well I came away from the set with the thought "wow, I want to be where you are!!" so they are successful in that regard!

I really like #1

no direct experience of that lens but it has a good reputation. As I think I mentioned in a previous thread, I favour a Sigma EX 24-60 F2.8 for fencing photography, I suspect the Tamron 28-75 would also work rather well. You will probably aprieciate the tighter perspective of the slightly longer focal length since your subjects will generally be closer together than mine.

good grief Clarky! Money spiders here are perhaps 2mm across!

I'm going to assume different species, same name.

As to the Camel, I've seen house spiders close to that size in abandoned houses, they don't run that fast though.

in a uk house I doubt you're ever more than 5 or 6 feet from a large spider.

Personally I prefer this way around to the Nikon aproach of new lower end bodies wont AF older lenses.

I wonder if * lenses will continue to have both.

I am similar to you Lilly in that I generally don't use flash, but recently felt the need to buy one because of some wedding photography in my near future.

I went for the Sigma 530 ST(the 500 is now discontinued). It is very basic, having only one control which goes "off, PTTL, Manual(full), Manual (low)", but it seems to do the trick fairly well.

I've never shot Jujitsu, but I've shot a lot of Fencing, which tends to take place in similar conditions. I don't even bother to take anything with me with a max aperture slower than F2.8.

The best results I've had were from my Dads Sigma EX 24-60 F2.8, with the K10D set to TAv mode, 1/250th and F2.8.

over the years I have also had some success with 35mm F2.4, 50mm F1.7, 90mm F2.5 and 135mm F2.5 lenses.

I never use flash with Fencing, when I'm on piste I don't like other people using flashes, so I don't.

easily my favourite picture in this thread. Goes to show it's often more about who's holding the equipment than how many stars are stamped on the side.

I'm so glad you finally have a good one!

your pics allways make me long to visit Snowdonia. I haven't been for a year or two, must get back there!!

This weekend I took my new 50mm FA 1.4 out for a real spin for the first time at a friends wedding.

It is without doubt the single best portrait lens I have ever owned or had the good fortune to play with. The focal length is perfect for individual or couples portraits, or head and shoulders for small groups. It works well for candids because you can stand off a bit and the lens looks too small for people to notice you pointing a camera at them.

On recommendations from people here I bought this lens specifically for candid wedding portraits and I honestly can't think of a way it could perform better in that role.

It's tack sharp, it focuses fast and the out of focus blur is just sublime. It is also minute and as cheap as worthwhile SLR lenses get.

I used to shoot a lot of fencing competitons and quickly gave up on doing this sort of thing. The camera simply doesn't have the frame-rate to do it.

The super high speed mode on the K20D could give you the images, as long as you don't want to print above ~5x7, but other than that no current Pentax is going to cut it.