Chippy

Did he/she fail by any chance??? Glad your ok though !

In a bid to actually get off my butt every now and then and get out there and take some pics, I've decided to make an effort to go to at least one tourist attraction (castles, etc) per month for the rest of the year to build up a nice stock collection. I took a trip to "the german underground hospital" on Wednesday. The WWII hospital is built underground in tunnels, dug by POW's and labourers some 65 years ago for use as a german feild hospital. It's now a tourist attraction and explains what island life was like under German occupation. Anyhow, here's a few of the pics (all tripod mounted long exposures):- The rest of the pics are hre:- HO8

Doesn't the 300D take Compact Flash Cards?

Ah, you'll be out before you know it. I was lucky in that when I moved from my 1D MkII the menus and buttons were identical so it was an easy swap. Any questions let me know as I also have the magic lantern guide book for it! The nice postman brought me a shiny new tripod and head this morning, so itching to get out and take soem shots!

Good on ya. When is the Stork delivering the new baby or he/she already arrived?

Think the Mrs might have something to say about that!!

Only trouble with that is that it's hard (without loads of PS work) to get rid of the blu-tac holding the ring, plus it gets rid of the scuffs and scratches too!

My new Sigma 150mm Macro arrived today. A friend has asked me to do some Jewellry pics for him, so I thought I'd have a test shoot. Not too sure whether I like this or not - what do you lot think?:-

I'm with Gillies on using the "wet" method to clean, used that way for many years without problem. I've had no hesitation swabbing my ultra expensive 1Ds sensor this way. One of the biggest risks is no so much scratching the sensor cover, it's making sure that the shutter doesn't come down whilst the swab is inside the chamber!!! I'd be interested to hear from the 400D owners to see if their any dust system works well or not?

from what i've heard you cant go too far wrong with that one! Used the Nikon 12-24mm before but wasnt that impressed with it, but maybe i had a bad copy.

I bought a Sony N1 for use when I cant take my DSLR. 8megapixels, Carl Zeiss Lens, touchscreen etc It's been a great little camera, but I suspect that there's loads of good cameras in that price bracket!

That's actually a wall, even though it looks like the floor. Actually the 1st is my fave........kind of an opposite.....underground, but a huge building which is obviously above ground!!

would have been better with a polariser though...nice deep blue sky, but i was expecting snow at the time!!

I was in Canary Wharf for an interview last thursday and took the camera along in case I had some spare time. Should have really taken a polariser along as well, but here's a few of my efforts:-

I;m here!! Ummm..........how about "Cold"?

I prefre the Annsmanns......chargable in 30 mins and last AGES!

17-40 gets my vote, BUT..... If I had an EF-S body and needed the extra range in one package then the 17-85 would probably win (and then stick the £100 saved towards a Sigma 10-22mm )

Thanks everyone. HB - I think it was my trusty 17-40mm F4 again! No filters or anything but it's a HDR image created with a single RAW file, processed to give -2, zero and +2 stops exposure TIFF's and then merged in Photomatix Pro.

I've always used Warehouse Express. Fast delivery and always seemed like pretty good prices.

Only trouble with the 70-200 is that it's not a "true" macro lens. Yes, it lets you focus closer than a standard lens, but only gives 1/3rd lifesize magnification, compared to full 1:1 magnification of a pure macro. They're a good option if you only occasionally need close up focusing though. My Canon 24-105 does "macro" and a fag packet fills the frame, but for anything tiny - bugs, small jewellery and stuff, a proper macro is the way to go. I posted some pics recently with it which were at the lenses "macro" setting.

Yeah, that's the one. Tamron's are meant to be pretty good too.

The older (non-VR) Nikon 105mm is very good - lots of samples in the animals section of my wesbite. But the Sigma 105mm and 150mm both get excellent reviews. I've got the Sigma 150mm on my "next lens" list!

I'll be honest with you - the ones I've looked at look pretty good!!!!

If i get chance I'll write something up. Studio flash is quite expensive though - £300+, but you can get cheaper tungsten lights for less. A good budget option is to get a couple of desk lamps with the highest wattage bulbs that they take. Take pics in RAW mode so that you can set the white balance afterwards (the tungsten white balance rarely gives the correct white balance), and move the lights about for the right effect. You'll need to use a tripod as the exposure times will make hand holding impossible. A simply sheet of plain paper is all that's needed for a background, even a pillow case or something similar works well too.

You think that Garlic's big? You should see the size of that watch LOL Full Frame:- Basically relates to the size of the sensor in a DSLR. A "full frame" (FF) camera uses a sensor the same size as a 35mm film frame (hence the name full frame). It's 36 x 24mm (i think). It has no multiplying factor when using lenses, so a 24mm lens gives the same view on a FF DSLR as it would on a 35mm film camera. Cameras like the 400D use a 1.6x multiplier due to the smaller sensor so a 24mm lens gives the same "field of view" (note that it only changes the field of view it does not actually magnify the subject) as a 38mm lens on a FF DSLR or 35mm Camera. Not all non full frame sensors cameras are x1.6, nikons tend to be x1.5 and an EOS1D is x1.3. EF-S lenses are designed and will only work on canon x1.6 sized sensored cameras, they wont work on x1.3 or full frame bodies. "L" lenses:- are basically Canon "Professional" spec lenses. They use more expensive glass elements, such as Flourite as well as aspherical elements to produce better quality......all for a financial price of course! The "L" actually stands for Luxury. The also tend to be weatherproofed and built tougher to take the rigours of pro use. The background I used was simply a piece of A3 photopaper selotaped to a box and curved down to provide the back/bottom. If you've got the time and a broadband connection, here's a link to the full sized watch piccy - well worth saving and then taking a look in photoshop - try zooming in and see how much detail is in it....amazing! 6MB Watch pic