Hi all,

I thought I'd bore you all with another birdy picture, this time a Herring Gull, more commonly known to us brits as a seagull. This one still has some juvenile plumage, and flew straight at me yesterday, while I took.. ahem.. a few piccys down at the seaside. I got a few other breeds as well, and once I've rejigged the coding on my site, I'll link to a gallery.. but for now you're lucky enough just to get the one.




1/500 sec @F5.6 | 100-300FA (300 ~ 450mm equiv) | ISO 200 | crop [3008x2000 to 2720x1432]

It was taken from a cliff-top coastal path, hence being above it looking down into the sea. A handy background.

I spent Saturday trying to get a publishable (for my site.. not real publishing) picture of a Red Kite but have so far failed with around 400 attempts. I will keep trying. If you are fairly local to Stokenchurch in Oxfordshire and would like the opportunity, you shouldn't take long to find one.. it's akin to finding pigeons in Trafalgar Square.. so I have little excuse.

BTW, I've never been a birdwatcher.. all this is down to George's fantastic picture a few weeks ago, of a bird landing in the water.. so if you want to blame someone.. blame George..

Cheers

Liam

Hi DanG,

you can post photo's, but they need to be hosted externally, either on your website, or with Flickr or similar. Then you just wrap the URL of the image in the {img}...{/img} tags (change curly brackets for square ones).

As far as your name goes, you should be able to change it by asking John or Matt (the moderators, you can PM them by clicking on their names from the front page of the board) very nicely.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Ammonyte,

It is good, though I wouldn't take it down 5M..

The tapered section that you put your right hand in is single skinned HD nylon, but all other sections are double skinned and padded, probably 1/4" padding, so you shouldn't get problems with batteries except in the severest of low temperatures.

There's a hole with a lift up cover for the viewfinder, that velcros down when not in use, and a clear plastic viewfinder for the top LCD panel. You can't really use the rear LCD, unless you undo the bottom zip, but that's no great hassle. The left hand side, has a double zip, that runs down and under the camera, so that you can put it on a tripod, and zip it up again, and the tube for the lens has a drawstring to tighten up to the lens. One thing that will help on short lenses is a Cokin filter thread adaptor, just to stop the cover slipping over the end of the lens. I have them fitted to most of my lenses anyway, and they only cost a couple of quid each on E***

It's all packed for tomorrow, 'cos I'm going to take photos in Bruges whatever happens to the weather.. which I realy should check, I suppose.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Alan, and welcome to the forum.

As Don says, bad weather can make for some excellent photos. You do need to protect the camera from the wet and grit etc. though. I've got one of these..

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Camera-Protector-to-Fujifilm-S3-Pro-Olympus-E1-E500-300_W0...

The quality really is good, and far better than the photos show. Failing that, get yourself a freezer bag.. but take photos..

I'm off to Bruges tomorrow, and have bought a second 1Gb card, to go with the 1.5Gb I already have, and with one set of fully charged batteries in the camera, and another set along for the trip.. just in case.

If this is your first go with digital, you'll be very happy with the quality of the images on the DL2.. I have the DL and it is a cracking bit of kit.

Take lots and lots of pictures, and if some go horribly wrong, you have loads of very knowledgable and friendly folk here to help you out.

Must carry on packing for tomorrow..

Cheers

Liam

Hi,

we got the Jessops flyer through the letter box, and they are offering the DL2, with both the DA18-55 and DA50-200 for £599.

Of course whether they have any is another matter.

Cheers

Liam

Glad to hear it Sophie, have a great time in Australia, and don't forget to post a photo or two of your travels.

Ammonyte.. great work.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Sophie,

as Matt said, and he knows what he's talking about.. unlike me, it's not looking good for your camera. Nothing user fixable certainly.

I personally use a digital SLR, the *ist DL, so haven't really got a comment to make on the range of compacts available. If you're going to the shops anyway, then hopefully you'll get an assitant that will take a bit of time discussing what you need and let you have a play with a few cameras to get the feel of them.

It really depends on your budget. If you can afford one of the *ist D range of digital SLRs, you will get a tp of the range camera and some fantastic photos, but if you haven't used an SLR then there will be a steep learning curve, although set to auto pic, you will get the shots as soon as you switch on. A 1gB memory card will fit about 350-400 photos at top jpg quality.

I'm sure someone here can tell you more about the compact range though.

Cheers

Liam

Hi Sophie, and welcome to the forum,

You don't say specifically what's wrong, but I assume you mean that there's no power at all.. no lights nothing. The obvious first thing is to try new batterys. After that, I'm guessing that you'll need it checked professionally.

There are five Pentax approved service centres in Australia, according to my list, and are all branches of the same firm.. CR Kennedy and Company Ltd.

They are in..
Melbourne 61-3-9823-1555
Sydney 61-2-9518-9500
Brisbane 61-7-3862-6222
Adelaide 61-8-8410-0533
Perth 61-8-9381-7144

If you give the nearest one a ring, and see what they can do. I know you could be a 1000 miles from any of them in Australia, but they may be able to put you in touch with someone locally, if they exist.

I don't know about the Optio range at all, but if this is a once in a lifetime trip, then it may be worth spending money on another camera anyway, just to make sure you get your photos. Then when you get to somewhere that can fix yours, you'll have two cameras for the rest of the trip. Even if you just buy a bag full of disposable 35mm cameras, make sure you don't miss the photo opportunities.

Hope that helps,

Cheers

Liam

Not bad.. I took long enough writing that for two iof you to post first.

Edited.. 'cos I'm daft.

Hi John,

OK, so I'm no expert.. but you'll find most if not all here go by the adage "there's no such thing as a stupid question; only a stupid answer".

Everyone here had to pick up a camera for the first time.. at some time.

Right, shutter speed. It's directly proportional to aperture. The following for instance let the same amount of light on to the sensor/film.

Aperture ____ Shutter Speed (fractions of a second)

F1.2 ________ 1/4000
F1.4 ________ 1/2000
F1.7 ________ 1/1000
F2 __________ 1/500
F2.8 ________ 1/250
F4 __________ 1/125
F5.6 ________ 1/60
F8 __________ 1/30
F11 _________ 1/15
F16 _________ 1/8
F22 _________ 1/4

The above figures are for reference only, as changing the ISO number from 200 to 400 will change the aperture No. to the next fastest, ie. from F2 to F2.8; or the shutter speed down, say from 1/250th to 1/500th of a second.

All the above numbers are only shown as an example, as you may be in very low light conditions, and for a given aperture of F8 at ISO 200, you may need a shutter speed of as slow as 1/4sec or slower. BUT, the above still stands, in that at that level of light, changing the aperture to F2.8, means that the shutter speed will need to increase to 1/30 sec (three whole increments), to let the same amount of light reach the sensor/film. Of course, you can fine tune the EV (exposure value) of that by increments of 1/3 or 1/2 a stop to get the exact exposure, and with the *ist D range, you can adjust that either in camera or after the shot has been taken, by using Paintshop, or whichever software you have on your computer.

Oops, I'm late now.. but I hope you get the idea, and remember.. keep asking. It's a long time since I've had to remember the absolute basics, and that's always going to be a good thing.

Cheers

Liam