wider, and had nothing to do with quality. I'll be interested to see the difference.

If you sign up at www.ephotozine.com you can upload a picture a day to share and receive comments and votes. Let us know your user name and we'll go have a look!

Not many around or not, IMHO anyone who spends £199 on a 55mm f2 lens is being slightly over-enthusiastic....