Birds in flight are tricky at the best of times, but AF isn't perhaps the best way to go. Considering the distances involved and the ability to pre-focus on an area, I've had far better success using manual focus.

In some instances, such as using the Q with a DA lens, there's only the manual focus choice, but it does work and just needs practice, practice, practice....after all, generations of photographers who had no AF managed perfectly well.

Today we were at The South Lakes Wild Animal Park, and I gave the Q-S1 its first proper outing. It's identical in operation to the original Q, so no surprises there, and the quality seems up to that of the MX-1. So I'm happy enough and here's a few examples. Comments welcome!

There is nothing that SR can do to freeze subject movement, it's designed to reduce camera movement.

For action shots, AF will be quicker with SR switched off, and a high shutter speed will be needed anyway to freeze movement in the subject.

Moved to general chat.

I think regardless of the difficulties in a precise definition, the concept of "straight out of camera" is not only about the processing or lack of. It's also about the discipline of taking the shot and making sure that exposure and composition are spot on up front. Just like a slide film, where what you take is what you get.

So subsequently there is no cropping, as well as no levels or curves adjustments or anything else.

The files all come to me and I resize them to fit the competition software, but that's all I do and all files are treated exactly the same.

Of course there is something slightly unfair in that some marques output far better JPEG files than others, but there is a limit to what can be done to make a level playing field.

Nobody said it was easy Nigel.....the essence was to define what "straight out of camera" could be. JPEG. sRGB. The original file with no adjustments.

Then of course the question arises can we have Natural, Vivid, Bright....yes on the basis we could choose our film type. The can we have in-camera sharpening? And so it goes on, but in the end the spirit of the competition is clear.

That's what could be called pre-visualisation. The image is shot with the final result already in mind. There will still need to be some post capture honing to make the dynamic range fit the output (print, web, etc.)but essentially the image outcome is already known.

I'd call it just one way of working, but there are many other ways of working. I'm not sure that one way or another way is in some manner morally superior though.

No filters necessary, but always use a lens hood.

The exception might be the polariser, which cannot be done post capture, and perhaps graduated ND filters for landscapes.

You chose the type of slide film and maybe used a filter to adjust the colour rendition, even with slides.

I'm interested in this because we have an annual "straight out of camera" competition at ADAPS. This is for unadjusted JPEG files only. However, even then there are choices such as image style, and the more we try to define it the more difficult it becomes.

Interesting stu62, how would you define a true photograph is the first question. The second would be what qualification would any of us have to declare that definition as an absolute?