Thats certainly an original kind of beach shot - literally just the beach! I agree with the others, it does work well and the one bit of weed in the corner is a nice touch. I would suggest running it through some NR prcessing to try and remove the yellow colour noise a bit.

Hey, you never know, might have just been an autocorrect mistake on a smartphone ...

Quite nice? Quite nice??? ... I'm not having it! They are nothing less than the absolute BEST woodland ferns in the entire London Borough of Croydon

Thanks also Philip. The highlight recovery process did introduce a yellow tone on the clouds which I did reduce, but left a bit on the top left corner thinking it looked like the sun poking through Glad you like the rest! Thanks for commenting again.

Thanks Mark, yes No 2 had blown hotspots up on the clouds, pulled them down as much as possible. I decided to allow the exposures to go a bit lower than usual. Thanks also redbussa99 - I love to be out in the woods!

I thinks thats to confuse the actual capturing and eventual output stages - it doesn't really matter what we intend to do with the recordings, if we want good quality, stable, creative HD video, then a DSLR is an excellent choice now, even for impromptu or 'home video' type shooting. Its going to be better than a compact even from a stability point of view - and we benefit from greater DR and exposure latitude with our larger DSLR sensors.

So people - switch to video mode and press record ... just don't forget all those important custom settings

Yes I think so, at least in terms of the specific lens effects. We have to tell the camera though whether to use 'auto aperture' or 'fixed' - this applies to DA or FA or A series lenses where the camera can change the aperture. If we leave it on auto then the camera will adjust things as it goes, like P mode - for more creative control the 'fixed' would be best and dial in your choice before starting recording. Or with old manual lenses just set what you want on the aperture ring.

This is all set through the custom menus of course ....

Thats what I have been finding as well Carl, although overall I'm much happier with these results .... Glad you like the last one, yes I see what you mean about the steps - it is exciting to go up those actually!

Of course we could just go the other way and zoom in to details - but that misses the point of what we are trying to capture, which is a sort of atmosphere, a feeling of the whole place - that is difficult photographically I am finding.

I'd have thought flash was a fairly essential requirement here ... Nor the least to a avoid facial shadows. I think you'd want a little catchlight for portraits also? (ie from gentle fill flash).

There's still a duality in the user base for high quality DSLR video ... the people who bought good DSLRs traditionally were (and mostly still are) photographers. Those who wanted high quality video bought HD camcorders.

Not many would have had had both I'm guessing, so in a way HD video on a DSLR is the ideal combination. But the users have to have it in their blood! I've embraced it as a new opportunity as I never used a quality video camera. But it involves adapting technique to the medium and using the camera in a different, dedicated video kind of way.

The DSLR advantage is the better creative options available with the huge range of lenses available for DSLR systems - much more than traditional video cameras and at more realistic prices. So its an opportunity waiting to be seized really! But until the user bases align (ie the same people wanting DSLR type photography plus high quality HD video) then its unlikely that the options will be further explored.