Black Pearl

I'm thinking of simplifying my photography as I've lost interest in complicated, do everything, huge, heavy cameras and want to get back to the joy of actually taking pictures. I've talked about it before but I am closer than ever to getting shot of all the Nikon gear and getting a Fuji X camera. To be honest it will come down to money as I can't justify spending a lot of cash but if possible I should end the year with new, smaller, lighter and simpler camera system that I hope will put the joy back into taking pictures. I spent a good few years with a Contax G system so I know I can survive without an SLR. On top of the practicalities there is the fact that the X system is jaw droppingly beautiful and the sensor will wipe the floor with just about any DSLR on the market: Fingers crossed as they say.

Sorry for posting this a day late but I've been suffering from a cocktail of medieval diseases all week which modern antibiotics have so far failed spectacularly to beat. Loads of good images to look through and this being the last POTW of the year I wanted it to count. There is one person who helps make this place tic, who posts a range of images from the simple and fun to those that make you want to have them framed and its one of theirs that I'm going with for my choice. It could have been one of a few posted this week but this stood out and stuck in my mind: Now that is a bloody good shot. No ifs, no buts its brilliant. I love the light, I love the expression, the exposure is perfect and I love that its in monochrome. Everything about it is 'just right' Fuji I salute you! Original thread -

Best crop sensor on the market, just wish I could shoe-horn one into my D300s body.

Play with the grouping of focus points, gives a little more leeway than a single point but stops the camera hunting as much.

I've just realised I'm not actually getting anything on Christmas day. I asked everyone for money so I could buy a new watch - which I've got - and so there's now't under the tree for me to open tomorrow. :crybaby:

Perfect.

Started life as an iPhone only app then went to Android because of the demand. It has tens of millions of users so FB need to be careful what they do or that investment will vanish.

It was started by an independent team then FaceBook bought it earlier in the year for $1b - at a guess they're desperate to see some return for all that cash. I'm not going to knee-jerk react to their changes but will wait to see what the outcome is before Jan16th. If they look like they're going to try and sell images on (doesn't look that way as of now) I'll be tempted to pull the account but otherwise I'm happy to continue using one of the very best apps on the iPhone and THE best image sharing app.

For crying out loud! Facebook is a fun way of sharing stuff with friends and not an evil monster with wolves and demons hiding in every dark corner. If you don't want to use it don't but leave others who do alone, we're not all daft enough to get caught with a simple email scam and we're quite capable of controlling what we put online.

Saw that - I'll kill my account if they go ahead with the changes but I've a feeling they might back down as there's been an outcry from every user, tech source and news programme.

Ooo! Thats a nice surprise - thanks very much. A good advert for always having a camera (the iPhone in this case) handy for that one off moment. Robin

I find Facebook very useful and jolly good fun. I've loads of people I know through the shop that while I may not be actual friends with I like to keep in touch with and FB is the easiest way to do it. BT is very good at filtering spam so I'm fairly safe in that respect plus Apple products are still relatively secure so I've little to worry about online.

On a side note - I REALLY want one of the new Mondeo's....thats essentially what that yank thing is.....when they launch next year as they look amazing.

Shouldn't make it too small and it will make Photoshop etc sing as you'll get extra image space. Windows 8 is here to stay and to be fair if you just need it to switch on and off then run a few programmes it doesn't really matter what OS you use. Its when you start to fiddle with settings that it gets confusing. Go look at them would be my advice as the overall build, keyboard feel, trackpad etc is important but the spec of your first one looks light for the money. I'd definitely want dedicated graphics for photography and if you're going to keep it years the fastest chip going will help it run future programmes which will get heavier and heavier. Robin

Core i7 Massive NVIDIA Graphics Full HD Bit more but you might get a trade-in. http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-n56vz-s4242-15-6-laptop-17056513-pdt.html

Built in graphics and it doesn't have a full HD screen? Bare with me while I go hunt.....

Fantastic to see a company willing to pay for real photography and artistic ability. http://www.petapixel.com/2012/11/06/ford-blends-cars-into-backgrounds-using-paint-instead-of-photoshop/

Great choice it's a lovely, peaceful scene and it comes across that way in the picture.

I've had to kick mine of the Mac to post this.

Thats my new fav game.

41 and suddenly I'm not feeling so old.

The problem here isn't so much the write speed of the card or camera, my D300s will take a few seconds to write a RAW file, but it has a big enough buffer to allow it to continue shooting while it deals with the previous files. Bridge cameras and compacts in general lack this large buffer so all suffer the same back-log when dealing with big files. I suppose it all comes down to compromises. A bridge camera is attractive because it offers a fantastic lens range, good manual control, a solid user experience and more than acceptable results - for an excellent price. Start building in more high speed RAM and the complex processors to deal with it and the cost would go up. Back to cards and there speed, their cost and need for them given a particular camera then also remember that some more expensive cards (the ones with write speeds you may not need) are better built and are more reliable. Top end cards have very complex control chips that are able to deal with memory issues and are far less likely to corrupt data - they are also easier to recover damaged data from if things do go horribly wrong.

@NikonNutter

Tee Hee Hee http://www.youtube.c...heCameraStoreTV

I've dozens of different styles, Most matched to the image rather than the house decor.