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But Manta Rays, whale Sharks and Humpback Whales, oh YES!! I just got home and am TIRED - I swam soooooo much today. My legs feel like jelly and it's not from being on the sea, but in it happily swimming next to, under and around whale sharks! I hope to have some time tomorrow to do a proper blog post with more images so make sure to check that out later in the afternoon, but here's a quickie I resized for web for tonight

OK, if it's a colour thing it may be a setting on your camera. Are you shooting RAW or jpeg? If jpeg, what style is your camera set for? What software are you using and what are you doing? Again, please post some photos so we can see and be more helpful

LOL it might NOT be you either. The lens may not be working for your needs. But before you drop cash on a lens or range you aren't certain WILL work, it's definitely worth it to trouble shoot a little bit ;)

Red is beautiful ;)

Can you post some examples with your zoom lens? It's not the best piece of glass ever made but it should still be capable of producing good images. We may be able to help point out problems in technique which is essential because if you don't have that down, then spending more money on a lens isn't going to solve the problem. I can't remember, do you have the 75-300 or the 70-300? there are only a couple of image up at POTN for the 75-300 but it does work ;)

Of course you fell in love with the 135L - it's dreamy But it's not probably what you are looking for for what you have said you want. I still think the 18-200 range (ish) will be a nice start for you. The 70-200 f4 IS is a fantastic lens and range and since you aren't shooting wide yet, you might not miss the wide end, though the 18-200 lenses will give you more options in a single lens. But before you buy anything, what exactly is NOT working to your satisfaction with the lenses you have now?

I have the 135L and it's HOT. BUT it's a trick to use well. I guess it wouldn't be my first choice for an action lens, though I do use it out for the doglets and stuff sometimes. Skip the soft focus. That is a specialty lens and not what you are looking for. I highly recommend you head over to POTN and look through the archives and threads about lenses there. It's very active and if you can ignore the complete pixel peeping geeks, most posters have good information and experiences to share. Why have you gone away from the 18-200?

$50 Australian Inserts were "free" since I have about 200000 camera bags all that come with too many of the dumb things LOL

OK, it was futz around with this or do real work I'm not concerned with padding too much for most of what I intend to use this bag for, but now that I see how totally simple it is to toss in there and still get my gear in and out without having to muck around, I'll likely find all the right bits and use them most of the time. I apologise in advance for the mix-match of dividers, I really couldn't be bothered digging in the closet for my all black (or all grey) dividers for the trial run. These are the padded dividers I'll use more or less: one long one that fits perfectly along the bottom of the bag, like it was measured just for this bag + one medium long divider that wraps on the end where I stash the camera + one small divider that velcros in front of the lens attached to the camera. If I take a second lens, I will add one medium divider that will wrap at the other end of the bag and around the sides of the lens. Here's the inside empty and as I build the dividers and with the Canon 1DIII w/ Canon 135L 2.0 attached + Canon 85mm 1.8 (I had the Canon 24L II in there but decided to use it to shoot instead - it is decidedly fatter and bigger than the 85, so it's cool to know it fits!) One thing I've noticed on some bag reviews is that getting the thing closed when it's loaded the way you wanted gets overlooked. But this bag closes with no problem, no struggle, no having to jiggle stuff around to work the zip. And when it's closed, it looks good. I think I'm keeping the bag, it feels good loaded. I'd like the handles to be a little longer, but I think that's just me not being used to carrying a bag like this - almost all my others are backpacks LOL

Thanks! I am such a non-fashiony chick, I really seriously need help on all things related LOL Inside is a single compartment with a small zippered pocket and one small open slide in pocket, I presume for a phone. It's essential to have no dividers in something like this so I can reconfigure to suit whatever gear I might take with me. I have about seven zillion padded inserts of varying sizes so depending where I go I may slide one in on the bottom and this bag has enough room to do it easily. I also have some stick on velcro that I can use if/when I need to make a separate area inside it. I may try to take some photos of the inside as I fiddle around.

I know it's not very exciting but I needed something for the 1DIII that I could just grab and go but that didn't look like a camera bag. Something I could take to the pub, or out to dinner, or to a friend's place etc. Our local surf store had this Ripcurl bag so I took it home to test out. I think it looks OK and it definitely fits what I need it to. I am so not a purse girl so I have no idea if I'm delusional The images on the web of this bag SUCK, I can't believe they put them on there; on the site it looks like fake plastic shiny vinyl (FWIW the bag isn't shiny at all, it's a matte finish) and the colour is terrible. So I quickly shot this in my backyard and it's better than what they have. What do ya think? Keep it? Take it back?

Woohoo!!! Congratulations What a fabulous giftie!

This is a tricky one. As superzooms go, it's a goodie. And 18-200 is a nice range. What you will get - excellent range from pretty wide scenes to being able to capture things a reasonable distance away & reasonable close-ups - one lens for walkaround - you're ready to go, wherever, whenever without a ton of gear - IS - good images (obviously user dependent, but the lenses are capable) - a feel for what focal length you use most so you can figure out your next purchase if you decide to add more lenses - a feel for what look you like in your images and if this lens provides that or if you see what you would like to add to your arsenal as your skills, interest and needs change over time & experience What you will not get - great bokeh...this is the bit that is out of focus in a frame that makes the main subject point pop and makes the backgrounds kind of disappear so they aren't distracting - great low light performance...its aperture isn't wide enough BUT it has IS so you should be able to use a reasonably slow shutter speed and still hand-hold - true macro All in all, I actually really like the 18-200 superzooms. Had a Sigma version that was a cracker (recently sold it to another DOLer). No, they aren't perfect and they won't do it all like a swish prime will do, but for what they are built for, they do a very fine job and you should love the versatility. I think something on your radar should be the Canon 50 1.8 - it's cheap as chips and a great way to start in with low light shooting and isolating your subject with wide open apertures.

flickr is known to have aggressive sharpening of your images. Too much a lot of the time, imho. I always resize before uploading to any site, there's no reason to upload big files and it just eats your monthly allotment. Resize and sharpen for web first then upload and your images should look pretty good, be reasonably quick to upload/download and you can put up quite a few before reaching free limits for those who are too cheap (ME!!) to spring for web storage.

I think this perfectly sums my two girls up. and I adore the focus speed and accuracy of my camera!

I really need to learn how to do that!

Where is the iphotos folder? Find the whole address and then go to lightroom and point the import dialogue box at that folder, ADD and make sure your TO location (where you will save them) is on the drive with your others and pointed to the right folder (or make a new one Ifoto_old or something so you know you need to organize those properly once they are imported). Then all of your images should be in the right place.

Gorgeous flower! And beautiful pups! Congrats on the new camera - looks like you are loving it already!

There should be a resize option - likely under Image or File. I don't use the canon software so don't know exactly. You want to change the dimensions so the longest side is about 650-800 pixels so that it will show on most people's screens. I also change to 72 dpi and choose my save as setting to be about 68 (or 6 or 7, depending on the program) - this will resize the file so it's nice and small and even those on dial up will be able to see it. Congrats on the new camera!!

You've got to be kidding me?? Just pick it up and start playing - what's a few weeks? When you drop that kind of cash why on earth would any sane person make you wait to play and enjoy - they should want you to get as many days of pleasure from it as possible!

Wohoo!! Cogratulations You're going to have tons of fun!

I love that you're experimenting! I like the processing on both because they show how much a photo can change by the way we present it. Well done! Which vision was closer to your original thought? And then how did you evolve to the other version?

yes, as long as you have imported them to Lightroom and are in the correct catalog, you can find any photo. If you have entered keywords it makes finding them far easier. you can open into your program of choice from lightroom. So you are in LR in develop module, you go to the Photo tab and select Edit In - there is a drop down menu and you can then choose whichever program you want. If it's photoshop, you can have photoshop put the edited version right back in LR with no extra steps (just save it in Photoshop and viola, there it it in LR already). The very best thing you can do at this point, from what I am seeing, is get all of your images on ONE drive in folders that make sense to you. Then, even without any programs, you can simply open that folder and see what's there in Windows (or whatever you use). Personally, I'd then make sure my imports to LR were done and I'd try to at least give them broad keywords even if I didn't specifically tag each individual image. You can select them all in LR (from whatever folder you have open) and keyword the lot in one go - that's what I do for my underwater stuff, for instance. Import them all, select all and keyword "Ningaloo Reef" "underwater" etc. Then I select all the images taken at a particular site and keyword all of those "Blizzard Ridge" "Love Shack" etc. And then I'll grab all the "eels" or "sharks" or "turtles" etc. Keywords pop up as you start to type so you don't have to type the whole thing each time...or you can choose them from a list. It doesn't take much time if you do it right away. It's when you let folder after folder of images build up that sucks LOL

Cutie! #2 in the first set is perfection

Photo management is a nightmare if you don't set it up well in the first place Here's what works for me (more or less): I save my new files to a Monthly Folder (June_10, Mar_09 etc - so month then year...I would suggest doing it the other way around 10_June instead hehe) They are also immediately backed up on import to LR to an external drive so I have two copies before I can even possibly write over the cards. I dump them into subfolders: -pets -beach -underwater -red -people -Enid's Birthday - whatever, just every big subject gets its own subfolder in a particular month NOTE: if you use subfolders in LR you cannot rearrange the images by drag & drop!! If you need to rearrange, make a dedicated folder. Every client job gets its own folder as i do drag and drop to rearrange images a lot in those instances. All of the above happens as soon as I stick my card in the card reader. In Lightroom I try (really, I do) to tag them with keywords. Life is so much simpler later if you do this immediately - I have zillions of images that should have been coded but weren't. Every now and again I'll sit down and attack a folder or two. I will never catch up Then I go in and colour code (you could rate or flag or whatever works for you) everything I know I want. I use green for total keepers, yellow for something like a series where i need to choose the best expression or sharpest from a similar set, red for keepers that I know I want to Photoshop or something. Things I know I don't want get an X flag. At the end of the initial run thru, I select all my Xs and delete them from disk. Right away or they just sit there. Sounds complicated but I can code 1000 images in less than 20 minutes usually. I keep all active images that I will be working on in the next few weeks on my main drive. Anything that is a long term project will likely be moved off the main to a secondary hard drive and I'll work from there instead of moving it back to C drive. Helps me keep my C drive cleaner. Lightroom doesn't care which drive you use as long as it's attached to your computer when you try to use LR and that file. Moved your file? you'll get a "?" and if you click it LR will let you show it where you've moved the files to - easy.