This is perhaps slightly unfair for anyone in the southern hemisphere at the moment, but unless you're near the south pole you'll at least get some night. In fact, to make it fairer, midnight sun shots will be looked on favourably.

Not sure exactly what should it should mean, but hopefully it is wide enough it'll get lots of you out there taking photos in the next (nearly) two weeks.

The competition will close at 18:00 GMT on Wednesday 7th January 2009.

Robert.

I'm embarrassed now. People had entered proper photos, with artistic merit and everything. I reckon the judge had a hangover, and Bah Humbug appealed most at the time.

Thanks to the judge for putting together some interesting comments at a busy time of year. I would have picked either mikew or yelvertoft as the winner, and would particularly like to know how mikew set the shot up.

We're off walking tomorrow, and will have come up with the new subject by the end of it. Will post it up some time tomorrow evening.

Robert.

As soon as I saw the subject there was only one thing it could be:




Sheep taken 23.12.08, sweet 24.12.08
K20D, ISO 800, 300mm, 1/750th second, F4.

Ah, my education continues - what I know about either black and white or still life photography amounts to almost nothing today. By midnight on Sunday I hope to know more, and better still I hope to have demonstrated it.

I can but hope...

Robert.

Well done to Darkmunk for a worthy winner, and for mikew for all the comments - you picked up on the same things about my photo as I did. I'm in that constantly learning phase at the moment - hopefully that'll continue. What I learnt from the shots I took of the bird table is only one was sharp - 1/350th is too long at 300mm for me to hand hold - at least when it's that cold anyway. Hence the ones with the well posed bird were all out of focus. Next time...

Now I can't wait to see what our next assignment is.

Robert.

I'd decided on what to photograph for this competition, and spent some of Monday night having a go. Trouble was it just didn't seem to be working - this was probably the best shot:




I wanted it to jump out of the screen, but it doesn't. Plus I'd initially thought the dragon was wood, but having had a close look I don't think it is. So I gave up and had a quick go at a radiator cover instead:




I had trouble finding an angle that didn't look boring, plus the blown highlight problems that needed time to fix, so I then gave up on that and chose one I'd taken the previous weekend. Hope I did the right thing...

It's probably academic anyway, I think Darkmunk's got it sown up, although others are pretty good too. I'd be more specific, but with this format of competition I can only see some of the photos at work - the rest are blocked.

Robert.

Bird table outside Loch Ossian Youth Hostel




Taken on 30th of November at 09:52
Camera: Pentax K20D
Exposure: 1/350
Aperture: f/4
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 100

Hmmm, I managed to miss what beakynet meant didn't I ? Sorry about that.

Robert.

I was out hill walking this weekend in temperatures down to about -10. Despite having the camera hung round my neck all day exposed to the elements it worked fine. I'd partly done it as a test, and was pretty impressed that it coped. I'll have to see if I can find out what temperature was being recorded in the exif.

Thanks Don for the tip about condensation - sounds like a really good idea.

Robert.

They're mostly in this Competitions part of the forum, except the first two or three that are in the General Digital Photography chat part.

Robert.