If you are a fan of HDR, I suggest taking a look at this guys Flickr photostream. He's very prolific & his HDR's range from very ott to spot on!

link

Overlaid AF points will highlight which focus point has locked focus.
eg: Say your main subject is near to you on the right hand side of your frame & you wish for that to be in focus whilst the rest of frame is out of focus, then you'd want a focus point on the right hand side to be used, but without overlaid info, the points on the left may have been used which ultimately would mean your subject is out of focus.

I turn off the multiple points & use the centre focus point only to focus on my subject & then re-compose my frame as I want so it would be no great loss to me really.

Alot of Canon dslrs use the same port/plug so you should find stock at most camera shops. Take your camera to make sure though.

That's the thread I was searching for ! I'll second this download, it should allow you to view raw files in windows explorer just as you would a jpeg (although depending on computer spec it may take a few secs to process each one before diplaying the thumbnails)

Use the self timer if you don't have a remote, this should help reduce any camera movement, especially if your tripod doesn't hold rock steady.

Generally you'd want to use a smaller aperture for greater depth of field but don't forget image quality can degrade at small as well as large apertures so try & play to its strengths. I'd say F8 when at the wider end & maybe F16 when zoomed in. (Of course you may want to isolate subjects with shallower depth of field so feel free to experiment)

Lower iso is always best, especially at night when noise will become an issue in the shadows.

Of course, using a small aperture & low iso will result in longer shutter speed times so make sure your long exposure noise reduction is turned on, it's a pain waiting for it to process but it is effective in producing clean images.
If using a long shutter speed be very wary of anything that may move whilst the shutter is open (blown by wind, people walk by etc.) & you may need to up the iso or open the aperture a little to combat this. Correct exposure is always a balancing act.

Once you're happy with the shots you are getting, don't be afraid to experiment a little, perhaps even use manual settings & manually "test fire" the flash off camera to add an extra dimension to the lighting.

What camera were your dads photos taken with & what RAW format are they in ? You should be able to install a RAW codec from the relevant manufacturer (or adobe in the case of dng) - this will allow you to view thumbnails of the files in your windows browser.

If it's only 300 files & a one off then USB sticks may be the best option just to transfer them over, check if the host computer has a DVD burner though as this would be an even more cost-effective solution.

If you click on your image in your photobucket gallery it'll bring up a medium sized image. On the left hand side there's a "share this image" section. Click on the IMG code box & it'll automatically copy the url between IMG brackets for you. Just paste that text into a post here.

LIKE THIS

[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/Untitled-1.jpg[/IMG]

Resizing & heavy postprocessing can create a need for further sharpening Mike, but a RAW image will need sharpening anyway, even with the best lenses. I believe this is to do with the filter in front of the camera sensor causing a little loss of sharpness.

A technique I've read about but haven't practiced as much as I should (cos I'm lazy) is "Lab colour sharpening" where basically you only sharpen the "lightness" channel whilst leaving the colour layers intact. Sharpening can be pushed much further this way.

I have a tendency to oversharpen anyway, so should really look into this & maybe create a PS custom function for it to cut down on processing time.

No, I should imagine birds have evolved feet that would repel splinters, seeing as they perch on branches & such

Strangely the exif is missing, but I'm almost certain it was shot at 10mm. I used mine exclusively at the wide end, I could be wrong & have strayed to 11mm but I'm guessing it's just due to the fact that the horizon was half way up the frame.