It was a combination of 7 images processed through Photomatix. The light outside was so bright that I started some of this set at -5 EV, in 1 EV steps. Not sure offhand if this was one of those, I think this was more likely -3 EV through to +3 EV.

Smaller file sizes make sense, and I use the same spec as for EPZ e2 members. 1000 pixels on the longest side, 400K maximum. That seems to work fine.

It's an attractive shot Barrie, with excellent colour and texture, plus interesting shapes.

The Sigma is arguably only 15MP and deelivers very strange colour because of its Foveon sensor.

Frankly, 16MM is more than enough to give stunning results, as we can already see, but 24MP is probably the next step regardless of whether most people need it or not.

It works a treat in the forum - try it out!

Just trying out the new upload system for the forum. This is an HDR image - there was no hope whatsoever of any single shot capturing the range of tones here, which stretched from almost pitch black to brilliant sunlight.

Barrie's question is answered in the instruction manual, and refers to the slowest "safe" shutter speed when hand holding.

For a 35mm film camera this is taken as the reciprocal of focal length, so for a 200mm lens that would be 1/200sec. For an APS-C DSLR it would be 1/300sec (200mm x 1.5 = 300mm.

When entering an SR figure for a lens, just use the actual focal length.

Logically, when using say a 2x converter you would presumably use 200 x 2 = 400mm as the starting point, although I have never actually tried that myself.

When I was involved in selling, in the field concerened I was well aware of what was made by whom, and what items cost at the various stages in their pathway to the customer.

There were different sorts of customer of course. Some wanted the lowest price, regardless of the brand name, so that meant "own brand" products. These were made for various companies by a few manufacturers who specialised in that. These manufacturers could sometimes make some items for the main names, but these were generally quite different in specification.

At the other end, there were those that wanted the very best and they bought the recognised brand leaders. They may well have wanted these items at the best possible price, but the price itself was not the main objective. Reliability, quality, confidence and the pleasure of using the best was more to the point.

Now these higher priced products were most definitely not the same as the own brand ranges. They performed better and gave a higher degree of satisfaction to those who could tell the difference.

The point I'm making is that we can make no assumptions, although it's unlikely that those at the extremes of the argument for or against will be able to understand each other's point of view. We do what suits us in the end, and many options are available.

Sounds good, have fun!

One thing I would urge everyone who enters a competition to do is read the rules very carefully.

This competition, as I read it, is looking for humour in gargoyles, carvings, etc., rather than humour in real life. Anyone disagree and read it differently?

Also, please remember entries should be shot in August 2012, reagardless of the subject matter.