The 055PROB is an excellent and versatile tripod. The reason I chose it above any other is that the centre column can be removed and mounted horizontally to take top down shots more easily without getting tripod legs in the way.

The 488RC2 makes an excellent ball head for all but the lens I mentioned. It's best feature is having 2 locking screws. 1 does front to back, up and down, the other controls the abilitity to rotate the head.

That's not a daft question. How many legs does a tripod have?, now that's a daft question, and one that I'm sure will crop up one day.

I don't know the weight of the Bigma but I have a Pentax 135-600mm weighing in at around 4.5Kg and the tripod mount is too near to the rear of the lens, not well balanced. I use a Manfrotto 055PROB with a 488RC2 Ball head and believe me, it is nowhere near stiff enough to stop my heavy lens moving when the mirror goes up.

I haven't tried adding additional weight hanging from the centre column yet, but it might help.

I did have to remove the rubber anti-slip mat from inside the quick release plate, that improved matters somewhat but did not cure camera shake entirely.

I should add that I haven't tried this lens/tripod combo in daylight yet. I was after shots of the moon and couldn't hold the rig still enough to get any decent shots.

Don't just decide on a suitable head without first going out and trying a few and get one that suits your big lens.

Impressive collection George. Obviously the 'calling' of the new * lenses is very strong on IOM. It must be the weatherproofing you are after

Good luck with the sales. What's your ebay member name so I can keep an eye out.

I have to say the FA 24-90 is very tempting.

2 major clues, F2.8 max aperture, and the * suffix means they will (probably) be superb lenses, albeit for DSLR only.

Advice: Get a dedicated webcam. Your camera will last longer, you'll not waste any time installing drivers for making an item perform a task for which it was not really designed (just because it can do it, doesn't mean you have to make it do it), A webcam is good at what it does, serve moving images over the 'net. A camera is good at what it does, taking photo's. Try not to confuse the two functions. A decent Logitech web cam costs next to nothing and you'll save yourself a heap of time.

Have you disabled anti-virus, anti-spyware etc?

Also make sure that you login as an administrator before installing drivers. If you have only normal user staus, driver installation will probably fail.

Hama sell (or used to) a small lead lined bag which I have used. Problem is it shows up as completely black on airport security systems. Using it has always resulted in my hand baggage being pulled to one side for a complete search. That in itself is not a problem unless you are carrying something you shouldn't, but if you are a little late for a flight . . . it can increase the blood pressure a bit.

Sorry Chris, only just caught up with this topic.

Firstly, your purple fringing issue looks less like lens CA to me than the phenomenon common to many digital SLR sensors.

You noted above that the fringe is "all around the Robin". Put another way, it's actually all around the edges of the highlighted area which encompasses the Robin, and to me, that's not CA.

I never experienced any issues when I owned the Sigma 400mm, but I have had a similar problem with other lenses, even Pentax, in similarly lit situations. I personally think it's a DSLR sensor induced issue, rather than a lens problem.

Hint: Don't shoot strongly backlit subjects if it can be avoided.

To illustrate the point of this thread. I've seen about as much of Jenna as I care to. Multiple postings of the same image, edited or not, in differnet forums must be discouraged, if not banned. Perhaps abusers/misusers should be locked out of posting pics for a period of time.

Perhaps members should simply link to their own site for critiques.

Whilst we should encourage new members to be active on this forum, they should be encouraged to do some basic research of their own rather than asking questions like " what's the difference between Silkypix Free . . . and Silkypix paid for versions " and " what's the price of" etc.