No... I didn't get any shots of the guy Catholics are calling 'Panzer Papi'.... but it was quite interesting wandering around the periphery of Cofton Park, mingling with pope-groupies, protesters, and fellow rubber-neckers. But the thing that struck me most... hardly anyone was there!

1:




2: Roads closed within a mile radius of the park




3: Cofton Park




4:




5:




6: (Is this guy wearing a giant condom as some kind of protest? :wink




7:




8: Protesters




9: Evidence of 'Aggressive Secularism'?




10: She's right, you know




11:

I'm not too bothered about faster af or upgrading to FF (unless prices tumble). However, cheap fast primes are attractive to me, as is the SRP of the D7000. The D90 also still looks good although the video seems a bit poor.

Hope it's priced competitively against the d7000.

Looks like a winning shot to me.

Lol!

Nice shots, I like the visual wit of sea salt, well spotted.

Love the smooth silky look to no.1 - softened prior to sharpening? That's a new technique to me.

I regreted spending money on a new flash, as I didn't really use it that much, and I certainly didn't use its 'advanced features'. I sold it and got a cheap manual (safe) flash for indoor bounce flash shots, and am pleased I did as it's perfectly adequate. I have a couple of Pentax Xtra flashes to supplement it for those ebay product shots

I like no. 1 in the lase set. In the previous, the blue colour was a bit strident and even a bit 'seventies' for my taste. You could try colour co-ordinated backgrounds, tying in with the colour of the flowers or the sage green stem perhaps. As a crude example done in PP:







I like the 'edgy' way you have framed the flower

Although the high ISO is pretty good, she didn't need to go quite that high (1/6000s f/5.0 at 32.5mm iso3200!!!)

However it's great to see that the option is there.

ISO 800 doesn't look significantly better than the K-7 - it looks a bit frayed - but I wonder how it would have looked if she'd processed RAW images?

And not a Fez in sight :

Freemasonry... interesting. Looks like a sort of cub-scouts for adult men? I don't believe in a 'Divine Being' so I couldn't join, although I guess I could say I believed in 'Gaia' as a sort of deity (with a bit of poetic license!) I like the fact that which 'Divine Being' you believe in is left as a private, personal matter for members.