Same one here..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Pentax-D-BG2-DBG2-Battery-Grip-for-K10D-0613_W0QQitemZ1100...

expect to add another £40 or so for P&P and import tax Pete. I got my DL from them, and they are good, but they're based in Hong Kong.

The 360 flash can be picked up for £155-160 from SRS or Park Cameras to name but two.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Graham,

for these, get hold of a couple of the cheap (around a quid on ebay) mini tripods, that have the three legs secured off a cradle. Remove the legs, and you'll have a couple of tripod ball joints for the ends, to allow for fine adjustment. You might need to do a bit of heath robinson for the attachment, but you'll have some screw holes/screws plus the main centre screw to use as well.

Or get yourself a high hat cymbal stand.. if you can find one cheap enough. It'll not be exactly portable.. mine which is modified with a 1/4" thread on the end (and not used in years) has a cast iron base on it, which although making it extremely stable is impractical for fell walking..

Something like this though.. which is a far lighter version than mine.

http://www.fotosearch.com/EYW198/msi_023/

Add one of the above tripod ball joints to the end, and it's job done. The end furthest from the cymbal (you can see where it's thicker in the photo) is a balance weight for the cymbal.. a K10D with a 100 macro may well require a couple of pounds of lead added to that.

Bound to be one on ebay somewhere.

What tripod do you have though, as my Vanguard has a three way head which gives me the ability to shoot straight down anyway. Far easier for static macro/slide copying etc.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Tom,

I agree with the others.. great photo.

You might be interested in the work of Charles Krebs, who does a lot of insect macro work, It was mentioned on a science site that I go and get confused on occasionally..

http://www.macrophotos.com/charleskrebs/ck.html

Check out his setup from the link in the first paragraph.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Brian,

http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html

GIMP is free, and works great. Install the (correct for your OS, I'm assuming MSW**) GTK runtime environment first, then GIMP.

** A quick search will find GIMP for all the OSs, should you happen to use OSx, Linux, Solaris etc.

You can also use GIMPShop..

http://www.gimpshop.net/

..if you want the interface to more resemble PS. They're the same program, but the menus are moved around a bit.

The worst that can happen is that you don't like it, and you've lost nothing. I do all my jpeg handling in either of the above.. and they work just fine. I certainly can't see a case for me needing anything else.

For RAW, as Matt says, SilkyPix. I'm using RawShooter Essentials at the moment, because I prefer the interface. This is however discontinued, although on a quick search, I've found it here..

http://www.photo-freeware.net/raw-shooter-essentials.php

Cheers

Liam

Hi Steve,

http://www.bonusprint.co.uk/pages/pricing_digital_prints.htm?level=0&sub=0

24x36 £18.49, dropping for qty.

I had some 12x8s printed by them, and they are very good.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Chris,

as mentioned, you need to host them online somewhere.. either your own site, or with a dedicated photo hosting site, such as Flikr, pbase or photobucket.

Next post the URL of the photo inside
tags like so..

[img ]http://www.photosite.com/chris'spictures/mypicture.jpg[/img ]

I've put a couple of spaces in the above tags, so they don't post, and the URL is fake, but that's it basically.

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

I wasn't looking for this, but I found it anyway..

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Photography/

which stems from this..

http://www.phooto.co.uk/rights.shtml

It looks more as though there is a sort of conspiracy theory going on. The main point seems to be about the protection of children, which is obviously understandable. I've had a quick look through the common's website, but can't see an actual bill in process, for instance though.

HTH

Cheers

Liam

Hi Pat, and welcome to the forum..

I'm pretty sure that you've got it set to "Green Mode", so a quick look through the manual for that should let you get back out of it.

EDIT: Press the "Quick Button", to get out of Green Mode... I looked it up.

Cheers

Liam

Hi all,

I had a bit of a rush of blood to the head, and thought about how the tutorials that are sometimes put up could be done better.. not the technique side, as that's always top notch, but the way they're displayed.

Live Action screen recording..

I told you I had blood rush.

I got some software this afternoon, and my very first (well. probably tenth) go was this.. (click play)

http://www.liamsworld.org.uk/tutorials/testing.html

My mike has broken, but you can give live commentary, and basically you just start the job you want to demonstrate, chatting about what you're doing as you go, and you end up with a top quality tutorial.

You've seen my paltry effort, but this is what can be done once you have mastered it.. from the originating site..

http://www.camstudio.org/video/install

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

no, indoors, even the popup flash is pretty good (for what it is).. using one of the dedicated flashes I mentioned, and you have full control over the lighting. If it's pretty dark to start with, the autofocus may struggle, but the flash sorts that out for you. As an example, you can take a picture using the 360 in a totally dark room (I tried it, and couldn't see my hand in front of my face), perfectly focussed and exposed.

I assume that these will be used for promotional pictures, in which case, given the option go for the K10D. That way you get a 40% bigger image size to start off with. Even the K100 will produce A3+ images quite happily without doing too much to the original, but if you can use PS, then the world is your oyster.. so to speak.

RE: UV filters, yes you can use them, but if you are going to use filters, then invest in Cokin or Lee, as if your going to stick an extra optical element in to the set up, you want to undo as little of the excellent optical quality of the lenses as you can.

Cheers

Liam