I've just purchased as Pentax 16-45 this has a wider field of view and things are 'O' so much sharper than the 18-55 kit lens, unfortunately it has not stopped raining since I purchased it so cannot post any examples that will show this lenses capabilities. The only criticism is that it does barrel at 16mm. Apart from that it is rock solid but don't take my word for it have a look through this site DP Review or this one Photozone you may want to have a look through this post link or maybe contact some of the fine upstanding members in Scotland who would love to personally show of all the lenses they are hoarding.

It could be argued the the nature reserve near me is the whole of the Northumbria link it is on of the most sparsely populated counties in England. The actual bit I went to yesterday is called Hauxley Nature Reserve. This area was once given over to coal mining, when the mines were closed it was designated as a country park and now has very diverse wetland habitat. We still have one open cast mine apparently the biggest in Europe (I'm willing to be put right one that one !) near by link

Unfortunately the fog had the remaining rain that did not fall on the NW UK and I did not want to destroy my new lens' on the first day out , even the wildlife had decided to go somewhere dryer.

I've just had a look at the information site for de Biesbosch, you could take some better pictures for them Stefan. That aside it looks like a very interesting place to visit. I am heading of to the our local nature reserve, that is if I can see anything in the fog.

A lot of problems with layout in IE8 tend to be its interpretation of websites CSS code or the website not conforming to the standards. This can cause the individual boxes (Div tags) to overflow onto other boxes producing poor layouts. With regards to IE8 crashing, try running it in "No add-ons mode" this can be found in your Program files, accessories, system tools. If this works without crashing, you have installed a "add-on" that is making it unstable. But the bottom line is that Firefox conforms to web development standards and is more stable.

Am I that transparent

Some great shots and you had far better luck photographing Whitehaven than I did. I really like number two and four. Although as Alan said the sky is a bit overblown on numbers one,two and five.

Yep, That's a possibility for me as well.

A picture of a Japanese fighter crashing into the deck of my fathers aircraft carrier, I'm not sure what impressed me the most the image or the fact that he stuck around long enough to take the picture.

I use firefox 3.5 on Windows 7 Ultimate x64 edition, without any problems. When developing websites I tend to use this as the base standard for testing all web pages, any problems that do occur are invariably in Explorer. Microsoft has a habit of producing products that don't stick to the aggreed CSS standards. I would try re installing firefox and see if that resolves the situation. Also I agree with John, always work from a clean OS and never upgrade you are only inviting problems for yourself.
Graham

Welcome to the forum Greg from one Northeasterner to another.