I use Loxley Colour, average album cost seems to be about £250-£300 depending on how many pages you want.

Service from them has been superb, always do what they say they will, and the quality of the products are excellent.

I've tried to use an 'Italian Company', but they were a disaster from the get go...

So, you're privvy to AP's advertising revenue then, and know for a fact that Nikon spend more on advertising than Canon, and that as a result there is in fact a proven bias for Nikon cameras as a result?

Or, is this conjecture on your part. I think we should be told...

I really don't get the whining in some of the previous posts, it was a good review, with glowing praise in parts. No camera is ever going to be perfect, particularly in a reviewers eyes.

As for the front cover comments, short of calling the magazine 'Amateur K-7 Photographer' for the week, some of you will never be happy!!

Depends how you're working out the costs.

There is a massive amount of time/expertise given to the project from ex-RAF personnel/airframe technicians etc, and without that, I don't think they could afford to keep her flying, or at the very least it would be even more money to raise.

I've heard well over £100k a month, from a guy who is one of the 'helpers', but the Vulcan does earn a bit of money too, which helps, as do the corporate sponsors.

Whatever the cost, the Vulcan is an awesome sight, and I hope she can keep flying for a few years yet!

I'm surprised the darn thing was flying!

I was hoping to see it at Cottesmore last Friday, but it had tech problems...

Did you enjoy the game fair? I can see the castle from my house, but I've never yet made it!

As others have eluded to, 1/1000s for jets and 1/250s for helis/prop aircraft works for me.

Good panning technique (practice makes perfect!) is crucial too, but the main thing is the shutter speed and I adjust the ISO up until I get the 1/1000s on less bright days.

It's better to have a 'noisy' sharp shot, than a blurred one at ISO100!

It's a bit of difficult one ebay really.

On the one hand, we seemingly don't like the often criticised fees involved in selling, and think that ebay are having our trousers down.

On the other, we want access to a marketplace where millions of people can see our items for sale, and buy them.

Whilst ever we value the latter more than the fees, then ebay will stay in business.

Also, you have to rememember that an item sold eleswhere would probably realise a much lower price, so even after fees, you're probably still much better off.

I tend to sell things like camera gear/watches/bicycle kit on specialist forums like this one though, which is a much cheaper way of doing it!

Ok, I have downloaded the RAW files from the links above, opened them in Adobe Camera Raw via CS3, and then processed them using default settings as before in Noise Ninja...

I've shown them here at 800 pixels wide, but there is a link to a 1920 pixel wide version underneath each picture(should be big enough for most people?).

K7




K7 Large link


K20d




K20d Large link


D300




D300 Large link

Again, at 800 pixels, you'd very likely be happy with any of them, but I do think that the K7 and D300 have retained more detail and overall the picture looks better, but then they should do really.

Looking at the full size ones, again not much to choose between the K7 and D300 depending on where you look, although I am seeing more detail, but also more noise, on the D300 picture.

It's up to you which you prefer, so you can draw your own conclusions I think!

By George, I think you are right!

Mechanicals aside, the differences in image quality between most 'mid-range' cameras is quite often subjective, and all are capable of exceptional results in the right hands.

I hope this is ok, but I took the three doll pictures and ran them through my full version of Noise Ninja at default settings, to see what they look like. Noise Ninja applies auto profiles to the pictures using standard settings for luminance and colour noise, and then applies a 60% unsharp mask filter to get some detail back.

My understanding from the earlier posts was that they were, top to bottom, D300/A700/K20d so that's how I'll show them again.

The only other adjustment I've made to the pictures is a +0.25 exposure tweak to the A700 and D300 pictures, as they were a little dark. The left side of the histogram on the D300 was also 'clipped' which might explain the shadow noise.

D300



A700



K20d



So, which do I prefer?

Well, for me, and in this particular test, the D300 comes last!

I would say that I cannot decide between the K20d and A700, but if pushed I probably prefer the colour of the K20d, although it does look a little like it has a colour cast compared to the A700?

Interesting exercise...

The picture is of Ullswater in the Lakes, taken just down from Patterdale opposite the Steamer landing stages. There is a campsite just behind where the picture was taken from, highly recommended and views to die for!