When a theme is set, present your interpretation with confidence. If it stretches the brief, fine. Have a bit of fun, it's not all about winning, it's about showing what you can do within a brief. This is good technical practice.

After all, it's no good a client asking for a picture of a nail and us saying we don't feel nails are within our creative portfolio. Just take a picture of a nail....but make it as good as we can.

Any DSLR is going to be heavier than your bridge camera, but you'll soon get used to it. There is an advantage in that it will be easier to hold steady.

The controls won't be a problem either - it's a good thing to have more external buttons and not have to delve constantly into menus.

Derek, in theory most lenses perform best two stops from maximum aperture. So with an f/1.4 lens you might expect f/2.8, however, in practice lenses aren't perfect so that can vary. Many lenses peak at f/8 to f/11.

It stays intact as long as the file size isn't too large.

There are very few entries this week and I've noticed that the number can be quite low. It does seem to be related to subject though. There's nothing wrong as such with any of the subjects shown, it's just that some of them are quite specialised and not everyone is likely to have shots that cover it.

But there must be more dance images out there than we have so far?

Just as an observation, if we are to get a really big response to a competition we do need simple, straightforward subjects. So, for example, we've had Red, but what about all the other colours? We've had The Number Six, but there are a few more numbers to use than that. There is a list on the forum, and if you're stuck have a look at that. But I would urge judges to keep it simple to make it as inclusive as possible.

The forum software is set up to operate weekly competitions, so the end date for the monthly ones or any others has to be set manually.

I've now updated the details.

Out is the Big Brash World of camera clubs many are now using different rules for wildlife images. Or "Natural History" if you prefer. ADAPS has decided also to follow new competition rules. Whereas once this category meant animals and plants out in the wild, now it has been broadened to include zoo animals. Domestic animals are still excluded.

So, today I thought I'd find a few where I've at least tried to minimise the signs of captivity, to see what we think. By all means, p-lease add examples of your own. Personally, I don't think any of these qualify for a natural History section, but apparently now they do!






The shot of the seal is definitely Natural History though - found basking on the beach at Horsey in Norfolk.

Please remember this is Pentax User and the Sony A77 is definitely off topic.

Change background layer to Layer 0
Select All (Ctrl + A)
Edit>Transform>Distort
Drag edges out, finally correct height
Accept
Deselect All (Ctrl + D)
Flatten Image
The dragged out areas still exist even though they can't be seen and they are just adding to the file size, so recrop the image and save.
I did this version very quickly to show the principle and getting that far took about 15 seconds so over to you to have a go!

Agreed David, it's still a bit unrealistic.