I agree - I like this and reckon its a much better image than the one I saw in the paper... The weather did look very grey...

Regards

Mat

I was looking at the london camera exchange website earlier and their London (Strand) branch has a Pentax SMC-FA* 80-200mm f/2.8 [IF] ED lens, which I think gives 120-300mm effectively on a DSLR (although I could be wrong... no expert on these things). Looks like a good quality lens from a quick look through google (it's advertised at LCE at £799). They also have a used (but I think excellent condition) DA*200mm at £599 I think... They had a small pile of second hand DA* lenses from someone who was changing their camera system. I bought the DA* 300mm they had from that source and it was absolutely as new.

Don't know if any of that helps...?

Regards

Mat

I can't answer the questions although I can completely echo them - I have been umming and ahhing about one of these lenses for a while and at the moment it's just too expensive. However, I really like the idea of having a weather sealed lens which offers focal lengths between 50mm and 300mm...(my current weather sealed capabilities). I have other lenses with SDM/HSM internal AF motors (the DA* 300mm and the sigma 120-400mm) and have not found the AF to be too frustrating...

Mat

Beautiful pictures of an obviously beautiful place. Really nice shots - amazing colours! I'd love to go there myself one day and your pictures just reinforce that in spades

Regards

Mat

I've got a birthday lunch - and it's my birthday

Although the actual day is not until thursday. I'm treating myself to a new lens to celebrate...

Mat

Martin, Lidy, (everyone!), Many thanks. The remove colour cast control with the eyedropper was what I was using, although it didn't yield quite the same result as Martin managed (which is excellent). I am guessing that the artistry is in putting the eyedropper precisely onto a pixel which is definitively white, black, or grey. I think that when I did it previously, it yielded such a step change in the colour that it looked as if the pictures were fixed, although I can see now that there is still a bit of green in them. Having tried a couple of further times, the cast does change when I apply the eyedropper to different pixels which on the face of it appear to be white or black, but which are maybe not quite pure white or black (?), and that I get slightly different results when I pick a white area as opposed to a black. So I think I can see how I can 'properly' fix them, but I shall need to have a bit of a play to absolutely get to a final result which definitively removes the colour cast (when I get in from work tonight).

That said, this has been a really useful thread for me as I have (I hope - time will tell:shock learned a good deal from it from you guys, and I hope I shall ultimately end up with a non-colour-casted set of Owl photos!

Many thanks again

Mat

Back to the drawing board... Oh well. I think I shall give my eyes a rest and try again tomorrow

Mat

A great competition and excellent judging duties - many thanks for third place i agree with the comments above about the overall quality, and I really liked this competition where a seemingly simple theme means you can go out and look for inspiration and interpret it in all sorts of ways. Really great stuff!

Mat

Here's a couple. Of course there is a degree of green still in the pictures, but I think having applied the colour cast fix in PSE the results are much better...(although I think Martin got a better result than I managed!!)







Hope you like them

Regards

Mat

Thanks Jackie - I think there is definitely something in what you say. However, on the plus side, I have now adjusted my monitor in any case, and I have learned how to fix a colour cast, which I hadn't done before (slightly embarrassingly now I realise how easy it is to do!). So I have had a learning experience for which I am very grateful

And I have now tweaked all my pics of this owl...

Thanks again everyone

Mat