bugmeister

I think I may have some shots of this as well, there's ivy near here that's convered with bees and wasps in autumn

I use Photomatix Pro, but I believe there are some versions of Photoshop that have a built in HDR function (varying reports of quality and effectiveness) and I have no idea about othe software.

No argument there, although I go to enough NT places for the variety that it's worth a membership and it saves me a lot over a year (and some of them even have reasonably priced food and drink these days)

That's a bit of a blanket statement that I must disagree with. Tourists can be a pain, but only if they get in the way of the picture you want to take. Also who is to say that because a shot has been done before by hundreds of other people, you shouldn't take a similar one. Think of all the pictures of Bambergh castle, it's been shot and posted probably hundreds of thousands of times but if you don't take the picture, you have to rely on other people's memories and pictures. Additionally, the comment about avoiding National Trust is completely wrong. The houses may get boring and are probably not repeat material for most people, but the gardens, landscapes, lakes and wilder places which they manage are always changing through the year and there are many places that you can get time and pictures without the dreaded tourists if that's what you want. Quite a large chunk of the lake district is under their management if I remember correctly, and that isn't somewhere to avoid.

Well, there's a few National Trust places with gardens, although it may be getting a bit late in the year unless they have trees for autumnal colour.

I think this is quite difficult. We have done it a couple of times at the camera club and getting the quantity and price right are very tricky. It's easy to be left with unsold ones, and even choosing the subjects are a challenge because everyone has different tastes. (We went with local scenes and local history because it would have general appeal in the area and still ended up over ordering) I would also be very interested in hearing suggestions from other people, since the success of a calendar is only partially down to the content, it's also down the the production and marketing. If you've done it before, how did you do it and how did it go? Good, bad or indifferent?

Take a look at this page, Rob. Phil has put some useful info and tips on how to pose to the forum http://www.tipf.co.uk/index.php/topic/2022-image-posting-guidelines/

Hi Rob, and greetings from the other side of the county (I'm near Long Melford). Looking forward to seeing your work. You've obviously made the right choice by going for Canon (tongue in cheek to all the other makes) and you'll no doubt find someone here to assist with the techie side of things if needed.

The nearest I've found so far is Swindon, There is supposed to be one at Barry in south Wales but that's about it, so far ( and the south west doesn't seem to feature at all )

That looks like a grin of achievement. Shame about the clouds for the view, but they do provide a splendid sense of isolation and mystery

I'll try to update the events calendar nearer the time for each of these, but I've already run down a number of dates and events for those who like the 1940s events and the opportunity to photograph people in character (if you're very unlucky, you may find me at any of them within about 150 miles of Suffolk). I can't guarantee the size or content of most of these as yet, more info nearer the time, hopefully, as I hear from various people and scour the web And there's always the possibility of additions, cancellations or date changes April 12 Gosport, Hants April 20-21 Crich tramway museum, Matlock, Derbyshire May 4-5 Mid suffolk light railway May 17-18 Haworth, Yorks May 24-27 East Lancs Railway May31-June1 Muckleburgh, Weybourne, Norfolk June 7-8 Brighouse nr Halifax June 7-8 Stonham Barns Suffolk (new event, vintage festival) June 13-15 Great central railway, Loughborough June 22 Castle Bytham, Lincs July 5-6 Ingleton, North Yorks July 12-13 Thorpe Camp, Tattersall Thorpe, Lincs July 12-20 War & Peace show, Kent July 19-20 Woodhall Spa, Lincs Jully 26-27 Leyburn at war, Wensleydale rly, Yorks August 2-3 Mid Norfolk rly, Dereham, Norfolk Aug 9-10 Cleethorpes,, Lincs Aug 9-10 Crich tramway museum, Matlock, Derbyshire Aug 16-17 Lytham St Annes, Lancs Aug 23-25 Rauceby, Lincs Aug 24-25 N.Thoresby, Lincs Early sept - date to be confirmed - The victory show, Cosby, Leics Sep 13-14 Stoke Bruerne, Northants Sep 13-14 Swindon & Cricklade Sep 13-14 Wimpole hall, Cambs Sept 20-21 Sheringham (North Norfolk rly) Sept 20-21 Hughenden, Bucks Sep 27-28 Rufford Park, Notts

Well done on PotW Charlie, a worthy winner. Nice choice BP

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the mystart search engine and the associated toolbars are being flagged as malicious hijackers on a number of spyware forums If it has changed your default homepage then I'd suggest removing it, as that is one of the symptoms of an infection, it also sends all your queries to their own servers instead of through google as well as tracking your web movements. Of course this may be something quite different, but it rang a warning bell as I've seen something on these lines many times in my work on computer support.

Well done and well chosen

Greetings Paul and welcome, look forward to seeing your work

One very fortunate man to be where he was.

I'm not a great competition enterer, normally limited to club or interclub competitions. Regarding camera clubs, a few years ago, some of us in the village found a shared interest but we could only find clubs that were competition after competition after competition which wasn't for us. So we started our own club, regularly get 20-30 attendees and we are primarily trying to teach and to learn from the very basic ' what does this button do' to more advanced editing and stuff with guest speakers and practical nights. Maybe one or two competitions a year. And as for pictures... I have a few on display in the dragonfly centre at Wicken fen if that counts, the National trust and some event organisers have asked to see some from this years events, and I've been invited to shoot a 1940s musical show later in the year, with the pictures being used for publicity by the artistes.

Flowers Food (not one of my favourite subjects, i prefer eating to photographing) Experimentation with different lights - Candles - LED - Torch etc etc

There was an EOS100 film camera, released August 1991. The Canon Camera Museum is an interesting resource to find out more about any Canon camera http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/ Edit, just noticed I posted the top level link to the museum, where Chris posted to a specific page. ho hum

Greetings and welcome. Pull up a chair and get comfortable

A quick second thought on light.. take something to use as a reflector to bounce a bit of light back from the window, otherwise you may have extremely one-sided light and shadows which are sometimes not very flattering, although they are worth trying out for effect.

The big plus of the nifty fifty in a situation like this is the wide aperture which, at f1.8 will give you the shallow depth of field ideal for portraits. I would say to watch out that you don't get it too shallow and lose definition due to the curve of the bump. Whichever lens you use, take a series of pictures at different apertures so you're not relying on just one depth of field. (plus the nifty fifty is a relatively cheap lens especially for the job it does.) For portraits a lot of people will use an 85mm lens on a full frame camera and a 50mm lens will give about the same angle of view on a cropping sensor camera. A suggestion would be to get someone to stand/sit in the same position and try different setups, just to make sure you can get enough of the lady and bump into the camera field of view before the actual shoot. If you can't get far enough back, then you may need a wider lens although that may give distortion, or you may need to adjust the position she'll be in. As far as cliches.. nothing wrong with that at all in a situation like this. Ask her what she wants is the main suggestion though. one final thing... good luck with what is a very personal moment that they are asking to you record. Going by your work, you will do a sterling job.

Thank you so much Was definitely worth getting soggy for

Hi Dennis and welcome to the friendliest place around.

Just one? You rotter, that'll take some thinking about