Luke W

I go to Croydon and Southside. Southside is less geared toward trialling and more toward 'doggy manners'. For recall, I'd suggest the Really Reliable Recall DVD and post a new thread to ask for advice on recalls. Recall is something you have to practice every day.

I think you are being too kind. But in all honesty how much saturation is too much saturation? I am always scared of over saturating like a subway worker with a mayonnaise bottle. I was a bit tongue in cheek about saturation. It's really about curves

Your first and third lizard shots are better than mine! Just crank up the saturation in photoshop - voila

Wayyyyy too creepy ! Those fly things creep me out for some reason and know I know why. It's those giant wormy things that do it for me. One would be OK, two I could handle, but there's just too many of them! arghhhh

Wayyyyy too creepy !

What is the suggestion for black and white dogs? I find that the whites on the face often over expose so I drop the exposure a fraction and end up losing the blacks Even worse if they have dark eyes. I have found staying in the shade helps but it can still happen a bit. I'd try... Use your histogram. Exposure to the right. If there's still not enough detail in the shadows, then the dynamic range of the scene is too much for the camera to handle. Then you must diffuse the light. As you said: stand in shade, still too much dynamic range? Diffuse the light further (find heavier shade) or use a diffusing screen or get more light onto the dark dog (a reflector for example). You shouldn't need to do much more than expose to the right though, the dynamic range of modern digital SLRs should allow you to capture detail in black and white.

Bascially, you need a file that is the final print dimensions and at least 240dpi (we could discuss this particular value forever, it's a basll park figure, higher is usually better, lower is usually worse). So if it's 6in x 4in in the magazine, you'd need an image that is at least 1440x960 pixels. You should save it at the highest level JPG.

Nice shots Tokkie... Africa right? Here's the Australian equivalent: Allied Rock Wallaby

Beautiful lizards Rocco1 and Vickie!!!! Here's another one:

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Owners-...-40D-Manual.pdf

Do you use it? All the time! No, wait. Never. I mean too though. It'd be handy for really close macro and studio product/still life sort of stuff.

Nothing wrong with that! Well, except it's American

The clincher for me is the FPS figure. Other things of note: Better viewfinder spot metering larger lcd faster shutter speed live view

How much do you want to spend? My list in increasing price: Canon 1000D Canon 450D Canon 40D Canon 50D Canon 5D Mark II Canon 1Ds Mark III I own a 40D. The 50D is currently probably the 'enthusiasts" sweet spot. The 5D MK II is next on my shopping list. The 1Ds MK III is a little pricey for me.

You say some were focused some weren't. My guess... Autofocus isn't perfect. The camera isn't designed to get the subject perfectly in focus. All it's designed to do is get the subject close enough to 'in focus' so that a 6x9" print viewed at 10", looks sharp enough. For a lens with a maximum aperture of 2.8 or less, the autofocus will achieve 'sharp enough' for a 18x12 at 10". With a little extra sharpening on your bird, it passes.

Is that the full, uncropped frame?

On animal training in general (classical and operant conditioning etc)... Bob Bailey Ted Turner

If it's anything like Canon's IS - it doesn't really matter too much. I assume there'd still be the possibility of camera movement when leaning against a fencepost, so it's going to depend on your shutter speed. IS will slow down the initial focus a tiny bit, once the gyroscopes are spinning is doesn't matter.

Some other suggestions Choose To Heel Shutzhund with Gottfried Dildei (Basic Obedience, Advanced Obedience, A Modern View of Correction) The Foundations of Competitive Working Dogs Obedience Without Conflict - Ivan Balabanov

I've been away from this thread for a while!!! Barkly's other favorite chew toys are these: https://petsplus.com.au/pet-shop.asp?id=1212&bc=no http://www.ozpetshop.com.au/product_info.p...sta9i4f1ra2luv6 BTW - I haven't refilled his Bouncy Bone for ages - he just likes to chew the white bits now. I actually use it as a special treat - I think if I let him have it all the time, he chew it all day! Good to here the bouncy bone is going down a treat!

Yep - exactly! Extra ruly good ! VR = OFF, Shutter speed = 1/60, Shot = Rooly Blurry Same conditions VR = ON, Shutter Speed = 1/15, Shot = Rooly Sharp Yes, for action you don't need IS/VR. I turn mine off if I'm shooting fast action.

I'll have a go at explaining IS and the Nikon equivalent, VR... When you are holding the camera, your hands make tiny movements. No-one can hold a camera perfectly steady. That's camera shake. When we make these movements (small as they might be), it moves the lens relative to the scene. That causes the picture to be slightly blurred. Think of it as motion blur but rather than the subject moving, it's the lens. How much blur depends on two factors 1. How far the lens moves while the shutter is open. If the shutter is open for a long time, it become harder to hold steady and it moves further due to camera shake. For example, set the shutter speed to 5 seconds and see how blurry the shot turns out. That because during that 5 seconds, the lens moved a lot. With me so far? OK, the faster the shutter speed, the easier it is to hold it steady and the less the lens moves while the shutter is open. If you set the shutter speed to 1/10,000s, then the lens will move hardly at all during the time. You won't notice any motion blur at all. 2. The focal length. The bigger the zoom, the more the movement of the lens is magnified. You can see this for yourself, take your widest lens and look through the viewfinder. The image doens't seem to jump around much does it? Now take your longest lens and do the same thing. Notice how much the image jumps around. Camera shake gets progressively worse the longer the lens. OK. So when we combine these 2 factors (shutter speed and focal length) we get a certain amount of camera shake. OOPS - the third factor is how steady you are, but lets assume you are the average kinda steady person. OK. It just so happens, that the average person can hold the camera steady enough that if they use a 50mm lens and a shutter speed of 1/60s - they won't notice much camera shake in the final image. If they use a 200mm lens, then because the longer focal length magnifies the shake, they need to increase the shutter speed to around 1/200 so they don't notice the shake. If they were using a 500mm lens, they'd need a 1/500 shutter speed. Notic ethe rough pattern? Note: This is the average, steady handed person with good technique. I'm not so steady, I'm a bit clumsy and I drink to much coffee. For a 50mm lens, I need to shoot at 1/125 to get no camera shake unless I'm really concentrating. Each person needs to know how steady they are. So far so good? OK, where does IS come in? IS helps keep the lens steadier for longer. Say you could normally use a 200mm lens at 1/250 and not notice any camera shake. IS will hold the lens steadier so you can use a shutter speeds 2-3 stops slower and the lens will move the same distance while your hands are shaking. That means, while you could normally shoot at 1/250, you can now shoot at 1/60 or even 1/30 at not notice camera shake. That's the extra stops you get. But. And it's a big but. This only helps movement at the camera end. IS (or VR) can't stop the dog from moving! So if you need a high shutter speed to minimise movement of the dog in the scene, IS isn't going to help. If you can hold the camera steady enough for 1/250 using a 200mm lens and you have to shoot at 1/500s to keep the dog from being motion blurred, IS isn't going to help. hm.... Make sense? So - when do you need IS? When you need to shoot at a slower shutter speed than you can normally hold steady. Low light, non-moving subjects.

No, you don't need VR for fast moving shots. with a 200mm focal length and fast moving dogs, you'll want to be shooting at 1/500 minimum, preferably faster. VR won't help in this situation. Note: I reiterate chezzyr's comment about technique. Also, don't expect a high hit-rate, fire off a lot of shots. Finally, (while I'm not a Nikon user), the mega hi end cameras often have better autofocus systems. f/3.5 would mostly be fast enough (except late in the afternoon, or particularly dark days)... The biggest issue is - what's the lens like wide open? With the expensive Canon lenses, the are still very sharp even wide open at f/2.8 - cheaper lenses may not be very sharp at all wide open. Finally...judging an image at 100% magnification on the screen is a poor way to judge sharpness. What do the prints look like? What does a resized JPG look like?

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bgEwiH8CeUE Worth a try.

cocker spaniel floppy ears