Ripley

The Kate Moss heroin chic look was in in the early 90s. I don't usually look at fashion mags unless I'm at the hairdressers but didn't think the anorexic look was in? But I don't think Kate Moss is too skinny these days either, she was back in the early 90s though.

A woman at work whinged about her friend's bridal photos as they gave them all very tanned skin. She's pale and said the editing gave her a tan when she's happily pale. Some brides and groom may ask to be this edited though? He's taken about 10 or so kilos off the groom in one shot, not just thinned the brides. Also, the girl on the dunes is a model, not a bride and models get touched up all the time (so to speak ). He's increased her bust and given her a higher, curvier bum. He's a master of the liquify tool! I do agree with him re the trends atm. and how skinny you were.

His befores are really good too. (I couldn't help but notice how he likes to make the asses on virtually all the brides on his site much smaller and higher). Then I read some of the feedback comments on his blog.

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I'm sorry for your loss, peibe. Parrots are such characters and Yoshi sounds like she was a great little companion.

My husband bought me a graphics tablet but I never use it either. I just use the mouse instead. I found it too fiddly but that's probably because I'm more comfortable with a mouse.

What you describe you saw in photos could have been achieved by 'focus stacking' which is achieved in PS apparently. Have a google about it. Not sure what you want to achieve in that shot? Did you just want it all in focus?

On the bus trip home the other evening I noticed the Opera House lit up in a jungle pattern. Thought that odd so had a google. There is a light festival on now that runs for another couple of weeks. Places in the city are lit up and/or have light displays. I work in the CBD so when the weather improves I will head down there and take some shots. Going for a jog at lunchtime today so I'll keep my eyes open for any lighting set ups, St Marys Cathedral is also being lit up. If you are interested in dragging your camera and tripod to any locations, check out this site http://vividsydney.com/

Thanks ash. Shhh, I used a ND grad filter over the sky for the two sunset shots as I suck at blending two exposures.

Second shot of the penguin has a cool colour cast intentially as light was dropping, sun had set and I wanted to show the mood of the evening, it was freezing! Now looking at it, I'm wondering if I should remove it in photoshop, but my husband has banned me from the computer during weeknights because I'm trying to go through so many photos for the website. "Seal infested waterfall" I only found it as the guy who owned the B&B at Kaikoura told us to go to it on our way out of town, heading north. All I remember is you pass that crayfish caravan, "Nims" and there is a sign about a hike in the Nat Park. This wooden sign is opposite the ocean. The seals must cross under the road to get to the waterfall, there is no sign saying beware of lumbering seals crossing or anything. They are friendly, it's just that a larger one took a real interest in either me or my camera and I wasn't going to hang around to see if it was friendliness or he wanted to chase me out of his territory. Macka may remember exactly where it is as she took photos on her trip. Thanks for everyone's lovely comments. :D

Hmm, well this one was a big baby. Probably a teenager. I wish I could have spent more time in Kaikoura as I wanted to do the swimming with the wild dusky dolphins - they take you out into the ocean and chuck you overboard and it's like, "Off you go, swim with them then!" If the dolphins grow bored of you, they just swim off. I would have done the Albatross Encounter where they take you out and chuck you to a scrum of huge Albatross (just joking, you go out on a boat to observe/photograph them). I would have also loved to have done a scuba dive with the fur seals too, and another whale watch trip in better conditions where I wasn't bashing up against the boat rail and trying not to be sick and if the weather was better. My husband was 'over' Kaikoura in the 2 full days/3 nights we had but I would love to go back there for an entire week. We stayed in a gorgeous B&B run by a French woman and her NZ partner. Kaikoura ia one of the most beautiful places I've been to in the entire world. Not many people, heaps of wildlife, stunning scenery and crystal clear air and water.

Great, you can see them. I asked someone with a pbase account and they told me how to do it. I took a lot of images but won't bore you with anymore. Instead, you can have a look at them here if you are interested. NZ Trip, April 2010 (has some taken on Heron Island last year too but that's it, I'll be adding to it this weekend) http://www.pbase.com/camlyn Website is still a work in progress. Macka, thank you for your PM telling me about places in NZ. I note from your website you too visited the "seal" waterfall. I didn't have a fast enough lens and the 30D wasn't good enough at high ISO to capture the fast moving little buggas in the waterfall. On our way to the waterfall, I heard these loud noises and it sounded like kids playing in stream, but it was the seals. eta: macka, I didn't get to see a Kea parrot and I looked at the Fox and Franz Joseph carparks and around Mt Cook. We even hiked to "Kea Point" and not one kea. I was told they only come down to the carparks around winter when the mountains are covered in snow and food is harder to find. I'm jealous you managed a few lovely pics of them. I saw one fly by a distance away but we were at the pub having lunch then.

Can you see them now? If not I'll need to consult my pbase expert. Last two - Oystercatcher on beach at Kaikoura Wild Tui Bird in a forest reserve, around Richmond, Nelson. The Tui has a beautiful song. Some local conservationists have assembled branches with fruit nailed to them and fresh water and built a ramshackle bird hide to observe the local birds. The bush birds are very skittish (and very quick!). This male tui popped his head up when he heard my shutter click. Then he flew off and only came back for one more photo. They dart around so quickly, it's hard to photograph them. There are traps around to trap neighbourhood cats, feral stoats and feral brushtail possums as they are trying to increase the native bird population.

Argh! Damn pbase. I don't know my way around it and it kept crashing on me last night. I think I'll upload them at full size as 400 x is tiny on my work computer but uploading it at 700 will mean it's reduced on here and won't look as sharp, so click on the photo to see it full size or it will look a bit blurry. Will try and fix it, thanks for pointing that out.

My husband resting after a hike around Queenstown area (he didn't know I took the pic) Paraglider over Queenstown Lake Tepaku Punting on the river, Christchurch

We went whale watching the following morning, it was very foggy and miserable and the boat was rolling pretty badly and so was my stomach. Ended up seeing two sperm whales though, they didn't hang around on the surface long before diving. Sunset, Kaikoura Twilight over Kaikoura Caravan Park This waterfall is just out of Kaikoura and frequented by fur seals, they like to bathe and get the parasites off them int he fresh water. One of them took an interest in my tripod and camera so I only got one photo before I grabbed my gear and moved away, didn't need anything ending up in the drink. Close to Fox Glacier is Lake Matheson. I didn't realise how long it took to walk to the lake, so missed the sunset and a good position (wharf was full of tripods). After others had left, I got the afterglow. Lake Wanaka

Last month (well April) we went to the South Island, NZ for our 10 year wedding anniversary. Some DOLers gave me some great advice re places to see in an earlier thread so thank you for that, it was really helpful. We had 13 days away driving around the South Island and it wasn't enough! We didn't even get to Milford Sound. It takes a long time to drive places. Itinerary was: Christchurch then 3 nights in Kaikoura, 2 nights around Nelson (did a full day in the Abel Tasman Nat Park), took the wrong route and went via the inland road instead of the scenic coastal route, but still ended up at Fox Glacier, then on to Wanaka for a night and then 4 nights in Queenstown where we did a lot of day hikes, then on to Lake Tepaku via Mount Cook where we ran into awful weather and I couldn't photograph the night stars at Mount John Observatory as the sky was overcast the 2 nights we had there and we were stuck there for 2 nights doing nothing, then back to Christchurch. I loved Kaikoura and Queenstown the most, plenty to do and great hiking. Here are a few snaps of the wildlife and the landscape. Blue Penguin surrounded by kelp, Kaikoura. He came ashore just on sunset and didn't seem phased by me and one other guy photographing him. We kept a respectful distance from the little guy and the light was fading as they come ashore in the evening to their burrows. Next day we did a hike around the beautiful Peninsular for a few hours. It's a tough life being a NZ Fur seal. We saw a tourist get too close and he got chased by one of the bigger males, was pretty funny as they move quite quick. Lonely Planet book says they will chase and can bite. I almost bumped into one on our hike, they were lying around asleep in the afternoon, I was taking a pic of something and nearly backed into him as I didn't see him.

The fifth one (Autumn scene) would make a good stock image. Have you thought about that, ILTBY? A few months ago I was searching for a stock image to use that had a droplet and a green background for our environmental campaign at work. I chose a few from a stock site and sent them to a few people for their vote and the one they all agreed on was a droplet of water on a leaf with a lovely out of focus green background.

How are you doing today? Two memories I have of Rex. One is that if you went to give him a pat, he would lean completely into you for a body hug as he liked the contact perhaps. He was very affectionate. The other memory is at your fancy dress party where people turned up dressed as nuns and other costumes and Rex was patiently sitting at the corner of the table where you had all the food spread out. He could easily have jumped up and helped himself to all the food, but Rex wasn't rude like that. Instead he waited until people came along to help themselves and then he'd merely look up at them with those gentle eyes of his and you couldn't help but give him a titbit from the table.

A couple photos of Rex, taken when you brought him to a show with Divani at Castle Hill because I wanted to see him and give him a cuddle. Remember how you joked that you could probably "still put him in the ring" and he was 8? Almost exactly two years ago. Monelite, I think he was looking up at a feather you were holding in your hand.

Thanks, kja. It's interesting to hear what others do. I've edited some pics using sharpening that looks ok on my home computer, but I want to see them on another monitor so I'll have a look on my work monitor tomorrow. My one at home is calibrated, the one at work is not.

If I'm taking photos of wild birds, AV mode. I don't have time to use Manual. I make sure the ISO is high enough to give me a fast enough shutter speed for the aperture and conditions. Sometimes I will spot meter if lighting is tricky. If I fiddle around too much, I've missed the shot. Landscapes, mainly AV mode because depth of field is important (I have used M before for sunsets/sunrise). The last batch of pics I'm editing now I didn't use M at all. eta: Usually I can't see properly through the small viewfinder on my 30D in bright sunny conditions to see what the meter is telling me so that is another reason I don't use it much. I just cannot through see the viewfinder in the sun.

Thanks LindaK. I used a setting of 300/0.3/0 on an 800 x image as suggested for bird pics, and it was way too sharp, so I dropped it to 200/0.3/0 and still too sharp. Maybe it's my lens - I have a very good prime for bird photos and even hand holding it, OOC images are pretty sharp already. I have a 30D and take pics in RAW. I think I'll have to play around with settings and see how it looks on a different computer tomorrow. Thanks for your advice.

I've had a google and have seen different methods and variety but was wondering what the DOL pros here do? I'm sharpening some photos for web. I have a pbase account up and running for my wildlife/scenic images and the sharpening for web issue has me . I do an initial sharpen on my full size pic before resizing it down; but after a google it says not to do this and I should resize my file to web size (about 650-680 x 400 or something) and then give it a sharpen at about 100/1/1. However some of the pics then look overly sharpened and I'm not a fan of oversharpened landscapes and animal pics. Should I just stick with my original settings and then resize, choose 'bicubic sharper' and 'save for web' on 'high' quality setting? Or should I sharpen full size, reduce and then a light sharpen at about 25/1/1??

Only last year he was modelling for a magazine. A star until the very end, Rex's star burned so very brightly.