Ripley

I love my 70-200 f/4 L but as I'm interested in bird photography, sometimes find it a bit limiting. I can sneak up on some wild birds but find for flight shots, it's just too short. I was going to buy the Sigma 150-400 but decided where I was supposed to be going right now (had to postpone it) my 70-200 would be enough for the birds there so bought a Sigma 10-20 just for the landscapes I could have photographed. However, I still haven't tried it out and I've had it almost a month.

Looks like it would be fun to make! I have made my own reflector for indoor shots (not that I do many) by using Al foil and an old baking tray. :rolleyes:

It's my OH who calls my white lens that. "Oh great, out comes the big f*ck off lens" he'll say as I open up my backpack. :rolleyes: Eta: and as you know, I only have the 70-200! Does anyone have those Lowerpro black camera backpacks? They are great. They don't look like you are carrying camera gear in them and have a chest strap which sits above your boobs and a padded waist strap. Pretty comfy for hiking around and holds a bit of kit. I've got the Nature Trekker one.

Thanks Luke. I understand what you are saying and will apply that over the weekend. Yes I am guilty of tilting the camera up like that. I guess I look up and camera just follows my eye line. Thanks.

That is a serious f*ck off lens. I wish Canon made those L lenses in black. I hate the way they stick out when stuck on your camera. Makes me feel nervous carrying it around alone in a city after dark, it still stands out. :rolleyes:

I'm finally going through heaps of photos at home and sorting them out and this one has me stumped. I also have other shots of buildings with similar. Can any Photoshop masterminds help me with a lens problem? I know there is a facility in CS2 (which I have) to correct lens distortion and converging verticals but I don't know what this problem is. I've had a play and still can't fix it. Do I use the warp tool or the gridlines? So I know where to locate these things in PS, just dont' know the best way to apply them. This is with a Sigma 17-70 and the buildings are leaning. I'm told its a lens problem with wider angle lenses. Any hints on how I can fix it would be great. Don't need it to be very straight buildings, just less like the leaning towers of Pisa. Thanks!

I've heard of that, ruger. So does it work if you are shooting, say, a landscape scene at dawn and if you expose for the foreground, the sky isn't "blown out" - is that how it works? I use a grad filter in those conditions with my Canon. Does it hold more detail in the sky or something? ETA: Found a link here about it with a before and after pic: http://chsvimg.nikon.com/products/imaging/...-quality-image/

Looks fun, persephone. I have Elements 6 because it has a much better RAW converter (similar to Lightroom's) than Photoshop CS2 which I also have. I think that's enough for me. OK, I'm supposed to be photo editing today so back to it!

The quickest way to do it in PS is CtrlA (to select) then Edit, Stroke and then choose your width and colour and inside or outside (I choose inside) and you have a plain border around a shot.

She's my little pound mutt. Got her out of Renbury over 6 years back. I don't know what she has in her, chezzyr - maybe some tibbie? But she is very gentle, quiet and great with birds. Milile is thinking, "please leave me alone" :rolleyes:

I have the day off today so took these shots this morning. This is with the cheap 50mm 1.8. I rarely use this lens but I'm very happy with it, for the price it's great to use indoors with just window light. I wish I could say my parrot was accommodating, but he wasn't. Millie was though. ETA: This lens is pretty sharp, it's picked up my fingerprints on the couch :rolleyes: Need to get Millie groomed I think! Played around with the burn tool a little

I voted for no. 2. Last week I bought myself a Sigma 10-20. I haven't used it and won't until next month, I have wanted it for ages as my 17-70 isn't wide enough for some photos. It's purely for pleasure and it now completes my 'kit' - that's it for me. Of course I felt guilty and tried to justify the expense to myself - even though I haggled with the store downstairs and got a net price I printed out matched by them, so I got it at a really good price. Feeling even more guilty about it, I texted rugerfly on the way home and she texted me back and made me feel better about my purchase. It's good when other people can justify your expense. Now I just think Kevin Rudd has paid for that lens.

In NSW there are local community colleges that offer digital photography courses. I paid for my husband to go on the Introduction to Digital Photography course last year so he could use his Olympus to its potential and it did nothing at all to teach him as he was bored and in his words, "The guy just crapped on about his cameras and plugged his own photography" So that was about $140 down the drain there as he still takes photos on Auto with it (he will use 'P' (program) mode sometimes). I did the Advanced Photography one at our local community college in May last year and it was ok, I learned more from reading that book recommended by a lot of DOLers, "Understanding Exposure" to be honest. I have a Canon but my OH has an Olympus which stays at his office as it's a work camera. I found the Olympus pretty user friendly too - it's an E410 I think.

Helen, have the sites on our work bulletin board in Melb and Syd :p

Nikon lenses reviewed are: 70-200 2.8 VR G 80-400 ED VR IF 12-24 f/4 DX G ED 18-200 3.5 G DX VR IF ED (phew!) 18-70 3.5 ED DX 105 2.8G VR IF-ED Micro Nikkor that's it.

Couldn't be stuffed, just figured out the ISO and clicked. It only needs to be printed out to be typed up by someone (not me). BTW, pdf'd you a few pages of Nikon lenses, all types. Hope you have Adobe reader.

I was in a 2 hour meeting this afternoon (yes very boring) and we tried to print the whiteboard out so we all had a copy of the scrawled notes. The printer connected to the whiteboard wasn't working so I said no probs, we'll just take a photo off the screen and I can print it out A3 size and give people a colour copy. I rang someone at work whom I know has a Nikon DSLR for work purposes as she takes the photographs needed at work. She said, sure I can borrow it. Went and got it and oops, I don't know how to work it do I? The Nikon's settings are just all wrong! I wanted to bump up the ISO so I didn't need to use icky flash. Finally worked it out but gee, was pressed for time. Just shows you that you know the inside out of one DSLR, you can be a total idiot when you need to use a different DSLR in a hurry with everyone looking on (or maybe that's just me).

You want a review of your Nikon D90? I can PDF it to you if you have Adobe reader, I'll just bring the mag in and scan the review. Just let me know. ruger, will PDF you that review of that Nikon and lenses this week, just need to find which mag it was in as I don't read Nikon reviews.

The D90 has just been released, not sure if it's available here yet?

The photos detailed how the photographer got the shot and the pains he went to in some cases. One poor b*stard had camped out in a hide for 4 days not happy with any photos he took until he got his 'money shot' on the 5th day. Hope he had a good book on him while he waited around That photo (have put it below) was amazing, I lingered over it as it was just stunning, the casual but focused look in the Osprey's eyes as he grabbed a wild salmon. There were some lovely landscape shots and some fungi and plant shots (no flower shots though). It wasn't all wildlife, but the majority on display was. Some lovely b/w images too. Says again in the rules: Legal issues "Where necessary under the Wildlife and Countryside Act or equivalent national or international legislation (e.g. in the case of protected species), pictures must be accompanied by copies of the relevant permits. UK entrants should note that, without a permit from Natural England, the Countryside Council for Wales or Scottish Natural Heritage, it is illegal to photograph some British birds at the nest." This is the osprey photo I loved, the guy who took it must have been so relieved after all that time spent waiting. His blurb about it: Osprey snatch 'I lived in a hide overlooking a lake in Pohtiolampi, Finland, for five days, waiting for ospreys to stop off to feed. For four days, the wind blew in the wrong direction, and the birds dived from behind the hide. Only on the last day did the wind change, allowing just this single shot of the osprey I had hoped for.' Ospreys hover over water then dive, plunging into the shallows to grab prey. They have special feet to hold onto slippery fish scales: the soles are covered in spines and one talon can move so the bird can grip either side of the fish. Ospreys are found by rivers, lakes and lagoons all over the world. Canon EOS-1D Mark III + 300mm f2.8 lens; 1/3200 sec at f5 (-2/3 compensation); ISO 400.

Forgot to put how the photographer got that snow leopard shot which won. "After 10 months and a winter with little snow in Ladakh's Hemis High Altitude National Park, India, I was running out of hope of getting the picture I wanted. But one freezing morning I checked my remote-controlled camera and found a snow leopard had triggered it the night before, in the frame I'd dreamed of – in its true element.' Snow leopards are adapted to life in the mountains of central Asia. They have long, waterproof outer fur, dense woolly under-fur and large nasal cavities that warm the air as they breathe it in. This allows them to survive temperatures as low as -40°C. But the leopards can also tolerate the heat of the Gobi Desert, where temperatures can reach 40°C. Canon EOS Rebel XT + 10-22mm lens at 16mm; 1/200 sec at f16; ISO 100; waterproof camera box + Plexiglass tubes for flashes; Trailmaster 1550-PS remote trigger. The guy who won the shot also had 2 other snow leopard shots featured in the exhibition, guess he couldn't pick which one to enter. He spoke to local people to get knowledge on which track the leopard used at night. Reminds me of that movie with Chris O'Donnell - Vertical Limit where he was photographing the snow leopards from a hide.

It's not too late to enter now if anyone is thinking of it for next year. Here is the link. I think I might buy the latest issue of BBC Wildlife now I've seen that Sir David Attenborough talking about Charles Darwin is on the cover http://www.bbcwildlifemagazine.com/wpoty.asp Here are some of the Rules: Digital guidelines Format Images should be submitted as JPEGS with no interpolation applied. Save JPEGs at the highest possible quality setting. File size requirements For the initial submission, images must be 1400 pixels on the longest dimension. Images must have been taken on a sufficiently high resolution camera - at least six million pixels, on the highest setting. Calibration and colour Images must be colour profiled/corrected using a calibrated monitor and utilising Adobe RGB 98 colour space before submission. Allowances will NOT be made for poorly colour managed/corrected images. Please ensure your images are not over saturated and faithfully represent the subject matter. Adjusting your image Digital adjustments are only acceptable if limited to minor cleaning work (removing dust spots), levels, curves, colour, saturation and contrast work. Sharpening is allowed (but use sparingly - many images are ruined by over-sharpening). Cropping is allowed, but please be mindful of the effect of cropping on file size. The faithful representation of what was captured at the time of the shot being taken must be maintained. Compositing and multiple exposures are not allowed. Sandwich shots, double exposures, photographs which consist in any way of more than one separate image and images that have been digitally manipulated outside of rule 5 are not eligible. Adding or removing animals, parts of animals, plants, distractions, people etc into/from the image is not allowed. Subjects and Ethics Subjects and Ethics Images of domestic animals (cats, dogs, farm animals, etc) and cultivated plants (species or hybrids grown in a cultivated setting) do not count as wildlife and are not eligible subjects. No live baiting is allowed. Images of captive animals must be declared. The judges will take preference to images taken in free and wild conditions. Pictures of animals being restrained in any way, or animal models or any other animals being exploited for profit may not be entered (except for the One Earth Award). WPY puts the welfare of animals and the preservation of their environment above all, and asks that photographers do not do anything to upset or stress animals, in their attempt to get the photograph. If cruel or unethical practices are suspected by the Owners or any of the judges, the entry will be disqualified, and the photographer will no be permitted to enter the competition again.

I took a late lunch today and went to the Sydney Museum to see the winning BBC International Wildlife Photographer of the Year photographs that are currently touring the world in an exhibition. It was well worth the visit. Sydney Museum is a short walk from Hyde Park. They had the photos displayed in a dark room that was lit up to display the wildlife photographs. It was hard to choose a favourite, but I loved the backlit polar bear, the black grouse at dawn and the snow leopard shots taken at night. There was a photo of a Right whale and a scuba diver eyeballing each other which was blown up to the size of window. All wildlife was captured in the wild. Some great underwater shots and some lovely shots from 11-14 year old budding wildlife photographers. Interesting to see one shot taken with a Canon powershot, not all great shots are taken on DSLRs but most of the cameras were Canon or Nikon, I paid attention to that - and the apertures/shutter speeds and of course, the lenses I can never afford. A few film shots there too. Here is the site with all the photographs, most of which can be seen in Sydney now. Some of the ones there include. There are many more displayed. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/tem...nlineGallery.do the award winning one is first - the snow leopard won the overall award. It was taken with a remote controlled camera at night up in the mountains of India. I really loved the one of a black grouse too, up close it's a beautiful image. The one of the giraffe and lioness was taken by a 15 year old and won the youth category. ETA: All exif data is also displayed along with Camera and lenses used and a short commentary from the photographer on how they got the shot.

I have the 50mm 1.8. Such a great little lens for the price. First time I used it, I had a very pretty subject. This is just a grab shot at home. I left some champagne on the kitchen bench and had also bought OH some scotch (special occasion). I went to do something for a minute and my parrot had figured out that if he flew to the box containing the bottle of scotch and stood on it, he could reach the shiny label. Parrots love bright colours. As soon as I took this photo, I chased him off as foil is no good for birdies. The depth of field here was intentional. If I'm stupid enough to leave things lying around on the kitchen table, he will find them. He'll only chew paper things though, and labels. A couple of DOLers at lunch

terranik, dogs must be happy it's a bit cooler today. I'm not a cat person and Missy was given to me by a guy at work to rehome for him but she was so endearing, she stayed. She is a very gentle cat. I gave her a bath on Friday so she looks nice and pretty now. In that first photo, she was giving my Alexandrine parrot the evil eye as she doesn't like him (but won't harm him, he likes to preen her velvety ears) and yet her paw was curled in contentment at me photographing her - silly cat.