kja

Sir & Prada - thank you so much! woof - aww, that's sweet, I appreciate it! Underwater the goal is to get as close as possible to your subject - and yesterday's huge turtle was helping me :) I did manage to get a frame or two of more of him, but it was tough as he wanted to be right up on my lens the whole time - it was awesome! And a namesake shot - the site is called Love Shack because there's a section that is totally covered in these moray eels who have three kinds of cleaner shrimps living in their holes with them

What you need more than an upgrade is a backup! If you are doing photoshoots in any sort of professional manner, not to have a back up is irresponsible - what happens if it goes down during a shoot? and, yes, the 60D is a better camera than the 50D but it's not a huge change - you likely won't notice much at all image-wise.

+1 on the vignette being too much. Heading out diving so will come back and look more closely at the new ones but one that I did notice is that you have some great facial expressions on the players which is

1st image: Great moment captured - you've got action and great facial expressions. Good choice on the depth of field to get both action areas. And the guy with ball has a great position/angle in the frame! I like the bw conversion OK. I'd crop it slightly to lose the partial player on the right or use the nifty content aware fill tool in CS5/6 to get rid of him. 2nd image: I don't feel any action or interest in this image. All I see is a guy with his legs cut off and arms to the side. It's missing a bit of context or intent. This second image DID make me think hard though so for me learning it's awesome (coz I'm that self-absorbed everything is about me LOL) I do love the background of all the people blurred out along the fence and I'd totally try to get a clean shot of a player or some action with that behind them at the next match - that could be a killer image (without the little dude in the tacky chair along the fence :) ) Football is all about energy, passion, barracking for your colours - I'd be playing with colour versions to see what I could get to pop.

It's an extreme example mostly to show that you can do some pretty dramatic stuff in your RAW converter. Most people new to editing think you have to use a photo editor, like Photoshop, to complete an image. Which used to be true, but not anymore. Check out the RAW conversions thread over on POTN - it's awesome and you can really learn a lot

Cute! Mine also love to sleep on my cameras if I leave them out LOL

Expose to the right. A slightly overexposed newborn image should be a) easier to edit and b) immediately helpful with blothcies & red skin. Watch your backgrounds - clutter and distracting elements are killers with little ones. Be happy with a few frames/poses - babies can get unsettled and it's just no use or fun for anyone if you keep trying to force it. Patience is king. Best case you go in, baby is happy, you're done with a nice variety in 20 minutes. Worst case, baby isn't happy and it takes three hours to get three poses :D Enjoy!

Oh for the love of grabbing the right camera setup! Had two of the tiny ones on the patio couch yesterday but I couldn't back off far enough to get them both with the 100-400 that was mounted! I did get a couple of frames before they moved, but they aren't exactly exciting LOL Did get this little guy going head down the side of the couch after I grabbed a more appropriate lens :)

Love seeing the action shots!

Thanks, Kuma. Yeah, I was bummed but they are so bloody uncooperative and I was happy to just get one!

Do some googling for bouncing light tutorials etc and PRACTICE before you go - even if it's "just for a friend" Basically you do not aim your flash at your subject but bounce it off the ceiling or wall etc.

Depends on the size of the venue but I'd lean towards the 70-200 and bouncy some flash. The 70-200 should let you move around unobtrusively and use the 70 end for half shots and the 200 for some close ups and for further action. If the space is really tight, the 50 1.4. Light sounds like the problem, as is focus lock in bad light/low contrast light, so use your best lenses. Ugh just read about the dreaded table shots (they suck). You might get away with the 18's for these as long as you can bounce light if the 50 is too long. Then switch back.

Naughty guy only let me have one frame - usually they land on something ugly.

@megan - I didn't get that feel at all, thought there was almost no civilization there, but then, we didn't stay anywhere near the cities for more than an overnight before our next flight. LOL We didn't do Kruger, we were at Sabi Sands while in South Africa. Thanks for the kind words, All! It was a completely awesome trip.

Great to see you're working with new techniques. Personally, I'm rarely a fan of HDR so don't actually like the end result of the trees & mountain, but I see the appeal of working with it :) Very interesting.

Thanks! That's a plant pot behind him, not the sky ;)

No, there shouldn't be any difference. I use everything from 1GB to 8GB SD and SDHC cards in my baby cameras with no problems - and I use everything from cheap cheap to expensive cards (honestly, the expensive ones were gifts LOL). You'll be fine. As for capacity, doesn't really matter how big your card is - just back them up. If the photos were important to me I'd be just as devastated to lose 1GB as I would to lose 8GB. It's very rare for me to not download my cards every day, I'm just not willing to risk losing stuff.

Thanks, Guys. Yeah, their head shape change is so cool - until I started spending time with these guys I never noticed. Today I have a super squeee!! He's about half the size of the other guys - so skinny mini! I was able to belly crawl right up to him before he scampered around the plant pot - in fact he scampered towards my lens at one stage and gave me a girlie eeek moment LOL

Nembrotha kubaryana nudibranch Raccoon butterflyfish Eye twisting coral cod scene with bonus nudibranch! school o' fish

A little internet competition is good for the soul :) As is more competition for bodies. Unfortunately, almost all lenses have gone up over the last few years. I look at the prices now for the lenses I already own and am so happy I bought when I did (especially since I bought a ton of them when Canon was still doing fabulous rebates)!!

@CC - I select my AF point and usually use the outer ones, not so much the middle. If I'm using centre only I find I have to constantly reframe - which works just fine once you get the hang of it and is often the best one for lots of action. Sometimes it's just what you have going when the shot is there so you do the best you can with what you have.

I love Sid & Lola! Sid's such a character - 1 & 5 particularly for me :) And Lola, well, she's just too much

We were in South Africa, Botswana and Zambia. Why do hate seeing the giraffes there? They seemed happy enough :) Landing Hippo yawn Mama & cubs Elephant family getting some lion cub cuddles

A few people seemed to want to see some of my Africa photos after I posted the lions in another thread yesterday so I'm popping some up in here. I'll apologise up front - this is going to be yet another on-going thread from me as I honestly haven't even been through all my images yet! And they're in no particular order so there won't be any rhyme or reason to the sets LOL I do hope you enjoy :) warthog snoozing on the lawn outside our room zebras in the morning smoke lioness beginning her hunt leopard ignoring us giraffe standing guard