I have only seen the odd game of Ozzie rules football when they used to show such things on Channel 4 and it was fast and exciting.

K.

I really like the minimalistic look of the first one. Perhaps the snow could be a little brighter though, seems a bit too grey to me?

Best wishes, Kris.

I am glad it isn't just me. I was beginning to wonder if my smashed knee had given me a lean to the left...

K.

On the plus side, you'll be using the sweet spot right in the centre of the image circle.

I wonder if anyone has really tested this?

I come from a family of champion bowlers so that doesn't surprise me!

K.

I keep all the RAW files untouched (Lightroom does that automatically anyway). In Lightroom the edits are saved as small sidebar files and so there is no need to keep multiple copies. I only have multiple versions when I have dropped into Photoshop for something Lightroom cannot do. In that case I edit a copy. Jpegs are exported on a "as needed" basis, small ones for the web, full size for printing.

Currently backed up from my mobile hard disk to a desk top one every so often. I'll soon be getting two 1tb external disks which will mirror each other.

Andrew: most of the time you won't see a difference. I was interested to note, however, that when I had two big prints made (one A3 one A2 recently) the person doing it could see a difference between the photo shot as a jpg and the one as a RAW. In lightroom there is pretty much no difference in how you would treat either format most of the time so "being long-winded" is not the case.

K.

Last night was a very enjoyable game and I sat up and watched every moment of it. You have to think of American Football as being more like chess with extreme violence and precision timing. I agree that all the adverts (even more during the Superbowl) are a bit annoying but one cannot deny the skill involved in being able to throw a ball 40 yards down the pitch to someone who isn't there yet while a 6'5" man mountain is bearing down on you with intent...

I find the disparaging of American Football amusing from a nation that invented a sport that takes five days to play, is equally stop-start (to the extent the commentators spend most of their time discussing the cake Mrs Smith sent them) and where the most likely outcome is a draw. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy cricket too, but with both games you need a certain level of understanding to get the most from it.

Personally, I find football (the usual round ball version) as dull as ditchwater and the actresses throwing themselves on the ground writhing in agony if another player comes within a couple of yards of them annoying in the extreme.

Best wishes, Kris.

My "new" M 100m f/2.8 seems to be consistently about two stops under.

K.

The Tammy is what it is, a cheap and cheerful lens. I got mine new for forty pounds and have had everything from really nice shots to annoyingly soft ones**, and PF can be a problem in some circumstances. The DA* 60-250 has a very good reputation but so it should for 20x the cost!

**Annoyingly soft (sometimes) wide open at 300mm but some of that may be down to camera shake as I only use it wide open when the light is dire. My seagulls picture was grabbed quickly, and only after did I realise that it was wide open at 1/4000 sec!

If I have a windfall -- some hope -- I too will be trying to choose between the 60-250 and the 300...

Best wishes, Kris.

I have found the stop down metering using the green button on older fully manual lenses to be very variable from pretty much bang on, to up to 2 stops under, and it varies with aperture (i.e., metering at f/2 might be correct but at f/11 under-exposes) and it also varies between lenses. It doesn't bother me too much as I am usually photographing static subjects when using manual focus lenses and using the histogram function in review allows for instant correction.

I'd be pretty fed up if this was the case with a film camera though!

Best wishes, Kris.