It makes no sense to use a card only once, then 'archive' it. That's almost treating it like film, except you could lose a lot more images if you lost/damaged a card. It's much safer to make a couple of copies on separate hard disks kept at different locations and perhaps another on DVD.

I keep all mine on a RAID array (Netgear ReadyNAS NV+), and backup to an external WD 1Tb MyBook HDD. Once in a while, I copy them all to another external HDD.

Admittedly my system is more expensive than using cards only once, but cheaper options exist.

A simple and relatively cheap solution is to use say, a couple of 160/250/500Gb 2.5" laptop drives connected to the PC via a USB/IDE/SATA cable.

That's what I use with my Netbook. To protect the exposed electronics I cut up the lid of a maargarine tub and screwed it in place on the bottom of the drive. Works perfectly and the biggest advantage is that the 2.5" drives are powered by the USB connection so you don't even need an extra power supply.

A more professional solution would be a WD Passport drive or similar.

Great shots Mike. I particularly like the ladybird, but it seems to have some kind of halo effect around it's head/thorax area.

Interesting bit of kit, but €49 + VAT? A bit steep I think.


I haven't found any solution to B/F focussing that describes how to correctly adjust the camera when a zoom lens is used. Would you test at max. or min. zoom?

Tricky decision, and always a compromise.

We have only three variables affecting exposure, aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

If you up the ISO you run the risk of increasing noise, especially in shadowy or dark areas. I almost always use the lowest ISO (100) in sunny situations.

If you change the aperture, you might not be pleased with the resulting bokeh or depth of field.

If you change the shutter speed, there might be too much motion blur in shots of moving targets. Too fast and they look like stuffed dummies.

On my K20D, when I am unsure, I use TAv mode whereby I select shutter speed and aperture suitable for the subject, then let the camera deal with the ISO variable. More often than not, the camera gets it right and I've set one of the other two variables inappropriately.

In fact, there is no hard 'n fast rule, you just have to try things out and make note of what pleases you to be able to replicate the effect in the future.

For general use it's probably no more versatile than the AF400T actually, but:-

It has an AF assist light, auto zoom head, strobe effect (multiple flashes), and it can be mounted to a camera faster than an AF400T if needed. Of slightly lesser significance is the fact that it has a digital interface to the camera whereas I believe the AF400T is analogue.

Exactly right. Some mirror lenses are supplied with ND filters for this purpose from new.

Technically the aperture doesn't change of course, but the effect of adding an ND filter is to attenuate the light in bright conditions. Bokeh and DOF remain unchanged.

The DA* 200mm is actually an FA* 200mm lens in a DA* body. It's a full frame 35mm lens and will work with film cameras without vignetting

Where did you order from?

Hi David, welcome to the forum.

Can you give us some more detail about your problem? Which camera are you using, which lens, which flash (if any), what setiings are you using on the camera? I.. Metering mode, exposure mode, aperture/shutter speed/ISO etc.

We need more information to be able to help you. A couple of illustrative example images with intact EXIF data would help.

That's typically where a hammerhead style gun would be, and it's not wasting flash output at all. With the flash in that position you need (almost) never need to worry about red eye.

My recommendation as illustrated by Ken Gartmore would produce a very similar configuration which almost replicates an AF400T flash, one of the best analogue TTL flashes Pentax produced. The AF500FTZ is better however because it's much more versatile and more powerful.