Dear goodness !

I left the house this morning at 8.40 and got back in at 4.30 to find you had all been very busy on my education

OK a few comments [ if no-one minds ]

Graham - the article you pointed me to looks great , the first paragraph illustrated it nicely and then spoilt it by describing me >

I'll come back to that one later when I've hopefully started to understand depth of field a bit better - I seem to be stuck on the Goalie in the goal mouth at the moment - that I can understand

Peter - article will be read in short bits so it hopefully goes in . I love the definition of Circle of Confusion

Simonarthurs - what a great idea - I ain't got a tripod I'd trust with my K-x and I probably won't get one because of my limitations with weight . The table will be cleared and I'll see what I can do - I've an interesting little terracotta statue that I can use for the subject .

Ken - thanks for that tip I'll have a go

Chris -- I don't think he's a sweetie man - I'll try a bottle of wine - but thanks - again something that if it works for me , should help.

Martin - I'm leaving my 50-200 in the bag at present - I don't feel ready for it - though there are a couple of shots I want to get using it - but since it's still pretty cold , and cold affects my hands badly [ I lose sensation ] I don't want any accidents swapping lenses . The bigger one can wait till we have some warm days. Also sorry you've lost me totally here

Don - struggling a bit to visualise that - it makes sense - but the idiot has to work out how to set it up

With apologies for the very long post - but you have all given me such a lot of help here that it really does have to be acknowledged .

Why do men always illustrate things by football ?

This is exactly what Jeff was doing tonight and we had the action re-plays too to show us the hand positions as the goalie leapt for the ball .

The first two replies - JohnRiley and Matt were making sense , I've still not looked at Graham's link - will leave that for tomorrow .

MarkD - are you sure your name's not Jeff ?
That's been a wonderful memory jog - thanks .

Now to go and find a subject aaaargh and I can't start on this until probably Thursday .

We were warned - next weeks topics are White balance and ISO - wonder how they will get linked to Football


Guys - you are brilliant - thank you sooooooo much .

One of these days I'll get my courage up and shove a pic or two on the board for you all to tear to shreds .

I started my photography class tonight and am not feeling very confident about things.

I'm in the Improvers class and am actually wondering if I should be

I was told that the beginners class was from how to switch on your camera , how to press the button to how to download your picture - all of this I thought I knew , wasn't able to talk with the Tutor , so thought that the Improvers class was for me

We seem to be a mixed bunch - should be 14 of us , mixture of Canons , a Fuji [ bridge I think 'cos it looked like my S5000Zoom ] , a P&S , but the owner had a bigger camera as well . Sadly there are PCs for editing and he insists we use them - Adobe CS2 and Bridge is the software.

He started off by firing questions about Aperture and what shutter speed would you use for which Aperture settings . OK - I listened and learnt some and hopefully absorbed more.

He then drew a camera on the board - well a series of boxes Asked us where the Aperture was , where the lens would be , etc - I was OK with this - actually surprised myself when I knew what an SLR was [ explained the Reflex bit ] Even remembered from waaaaaaaay back that the image was reversed in the camera

We have been set homework for next week and this is where I need help - in very simple terms please .

We are to take in , on camera for downloading or on a Flash drive a photo taken with an Aperture of 2.8 and a shallow field - and this is what I don't really understand .

As he explained it the field is the bit in the same plane as the subject so if you think of a wee stick man as the subject then you have a very small amount round him thats in sharp focus , but this decreases as the distance from subject to camera increases ~ I think ~ .

Please would someone have a shot at putting this into very simple terms for me .

I'm putting the camera into Aperture Priority for this week.

Good luck to you all - keep safe .

take as many batteries as you can and also cards .

if you wish to use a battery that's not yet approved by Pentax , go right ahead .

I'm not

well - the handbook for my K-x says re batteries

Lithium

Ni-MH

or Alkaline

I'll not even think of trying NiZn

Stefan

I've said it before , and doubtless I'll say it again

Mac computers are Macs not MACs

Please read this link

So - should I put the CX1 further down my list of possibles after your experience ?

OK - can't answer this re the use of PS etc - not yet into that .

I run 2 MacBook Pros [ please , being picky, not MACS - that's summat to do with Broadband ]

I had one of the original MacBooks - the white plastic ones [ not the iBooks ]

There was something wrong with these MacBooks from the beginning and I had horrendous problems - the first one was replaced after 6 months when it had been in for repairs on the technical side and had actually only been used for about 1-2 months in total .

I cheered when I got the nice new C2D MacBook - still the polycarbonate one , but it also had problems of a different type - and many others also suffered.

This generation developed cracks in the casing - very small but irritating ones which did spread . Mine ended up with 3 new bottom cases , 2 top cases [ includes the keyboard ] and then I also had a few screen problems too . Everything was replaced under warranty - and repairs were very fast .

When it was 2 years and 11 months old I had to take it in again and was once more offered a replacement [ they agreed that my MacBook had had far more than it's share of problems [ and believe you me that MacBook was well cared for ] I spluttered at this - because they were only going to replace it with another polycarbonate MacBook , albeit the latest bigger improved model , so I asked if I could pay the difference and get the 'unibody' metal MacBook Pro .

We reached an agreement and I now have this machine that's streets ahead of the MacBook - in fact I bought another one so I have 2 So far no problems at all and it seems to be much sturdier . I love it .

Mind you the only Windows thing I have on the machine is M$ Office for Macs

Please see if you can edit this - not a good idea putting phone umber and e-mail addy on public view

isdky can PM you and you will be able to reply to him