The eye has got a brain which learns behind it (well some have)

Chris

Just received mine from these people.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-PENTAX-K10D-10MP-DIGITAL-CAMERA-18-55mm-Lens-2GB_W0QQi...

Stock is held in Nottingham UK,so no Customs worries, still took 4 days to arrive. Price inc P&P, 18 - 55mm lens and 2Gb SD card was £506.94. I believe this to be a US version as it came with a US plug on the charger lead and an adapter to 13A UK plug and an international warranty. I was worried in case it was a refurb, but looks new to me and is advertised as new.

Chris

If you get a copying attatchment for your camera from e-bay or similar, they will work. quite well in fact, but will crop the image owing to the APS format sensor on the K10D and you will not be able to copy all the slide, same applies to bellows too. If I only have a few I just tape them onto a window and use a macro lens. Scanning slides can be a slow process, and my *istDS seems to do a much better job of colour balancing than my slide scanner.

Chris

Hi Ben

So many people just stand there and take a 'recording' type shot.

One of the main advantages of a camera is you can shoot even the mundane from angles we don't normally see the world from, low angles are obviously the easiest and a shot of the local High Street is a very different place when photographed from 6" above the ground (the dog's eye view), amazingly people often don't recognise it!! High angles are more difficult, but when an opportunity arises.... So that's often the first thing that springs to mind - angles.

The next thing is what lens - extreem wide angle to exagerate perspective or the flattening of a telephoto? - or both. Basically anything that can give a unusual view on things.

In portraiture you can do one thing with a camera that's a big no-no in society and that is you can stare. When I was a lad I worked for a short time in a Photographic Studio in Sheffield here in the UK, and was taught to get in close - then closer still - till you can't see their ears! That was my banker shot, people just don't look at other people that closely, very bad manners, but with a photograph you can, instant impact.

When photgraphing children get down to their eye level, at least for starters. How many pictures do you see of children (or dogs, cats, hamsters) from an adults viewpoint, normally you don't want to see any part of the top of the head, get down to their level and enter the childs world.

I always keep an eye open for detail, sometimes the rusty door-hinge is a better subject than the whole house - or, at least, another subject, in other words parts of things can be more photogenic than the whole. Harbours, Town centres even your own Home and Garden are full of detail that you walk past every day, viewed close up is a world within your world.

These tend to be my starting points. Sometimes it's more long term such as returning to a subject when the leaves have fallen, or a different time of day when the light is on a differnt side of the building.

Regarding the last part of your post, You were lucky enough not to have to think about processing costs, I'm competition secretary for a small group of photographers in our town and I can instantly recognise the film from the digital entries. The film entries are 'safe' as they have in the back of their minds the processing costs, the digital entries, after a short time with digital, are much more expressive and even daring, as they take 50 shots of a subject to the film guy's 4.

I'll shoot a couple of thousand shots over a year and may 100 - 150 of them will ever be printed. The other shots are not wasted, as you mentioned, you get to be able to operate your camera 'autonamously', without thinking. It's like learning to drive a car at first you have to think about changing gear, finding the right line etc. but with practice you just do it without any thinking being needed. It's the same with a camera, you have to have some practice before you can use it effectively
with practice anybody can have their eureka moment.

Nobody would think that they could sit down at a piano and play a Beethoven or Scott Joplin tune without years of practice - but everybody thinks they can pick up a camera and instantly become an Ansell Adams or Bresson - go figure.

Chris

Hi

The secret with AA battery chargers is to get one that charges each battery serperately. Its interesting to see the charging rates of different batteries in this unit, a charger that charges in pairs will often undercharge a 'slow' battery, this one deep charges all cells.

Here is the URL for eBay where I bought mine.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Fast-Smart-Charger-4x-AA-2700mAh-NiMH-LCD-Display_W0QQitem...

Usual disclaimer - just a satisfied customer.

To give an indication of how well these batteries work. I went on a 3 day break to Whitby with 3 sets of batteries, and took over 120 pics and reviewed them in the Hotel room in the evening (on the camera), never had to change the batteries. So I got home with 2 unused sets of batteries and a camera that still showed a full battery indicator.

I think alot of the bad press AA NiMH cells receive is due to inadequate chargers - and price is not always a good indicator of best practice.

Chris

Harrisons don't stock much Pentax it's all Canon and Nikon. The only Pentax is what they take in as Part-Ex

Chris

Hi all

Amazon.co.uk are selling the K10D for £573.51 body only as a pre-order. Cheapest I've found. UK orders only.

Link here;-

http://www.amazon.co.uk/PENTAX-K10D-Digital-Camera-10-2MP/dp/B000JG4NB2/sr=8-2/qid=1166407699/ref=sr_1_2/203-7096499-0240740?ie=UTF8&s=electronics

Chris

Hi

A very good panorama software which is a free download is Autostitch

http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

This demo version will only stitch to a Jpeg and at 10% by default, but if you go into Edit>Options you can select 100%. The user interface is a bit basic but it's brilliant at what it does. Beats the pants off Canon's software which is also pretty good.

I believe they are in 'talks' with Adobe at the moment for possible inclusion into CS3 - no more free downloads then!

Chris

Hi
The cheapest source I,ve found for whit LED's is;-

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10-JUMBO-WHITE-11000mcd-led-10mm-led-leds-leds_W0QQitemZ74...

He sells 3mm, 5mm and 10mm LED's very cheaply, if you contact him before he despatches them and tell him your battery Voltage he will 'throw in' the resistors as well! (if he has them in stock).

I've tried 10X5mm ones for Macro work with mixed results, the colour balance was fine but I think you need about 20 to get a reasonable light level.

Chris

Hi Don,
Why not put an Ammeter in series with your motorcycle battery and measure exactly what the inverter is taking? Then double it, batteries of that Amp/Hour rating should give about 20mins or so.

Please don't put 2 battery packs in parallel, one will inevitably discharge before the other - then the 'good' battery will discharge into the 'bad' battery as soon as there is a Voltage difference, with (maybe) very high currents and heat. There is more energy stored in even a AA NiMh battery than a 44 Magnum shell!! I have a friend who lost 3 fingers when he held a battery pack that went BANG due to overcharging - and they were less than 1A/H!

Probably the best weight/current battery, if you can source them, is Silver Zinc batteris. They are very tolerant when being charged and can supply large currents for their size, but are expensive. They use them on aircraft due to their weight, and are available in small packages and can be recharged with a car battery charger. One possible source is military surplus shops.

Laptop manufacturers got around this problem by using LiOn (Lithium Ion) batteries. But these need specialised (and expensive) charging circuits and can be very dangerous if mishandled (they must never be overcharged - they go bang).

Chris