Nice, sharp; almost a comic-strip style silhouette story And the 'background' (or should I say 'backsky' colour gives it a nice touch.

Last weekend I've been to Sherwood Forest with my family and at a little pond there was this dragonfly. It was quite large (I guess about 8cm / 3in long), but moving really fast, so it was quite difficult to take a picture. At least for me. I used Pentax DA 55-300mm, there are some results (I cropped them a bit):

In flight (@300.0mm; 1/640s; f/5.8; ISO 200), little sharpening applied as well:
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3506.jpg[/IMG]

Flying at me! (@300.0mm; 1/500s; f/5.8; ISO 200):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3507.jpg[/IMG]

It sat on some straw for a moment so I could use a tripod, but the moment didn't last long (@300.0mm; 1/400s; f/5.8; ISO 200):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3512.jpg[/IMG]

Speeding again (but I managed to get a bit closer (@150.0mm; 1/640s; f/5.6; ISO 200):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp3522.jpg[/IMG]

C&C welcome

I simply love it Clear, vivid colours, and the transition between summer and autumn! Did you use polariser? (looking at gradient blue sky)

Nice and sharp And great colours too.

Last weekend I tried capturing a real dragonfly in flight (quite large one) - It's almost impossible! It zooms by so fast that I gave up on AF immediately and tried with manual focusing, using 55-300mm, but did not manage to get really sharp one. I'll upload some tomorrow

Anyone can recognise these? It's rather poorly described so probably it won't go high, but it seems there are 4 lenses, a camera and a simple external flash.

I'm not selling or buying this set (even if it is a bargain, cannot afford anything more this month, unfortunately), but maybe someone else will be interested in?

I've bought Pentax AF240Z on ebay today, for about £11 Thanks for all good advices and help with the choice.

Preparing for a long-lasting recession, perhaps?

32 bottles, nice, even number... But they should be taken care of!

I have the Epson (V700) too, it's really good. However as John already mentioned it's an awful job (and considering my low skills in postprocessing it's even worse). I scanned some old B&W negatives I got from my father and I'm quite happy, but each picture takes me couple of hours. I learned a bit of layers and using clone / patch tools in GIMP

Good advice:

Do backups. Often.

And mirror raid is also a good idea. I was so happy I had mirror raid configuration when the drive with all my photos failed completely! Out of the sudden it stopped working and never started again. Nothing lost, fortunately, but since then I have all my drives mirrored. I also do backups from time to time.

The first two are fantastic! Congratulations

Excellent, good luck And I like the picture too.