PossumCorner

No of course it is not weird: like you said, it is just you Montanna. Flyballers are a great community, not a group of strangers. Why not come along in your team and wear something to fit the "goldfields" theme and enjoy the day full speed rather than being mean spirited and critical. You haven't painted yourself into a corner.

Aw half your luck, I wish ours would move, I wish they would win the lottery and go back to Pommy Land with their whinges. The nearest neighbours never complain: just the one with the Brit accent. Anyway, good news that Josh is picking up. Is there any ongoing treatment for him or just watch his diet? We didn't enter for Ringwood either but I'll go along for a look (esp to see the Tassie team) - are you going?

They are on the ship now - which will give them a day to recover from being sea-sick if it's a rough crossing. Good luck Mornir and Co. (Come cheer for them: the Flyball Competition at the Ringwood Highland Games, Jubilee Park, Ringwood, Vic. Highland Pipe and Drum Bands and Highland Dancing comps all day also, massed bands display, clan info. - so plenty to look at for the day out whether you are Scots or not).

Agreed. Nasty mean minded one-post gossip troll at the best.

A year or two ago our Nikon D50 took a fall, dropped about three metres and bounced. The fall broke a big chunk out of the bottom corner of the casing. All the wiring and works were visible, so we patched it up with band-aids and duct-tape to keep the dust out and kept shooting as Nikons are supposed to be tough. It has continued to work beautifully, we did get a D80 as a replacement but have kept using the D50. Last Wednesday at the Royal Melbourne Horse Show it finally spat the dummy, and has put a thin red line into every shot. (It shows on the handler's right leg, full length of the trousers). Looks like it will have to go in to Shutter Box for repair after all - can't complain though. I'm just assuming this is the eventual result of damage from the fall, be interesting to know whether it is. A photographer at Camera Club suggested the memory card could be faulty rather than the camera: has anyone experienced anything similar?

Replies are all good, but missing your main requirement being action shots. All point-and-shoot and compact cameras have shutter lag. So you press the shutter, there is a pause while the separate viewfinder talks to the lens, and the moment is lost. You might get a fantastic shot anyway, but it will not be the one you "thought" you took with a compact, ever. DSLR cameras don't have that roundabout communication within them, so they do not have shutter-lag. When you click is what you get. Maybe not so critical for head-on shots as the dog is still in the frame (just not in the focus area you wanted). It is a huge difference in side-on shots, you might need to pan the camera with the dog to keep it in the frame with a compact. Whether you are trying to capture a full extension of stride or a compressed hind-legs-forward shot, a point-and-shoot disadvantages you. A DSLR will give you a more consistant result with action shots, with less guess-work. We have two good compacts, Lumix and Konica Minolta, lovely for portraits and flowers, but not for running/jumping subjects. Some of the ebay shops are quite okay: PhotoBuff stocks Nikon and Canon at reasonable prices with excellent follow-up service (for Nikon anyway) and you can pick up from them (Narre Warren area).

There is no issue with orders going through Smugmug, I know people here have ordered and been pleased with the result and quick service to Australia. The real problem if we relied on the Pro account to generate orders, is that they would not happen. Australians aren't confident putting in an order to overseas, not interested in thinking about Exchange Rates, and have a concern about how well photographs (especially the bigger enlargements) are packed for overseas posting. So - very few orders. We took off the shopping-cart facility 3-4 years ago, and replaced it with our own email and phone contact Nos. Works fine for us. We do have all of our printing done at a Pro-lab though, there are too many horror stories of home-printing jobs, especially ink-jet, not lasting as well as their press claims, particularly bubbling or rippling a few years after they are (professionally) framed. Having said that, we do have a sub-dye printer for small prints, but still prefer to use a Pro-lab for orders.

Hi Law, if you have Sunday 30 March free, come see the Flyball at the Ringwood Highland Games (in Ringwood of course, Jubilee Park on Gardini Ave). It's a good comp, and the Highland dancing and pipe and drum bands will be there all day so there's something else to watch besides the flyball dogs. If you wanted to see a flyball demonstration, there will be one at the RSPCA Open Day on Sunday 16 March - probably also agility and obedience demonstrations on as well - that's at RSPCA Headquarters on Burwood Highway, (corner of Middleborough Rd) East Burwood. And a flyball demo at Stonnington Pets Day (Malvern) on Sat 15th, but that's more Central than Eastern. The demos are just a couple of half-hours through the day: but the Ringwood comp will run non-stop from about 9 til 4.00.

How is the search for the website going? A basic site on Smugmug is $US40 a year - a big plus is that it is pop-up and advertisement free so does not insult people's intelligence with tacky banners of 'junk-mail' - I think having an ads-free website is worth the few dollars. They do free trial for two weeks so you can see how you like it before joining. Also has a good helpful forum covering general photography. If it works for you, and you decide later to upgrade to a professional site, that is about $120/150 a year. P-base is about the same cost I think: quite a few Dolers use either Smugmug or P-base sites (or both). With Smugmug, if you like it but don't wish to appear to your clients to be part of a 'photo hosting' site, you can even use your own website address, customise the look of it if you wish (but not necessary) and hide the fact that it is a Smugmug site. .... Bridgie Cat said "is a photography website dif to a usual website?" .... The main differences are the number of photographs you can put on the site, and making it easy for your clients/friends to look at them. The usual website is so limited that you wouldn't bother: just a few images and it is full, and difficult to work through. With a good photo-hosting website it will carry as many shots as you like to put there, with galleries for public viewing, or private galleries that only the dog owner, wedding party, whoever you choose, can access by password. Flickr would also be worth looking at to compare cost and service.

Probably (again) will not enter. I don't even enter Club competitions, but definitely agree the catalogues are beautiful, it would be worth entering just to get a copy.

I wish!!! That's my ultimate dream camera, unless you'd count the Hasselblad 32mp digital back, which is cloud cuckoo land at close to $40,000. I'd settle for the D3 very happily for now and ever.

Give yourself plenty of time, don't be impatient with yourself or the subjects. What lens are you using? If it is a zoom lens, don't go out to the extreme of the zoom, that is usually the softest result, so back it off a little from being zoomed right out. Do you have any large fluffy dog toys? Do some practice shots with varied settings on a toy dog. The results will tell you how your focus is going, how your backgrounds are going etc without stressing your dogs or boring them witless. Don't give up on using a tripod or monopod because you're not comfortable with them. Persevere and it becomes more second nature. The sharpness of your "tripod" shots will tell you whether your "hand-held" shots are honestly cutting it or not. It's always good doing portraits even of your own dogs if someone can help handling the dog, getting the expression you'd like etc so you can concentrate on the photography. When you post some of your portraits, let's know what settings you used.

Read the thread lower down on a good photography book. Find a copy of "Understanding Exposure". Grab a copy and read it, and all will become clear. Seriously, a lot of what a good image is about is balancing the lights and darks. That's why only capable photographers do weddings, where the dark suit of the groom, the white bridal gown, and the light or dark (in church) background need to be shown in detail, without over-blowing highlights. It is an excellent book and puts it all down very understandably. A look at this book is worth a hundred fuzzy explanations on a forum. You don't need an expensive dslr outfit to make exposure work for you: the most basic point-and-shoot cameras still use the same principles. (I couldn't connect to your Smugmug gallery - are you still there?)

We've used Smugmug for a few years now. We don't sell prints through the site, just have our contact details there, so if people wish to buy prints they can phone or email and we fill the order from home. Our printing is all done by good pro labs, (Works or Cam House). What Tess32 has said re Smugmug is pretty right. We don't really use it as a back-up, keep our back-ups on drives, so sometimes upload at lower quality to Smugmug because it is quicker, depends on the gallery. Watermark is easy to apply: the Smugmug default is one word "PROOF" across image. If you wish to put a totally personalised watermark on, they have an easy tutorial to create one for yourself. But if anyone really wants to steal an image, neither watermarking nor right-click-protect will stop them. Red Bubble is too 'different' to compare. My Red Bubble has only a few shots, just opened to create a presence in case I wished to 'get serious' selling on Red Bubble, but have not taken it further. Smugmug still generates our work - but you need to let people know it is there.

Top choice, that book has helped so many people to get started right. And good flickr pages, you have to be pleased with camera - and yourself. Have you looked at the recommended Scott Kelby books yet, they are also the best (that is, I agree with a few other people here who also think so).

Yes and no. It is the equivalent focal length of a 28mm lens on a 35mil film SLR which is "the standard". Mixing old-speak and new-speak can be confusing, it's like trying to compare pounds/shillings/pence with dollars/cents, then using a formula to factor in some inflation. It's a nice problem to have isn't it. I'd like something wider angle than the Nikon 18-70 I use for landscape type shots. Looking now at the Sigma 10-20 but hard to justify almost $1000 if it does not get a lot of use. Nikon would be $2,500 so it will be Sigma if anything (tried a Tokina and Tamron in that range but the Sigma seems the best of them).

Yes, thanks for suggestion, - I do keep up with whatever is written on it wherever. I tried FSO with Frodo for a few months, it didn't seem to make a difference one way or the other. Now sticking to fish/fish oils as a food supplement, and keeping him off beef/red-meats, with a chicken based diet in general. Apparently once the virus is in the system it is there for life, and is in general life-shortening. I was lucky he didn't have any immunity reactions or shut-downs with his recent dog-attack injuries, he has bounced back from punctured lungs incredibly but there are no guarantees.

Belijae I don't like to sound doomy-gloomy, but a second opinion fairly soon might not be a bad idea. Is "foot fungus" common or well known: sounds strange. One of my dogs had flaky nails, vet didn't seem concerned but problem continued and I luckily changed vets. And he did test positive to Lupoid, which is a horrendous immune disorder as Jag and PoodleFan mentioned. It is worth doing a google for Lupoid and reading some of the research or lack of it. Some vets have never heard of it which I find hard to take as it nearly killed my dog, and he will never fully recover. Melbourne Uni has the best research on it in Australia.

Mum had a Tibetan Spaniel a few years ago, we didn't do lure coursing with her, didn't know about it, but I think she would have been too sooky to run, she came from an over-sheltered confined background and was very clingy but I'm sure that's not typical. A little rescue fellow we have now is (possibly) a Pom cross Sheltie. He's not over-keen on lure coursing, tends to lose interest pretty quickly: although he totally loves flyball training, so that could be another thought for any small dog with a good turn of speed. Here's young Rheneas at lure coursing yesterday at KCC Park (Melbourne).

It is worth while looking in Borders or larger bookshop, find a basic guide book on Elements for the release you have. They are illustrated, step-by-step, and take you through all the things you'd like to do. Easier to work with a text-book beside you than to keep flicking back and forth on-screen to forum advice.

First be glad you have such a great gift. It is a very very very good camera. (Did you choose it or was it picked for you?) Next read the instruction book from start to finish. Try to pick up a basic book on photography. If possible join a local camera club in the new year, beginners are welcome, the courses they offer are the cheapest (generally free) and geared to explaining basic principles. It's not much point taking advice on the settings to photograph dogs, or scenery, or architecture as one setting depends on another, which depends on another, and the light dictates which proportion to use them in. Not complicated, but until you pick up on the relationship between shutter speed, lens aperture, and 'ISO' you won't have control over depth of focus or how to catch a moving object the way you wish to. It is worth taking the time to learn, as they say "an ounce of theory is worth a pound of practice". For photographing your dogs, keep the background clean. No garden hoses or dead pot-plants, no trees growing out of its head, no footpaths or skirting boards cutting it in half. Learn to use the tripod, feels awkward at first, persevere. You'll soon progress from 'automatic' to manual settings as you work out what effect they have.

Yes mostly it is just insurance/legal. The legal people act on behalf of the insurance Co., to get them out of paying big compensation to people with, err, Mediterranean Back. Or RSI - all those suspicious hairdressing apprentices with stuffed up hands and wrists. One of my apprentice friends was followed for days til they got a shot of her using her hand - taking the petrol cap off her car and filling the tank. It backfired on them because the shots also showed she needed to use her elbow for extra leverage. 'Domestics' work used to be a big part of it but not now the divorce laws have changed it's not much of an issue. They'll surely recommend a camera/lens at the course. Sometimes a big lens from a distance can be more obvious and in-the-face than just a little tourist pocket camera from a bit closer up. Household accidents also required photos as evidence when I worked for a law firm in Melb, they'd sometimes need a shot of the ladder someone had fallen from or broken roof tiles or whatever - think one of the solicitors used to pop by the client's house to do that. Most DSLR cameras are good these days, I wouldn't buy anything from an outfit called Insane Mobile that has no stock but just imports to order, but that's just me. The Canon is fine, though my personal choice in that price range would be the Nikon D40x. You could find a grey-market service problem with these imports, much better to deal with someone like PhotoBuff who is really reliable with insurance claims and service. He has the Canon at $759 and the Nikon at $740 (or $1100 with the two lenses). He keeps a good stock and supplies Australia-wide. Much cheaper than shop-front franchise camera stores.

Take care Midol, stalkers can end up in trouble even when they think they are legal.... even insurance stalks against disability claimants can be dangerous ground (or an ethics minefield).

I think everyone there had a camera, yes I was one of them. Got some lovely shots of Santa but can't put them here as I didn't think to get permission from parents (let alone Santa). Same with the fancy dress entries. Do you know the days/times puppy classes will be held before February, I'll still try to get along for puppy shots. And yes Nat, you saw right through me.