EdwardL

Congratulations!! Dog bowl view point well captured

Many congratulations and a great capture

Many congratulations, Chris and enjoy your holiday

I was thinking more about the softboxes - whether the material would cover the box properly without light creep and whether they'd fold up again then undo again without breaking or tearing - yes, the stands too - the cheapie I've recommended ... the plastic on one of mine has cracked already and I'm pretty careful with my equipment but my softbox is fine still

I did see that but wondered how long it might last Or not last

A fair few models out there but (again in my opinion) the 568(?) is probably the best to go for as it has HSS capabilities. And the 460 I bought as my first is now a spare - just not powerful enough really and rather basic. I'll look forward to some results!

I'm past the beginner stage now but you should have seen all the questions I used to ask about this area of photography. I can only speak from a Canon angle but 98% of the time there is no difference. The 2% is when you're using it a fair amount and sometimes it doesn't fire. So if you're having a charity evening and photographing a series of people over an hour or so it might not fire five times or so - does depend on batteries of course. As to specification and capabilities there is near enough no difference between Yongnuo and propriety(?) brands - apart from the price. I think a Canon flash gun is £300 or something and the Yongnuo's under £100 - a big difference for that 2% in my book. I know of a fair few professional photographers who use these Yongnuo's much of the time. In my humble opinion (The softboxes fold to nothing, up a little like children's play tents) I do so enjoy my macro lens though - I don't envy you this decision as macro photography is very rewarding when you get a good shot - from personal experience and not knowing any better that Sigma lens is super value. I enjoyed this link: http://www.techradar.com/news/photography-video-capture/cameras/best-macro-lens-8-tested-1041461

If me I'd go for some flash equipment - Yongnuo is great value and you could buy a reasonable flash gun, pair of triggers, light stand, softbox and umbrella for £175 ish including postage. Why this? It opens up a totally different world. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yongnuo-YN568EX-YN-568EX-TTL-High-Speed-Flash-Speedlite-for-Nikon-D5200-D5000-/150957482335?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2325c4615f - £65 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Yongnuo-RF-603-II-wireless-flash-trigger-Nikon-Camera-N1-for-D200-D300-D300S-/160932780211?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item25785758b3 - £24 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002W9G8VM?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00 - £44 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0065245B2?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00 - £6 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006VTJQT0?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00 - £7 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0011363NS?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00 - £15 Total £161 plus postage I have two pairs of triggers and normally use three of them. One on camera, one in my hand and one on the main light. I have a proper studio light but speedlites give you so much flexibility and are very portable. You might need to check compatibility with your camera on the triggers and speedlite. I know what to purchase for my camera but it's a different make. Triggers act as transmitters and receivers and the 603's are the basic ones. If you have a studio you might want a better specification but to get you going these are very good. You don't HAVE to have them but like the speedlites, they open up a new world with off camera flash, group shots with you in them and without having to run back to the camera to set the timer again. Alternatively, and this was difficult to find as they're popular lenses: http://www.camerajungle.co.uk/item/203607/sigma-105mm-f28-ex-dg-macro-nikon-fit-nikon-f-mount-prime-lens.html - £200 - to use it successfully it is sensible to use flash lighting though to freeze the subject (and blind it too )

That was testing! I'm away on holiday for a week (yayy!!) but should be back on Sunday 5th July. House is occupied complete with ferocious guard dogs in case anyone's wondering lol [Edit - forgot to say I took it this afternoon (25th June 2015)]

LOL - Brilliant!! Well found and thank you for sharing

Hello and a warm welcome. I'm new too and can confirm the friendliness

An excellent photograph and from a wonderful set. Many congratulations, Ryewolf, and good choosing too BP.

expensive

Many congratulations, Geoff and well deserved

Taken today (Sat 20th June 2015) - photographed a couple of lovely, old, pale blue Rolls Royces too that went past all dressed up for a wedding

Not sure I've had one but did ask for one recently at my first engagement shoot - oops - didn't make the grade!! On a brighter note, years ago at our wedding I asked the photographer to take a photo of all the umbrellas at the entrance to the marquee - and the photo went into our album It thrashed it down for 95% of the day and as soon as we saw the 50+ umbrellas we knew we had to have a photo of them - looked like bats in the belfry

A Thousand Years by Christina Perri - who on earth is she? (I went to the youtube link and it's under the description) Edit - meant to say, some great photos in there - nice find, Fuji

Thank you - just noticed earlier that there's someone else who's just joined and she's from the Malverns too

Enjoying these photos - great puffin shot, Chrissy. Nice capture, RW and a well exposed shot too - presumably a duckling at the end of its days?

To answer your questions directly: 1. I run my own (quite new) photography business and have my own website so it's not something I'd do. 2. Features - something I insisted on when sorting out my website was an "engine" that brings up photographs really quickly - I hate waiting for image downloads. 3. I don't use GPS and if I were to, it would be for personal photography and probably when abroad so when I got back I might be able to find out where I'd been 4. 50%? I think so. I sell images (prints, mugs, etc) off my site and after all the costs I achieve around 50% although it does depend on the product and markup I've chosen. Always exciting and sometimes nerve wracking setting up a new venture - best of luck!!

Good choice and well done, Paul - well deserved!

​I think that happens with Photoshop Elements where you need to use Save Image As jpg as opposed to save for web - something like that. There are options in Photoshop and Lightroom to keep or strip the data though in the Save for Web(PS)/Export(LR) procedures. Humans, of course, do enter the equation too

Hope I've done this correctly! (13:52pm) on 12/06/2015

Another thread prompted me to post this so rather than taking that thread off topic I thought I'd pop this up separately. For those who don't know, when your camera or phone takes a photograph all sorts of data is captured as well as your (superb!) image. This is called exif data and contains information such as camera model, lens, location sometimes, time, date, aperture and so on. Your web browser can sometimes have the ability to have an add-on to read the basic data purely by hovering your mouse over the photograph. It tends to work on attachments only and not linked photographs. Firefox have exify as their tool (I think) and Google's Chrome has a similar one. Example below uses Google's version. Hope this might interest some people - I use the exif data to help learn how some photographs are taken but it's useful for competitions too in order to check photograph dates - assuming, of course, the camera's clock is correct Photo without an exif viewer: And with an exif viewer:

Many congratulations, Phoenix!