Thank you for your comments, I have to learn a lot yet, and your advices help me (I learned a lot reading comments to other pictures as well).

Alan, you might be right But black is such a nice colour (Death from Discworld shares this opinion I think). So practice, practice, as usually

I had a second thought, to shoot the bird overexposed and then shoot the sky with default settings. Then mix and match them in GIMP. What do you think? Will it work? First I have to learn using the tool, again Oh dear, so many things to do, to learn - it's impossible to get bored.

BTW, I'm not sure how powerful flash should I have to use it @300mm in daylight conditions

Paul, the problem was that I had no portable high ladder Joking aside, what metering is recommended for this kind of pictures, spot metering?

What about my cropping, do you think it is OK or you would crop it differently?

jon.dc: thanks, this is very useful Nicely gathered important informations in a pill

Stefan,
The problem is how much can you carry being comfortable. My brother once went with 2 rucksacks, one on his back, the other on his chest. It also helped him with a balance (or at least he claimed so).
Do you want to have an easy access to the camera?
Did you think about a large rucksack (at least 75l) with separate chambers? Then you can put heaviest and sturdiest things on the bottom, then clothes etc, then camera equipment? BTW, tent / sleepingbag they won't go inside, do they?

I must admit I never hiked with a large rucksack, usually I left it at the campsite (or wherever I stayed) and walked with much smaller one.

Pete,
as Terry noticed it might be the cookies problem. If you don't let store cookies (or they have short lifespan) - this may happen. I use Firefox.

Mongoose: these shortcuts date before MS Windows, I'm not sure but I think that Ctrl-[C | V | X] were introduced (at least in PCs) with MS Windows. I remember using Ctrl / Shift + Ins at univ learning programming and it was a text environment.

Hello and welcome

Creepy

Last weekend I've seen this sad wreck in a park. Seems someone stupidly burned it there:

K20D, DA 16-45mm

45mm, 1/250s, Aperture: f/8.0, ISO: 200
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp1184.jpg[/IMG]

31mm, 1/350s, Aperture: f/5.6, ISO: 200
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp1186.jpg[/IMG]

Another rook (I think this is a rook) attempt - I really like them. But then I have a problem with getting the 'shades of black' - usually they go all black. What can I do to get more tones of the black?

There is one picture I took walking with my children in a park (well, they rode bikes, actually). It's hand-held. I tried to crop it, but I'd appreciate some opinions on that.

K20D, DA 55-300mm
300.0mm, 1/1000s, Aperture: f/5.8 ISO: 200

Full shot (jpeg from camera):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp1196.jpg[/IMG]

Cropped image ('developed' from DNG with RawTherapee 2.4):
[IMG]http://i384.photobucket.com/albums/oo284/misiek_knm/PU/imgp1196crop.jpg[/IMG]

C & C welcome and appreciated

I do the same shim does. And as I have a time to open the fora at late evening, usually it's not a big problem for me. I think I ticked 'keep me logged in' tickbox, but I'm not sure.