Personaly, I wouldn't wish to use my K10d without the Grip unless I'm on a Tripod. I rarely use the secondary controls in Vertical shooting, mainly because I forget about them(:rolls, but the extra battery and comfort from using it with the grip is great for me.

The only thing I don't like about the grip is the tripod mounting point, as it off centres the lens from the tripod itself. But... Eh... That's not exactly a problem unless I hapen to want to shoot panorama's.

Which I've so far done, precisely, never.

The grip is nothing about looking macho, for me it's function over form. It just feels 'right' to me.

As another hat wearer, I have to agree. Keeps the sun out of my eyes, and the rain off my head. £30 from £50 after haggling in Camden for a nice black leather cowboy hat that's lasted me for the last 7 years now, and is still going strong.

Yes, I do get (as I'm sure you do to) some 'funny' comments from people that think walking around with their trouser hanging around their ankles, or wearing baseball caps sideways, or under a hoodie is 'normal'!

But I love my hat!


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Personally, I would reformat the drive if we're talking 'idiot proofing' (No offense ) I'd do it myself if I had one, because a piece of software that kept loading whenever I plugged the drive in, and that kept telling me what to do would annoy me very quickly!

I much prefer the simple approach to technology, and I work in the tech industry. Let me plug in the drive, and have it be a drive, not try and be some all singing, all dancing backup solution.

Formatting the drive also has the benefit of making sure it's in the NTFS file system, for reasons already outlined by other people.

Depends on how you're using the drive. Simply moving files onto the external drive (Copying and deleting from from PC) means that you haven't backed up your files, merely freed space on your PC.

If the External Drive dies, then you still lose the files.

If you've got them copied onto DVD and the External Drive, then that's fine.

But I think the answer you're actually looking for, is that you're using the built in software on the Passport, which is designed to syncronise (Mirror) the contents. If you formatted the drive, and just accessed it as an external drive, rather then use the Passport software, then it's all up to you...

Unless they were just being pedantic?

Which is what I took that to be BTW *laughs* but... Eh, that's the peril of text only, I don't get to see how it was said!

As far as it goes, I hate use of text speak and unneeded abbreviations, even in texts.

Which may or may not included the use of BTW instead of 'By The Way', etc. but this i s all discussion that should be taken light heartedly and probably elsewhere!

With regards to the underage Crickets, if the entomologist don't mind... What, not that cricket? Oh, right...

Personally, I've taken pictures in a few public places, and I'm yet to have problem, but then, I've generally been 'passing through' at the time. If I was going to be setting up at the side of the game, I think it's only polite to ask the chap or chapess in charge of said match.

I suspect some people just want the best, not what's best for them. You just need to look at the people that buy Quad Core PCs with buckets of RAM and Storage, and then use it for nothing more then browsing the web and writing letters...

Other then that, I'm sure the only time you'll need that higher performance will be, as you say, for printing larger then we do, or at least, having the option to do so.

[IMG]http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u196/road_dancer/waterfall-contrast.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u196/road_dancer/waterfall-contrast-crop.jpg[/IMG]

Hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of trying a couple of things.
A contrast boost seems to help define the picture better, at the expense of a few droplets, and the 2nd image is rotated a tad and, obviously cropped. Whether you think they're improvements or not, hopefully gives you some ideas perhaps?

AV and TV used about the same, depending on what I'm taking pictures of!

Healthy smattering of M as well, even with my 'A' lenses...

The only modes I never use are Green, and SV. Never found a use for SV since mapping the opposite dial on AV/TV to ISO. But then I tend to like faffing with things myself then letting the camera do it all for me *laughs* Whether that's a good idea is a different matter!

TAV and P I don't tend to use much if at all.

My first impressions are that it's a lovely shot, but I agree, it might be a little busy. Once the eye's followed the waterfall down, it starts hunting around, and there's a lot of textures to take in.

I'd consider a crop to show only the upper left 'third' or so. So, cut from the right about where the rocks meets the horizon, and from about 2/3rds down, if that makes sense.

If it doesn't, I could give it a go tonight when I get home to show you what I mean.

Havign said that, it is a really interesting shot, and looks like a fantastic location!

For 'colour matching' the other shots, I think the Hurricane is a good starting point. Lovely and crisp capture there too.

The prop display team needs a little white balance adjusting from the looks of it. With a bit a colour and contrast tweak, I think that could be a very interesting shot!

I think it's a Typhoon, but that pic could do with a little crop IMHO, bringing it in tighter around the plane to the left and bottom.

Damn... I wish I could get to an Airshow one of these days...