Well, I finally acted on the advice given and purchased the Sigma 100-300mm f4 AP0 DG EX. James at SRS was kind enough to hold me up and guide my strangely unresponsive first finger as I struggled to enter my pin number into the card reader, having first added the cost of a Manfrotto carbon-fibre monopod and compact ball head to the total

For the benefit of Stu and anyone else that can be 'arsed' to look here are some of the first shots taken using the above kit and K20D













C&C much appreciated and please let me know asap if you think I might have been 'sold a pup'

Jon

Peter,

PM sent re 100-300.

Jon

I would be happy with the digital equivalent of a Rollei 35B. I used one in tandem with my SLR film cameras for many years and adored it (how sad:blush for its simplicity, robustness, compact size, light weight and, most importantly, the quality of its lens. Maybe I was just lucky with mine, but, having become familar with its use and foibles, I was able to produce consistently sharp and contrasty images with good colour saturation on the reversal films (Kodachrome, Fujichrome, Agfachrome or Extachrome; it really didn't seem to matter) I invariably loaded it with. At the time I was a very keen hill/fell/mountain walker and I never left home without it. To this day, I still think some of my best (in the widest sense) images were taken using this litle gem of a camera. Sadly, when I went to work in the USA in the middle 80's for a couple of years my slide collection suffered hugely through not having been stored with sufficent care.

I sold it recently on 'fleabay' to a guy in Queensland because I felt it was wrong to hold on to it when I no longer had use for it. He was delighted with his purchase, amazed at the condition it was in and 'blown away' by the quality of the images it produced. Gave me a real buzz to think my little Rollei had been given a new lease of life.

How many of us have photographic equipment gathering metaphorical dust that could be put to good use in someone else's hands: Quite a few, I should think

Apologies for debasing a good thread with a nostalgia trip

Jon

Gathering 'dust' as I write: OM-1n, OM4, 50mm 1.4, T20 flash, Sony DSC-F828, HVL-F32X dedicated flash for the same + so many photographic bits and bobs I've lost count and wouldn't know where to find them anyway: any offers

Steady on Peter: there's no need to kick a man when he's down - especially when he's getting on a bit

Unless I'm very much mistaken, in which case I'll eat my old Benbo tripod, you worked on the RAW file, whereas all I got was the 'T-shirt' equivalent, or JPEG as it's more commonly known, and a heavily compressed version at that. Additionally, if you study the file sent you will notice that much of the 'paint by numbers' quality is already evident

Now, it is not my intention to suggest that your editing skills are anything other than highly developed, but I just felt the need to try and recover one or two of the shattered fragments of my photographic pride

Unfairly slandered of Wiltshire.

AKA Jon

Hi Colin,

Main area for improvement based on this shot is sharpness. A lack of sharpness can result from camera movement/shake, incorrect focus and/or the use of too large an aperture. The extent to which one or all were contributory factors in this shot is difficult to say without more information. The DOF in this shot seems quite large (extending both in front of and behind the bee). Logically, therefore, the lack of sharpness must be due to some other factor, which I would suggest was the use of a shutter speed to low to 'freeze' the bee's movement as it gathered pollen. This would also be consistent with there being regions of the flower head adjacent to the bee that appear sharper.

The other thing that strikes me about the shot is its overall 'softness', which may be a result of using the lens at the limits of its design parameters. I'm not familiar with the lens used but even though the word 'macro' may appear in the spec sheet, I would suggest that this claim should be taken with more than just a pinch of salt.

The most dramatic improvement that could have been made in terms of composition is to have waited until the bee, or indeed another, was positioned head on, allowing the antennae, eyes and proboscis to be seen.

Important tip: most people who do a lot of close-focus macro work switch of the AF and work manually.

Keep at it and you'll soon get it right. I would stick with bees and flowers for the moment and leave the smaller and less obliging subjects until you have refined your technique. Butterflies can be fun if you have the patience to stalk them and/or are willing to go after them in the early morning/evening when it is a bit cooler. Alternatively, plan an outing to a butterfly farm/house if there is one within striking distance of where you live. If you can, you should also try to borrow a macro lens. Failing that, consider investing in a close focus attachment for use with your other lenses. A good choice would be the Raynox DCR, which comes with a 'universal' quick-mount adapter and is available in two strengths, of which the lower (DCR-150) would probably be the best place to start. Either version can be had for £45 - £50 and they are of surprisingly good quality: just look at some of the pictures posted in the gallery on this site. Better still, they remain useful even if one decides to invest in a true macro lens.

Hope at least some of this helps and I'm sure others, many of whom are far better qualified than I, will come forward with advice.

Best wishes,

Jon

Peter,

Here is my risible attempt to reproduce your image Removing the noise was a doddle, taking just a few seconds using one of the presets (I'm not sufficently familiar with the whole process yet to go 'manual'). I then spent more hours than I'm prepared to admit trying to reproduce the lighting/colour of the original using PSE before I just had accept defeat Compared with yours, my edit looks flat and lifeless and I now realise that, contrary to what I had begun to believe, my photo-manipulations skills remain essentially non-existant

If you can steel yourself sufficiently to study my version in detail, please let me know what you think of the noise reduction acheived using Noiseware.

Many thanks for letting me 'play'.

Regards,

Jon

Fairford this Sunday was my first attempt to capture images of aircraft in flight. Still sorting out the few 'keeps' from the many 'also rans', but these two of the Red Arrows display team seemed perfect for the thread. Weather conditions on the day were pitiful when compared with those earlier in the week (cf Mongoose's fabulous examples above), but it did force the aircraft to fly lower, therefore making them easier to capture 'on sensor' All taken with K20D and Sigma 70-300mm Apo DG (1/1600 f8 and 320 ASA; top, 120mm and bottom, 93mm).

Jon

Hi John,

Whilst I can't claim to have your 'eye' or technical prowess, having seen your image I can at least console myself with the thought that we have at least one thing in common: an appreciation of the beauty of hollyhocks; especially when set against a blue sky. The one below is from a series taken in our garden this June. The one in the photograph was growing just outside our back door at about head height and was taken on the morning the flowers opened. The lighting is not as flattering as in yours, nor have I framed and isolated the flowers and buds as successfully as you have, but I think I have managed to capture the richness and depth of colour in their petals.

Best wishes,

Jon

Hi Simon,

PM sent re 120-400mm.

Jon

I've just started using Imagenomics Noiseware which is very fast on my Intel Core i7 920 rig (a couple of seconds for a full-size PEF opened in PSE using ACR) and gives brilliant results, IMHO, even at the default settings. To be fair, though, I haven't yet tried it with files shot at the extreme ISO settings that some of you have. Costs about the same as Topaz 4: I paid £65.00 for the stand-alone Pro package and PS/PSE plug-in. More details here : http://www.imagenomic.com/nwpg.aspx

Trial downloads are available but your processed image is left with a grid overlay to prevent printing. There is free 'community' version that is limited to saving files as jpgs at medium-to-good settings only.

Would love to see what it could do with your capture of the street performer, Peter. Any chance of you e-mailing a copy (reduced) for me to try it on? I could then return it or post it for you to comment on.

Jon