[Dave Hancox]

Great Dave. I certainly like mine . I got Tamron AF70-300mm F4-5.6 Lens which is also LD Macro 1:2 for £99.00 off e-bay and you can pick up remote cablefor a couple of quid off e-bay as well for the bulb setting. [y]

[admin]

What batteries do you use Dave? I see from the manual it suggests CR-V3 lithium batteries (it's 2 AA cells together) but all of the CR-V3's I can find have the same polarity at the top:- ++ and -- at the bottom. When looking in the camera manual it says they must be installed +-+- which would be impossible with the CR-V3's???!!!

http://www.amazon.co...2641254-0487907

[Dave Hancox]

I've been using Uniross, and Energiser 2500ma Batts carry two sets although I have had over 100 pics on one set but that depends on the conditions and settings you use. Anyone else got info on the best batts for cameras? Kodak do CRV3 with - + at the top if that helps my Z740 uses it.

[admin]

Cheers Dave. I flattened a new set of Duracell M3's yesterday with approx 20 shots and lots of fiddling with menus etc. Currently charging up some Panasonic 1600mah ni-mh atm. If I get 50 shots out of them i'll be happy :)

[admin]

Just a couple of brilliant offers i've seen

Pentax K110 entry level 6.1mp DSLR with lens kit £229.87 http://www.currys.co...gory_oid=-30999

And the Olympus E400 10mp with lens kit for £299.00 http://www.currys.co...gory_oid=-30999

[markh]

Just a heads up as I'm going 'live' on the comp soon Win a DSLR camera

You never know ;)

I'll drop it in the CSOUK's if thats OK?

Mark

[Dave Hancox]

Infrared Filters. I am thinking about getting an Infrared filter for my Pentax K100D. I like the results I've seen on some of the websites I've looked at. Does anyone here use this type of filter?

Are they used in any type of weather photography?

Thanks

[Andy Ball]

Dave you have to be careful with this on DSLR's becuase most have an already present filter on the sensor with renders them useless for this type of photography. one thing you can try is (in the dark) get a remote point it at the camera with button depressed do a long time exposure and see if you can see the beam, if so then you can use infrared filters, if you carnt see it then the camera is blocking it out.

[Raindrop]

Hi, I hope I'm writing this in the right place - apologies if not! I was wondering if I could get some basic advice.. I've recently got a new camera, kindly donated to me by a friend, and I've been playing about for a few weeks, but however beautiful the sunsets, my pictures just look flat! I'm always in awe of some of the pictures I've seen on this site - the colours and the depth is amazing on some of them, and i want to acheive this! Is there something basic i'm doing wrong? My camera is a Nikon Coolpix5700 and the things i generally love taking pictures of are sunsets, sunrises and generally beautiful skies and scenery. At the mo my pics look dull and far too 2D! I have so little knowledge, that it is most likely to be something very basic that i'm doing wrong/not doing, so please feel free to be as patronising as you like! :) I hope this makes some sense...? Thanks.

[Howard Kirby]

Good question. If possible take the photos on manual settings and reduce the aperture (increase the f number) to, say 4.5, 5, or 5.6. Maybe even more if its a really bright sunset. Then reduce the shutter speed to about 1/300th. You should get more depth. It sounds like you are taking photos at a very high shutter speed with a large aperture. This would give you very flat looking photos.

[Andy Ball]

Yes indeed a good way to deepen colours and provide good contrast is to lower the f-stop (i.e use a higher f number), also for the brighter sunsets use a lower iso rating to reduce flaring.

[pault]

I agree with Howard (and he should know judging by the stunning landscapes he produces).

It is a good way to learn, if your camera has manual control. It also exploits one of the benefits of digital i.e. you take loads of shots at differing exposures and find out what works.

As a quick fix, if your camera has an aperture priority mode, you can use that and 'force' it to use a smaller aperture.

If you mean your pictures lack the 'pop' of some on here, then it is a different matter. Exposure is only one part. Composition is king, followed by lots of other things like tonal balance, saturation, white balance, dynamic range and post processing skills. It is a steep learning curve which you never get to the top of!

I am sure others on here will give some good tips.

[Raindrop]

Thanks so much for the advice, going to try playing with these things tomorrow and see if things have improved... It's so frustrating when what you see is incredible, but the photograph looks bland! Thanks again!

[Howard Kirby]

Winso	Posted 18/11/2007 00:18 (#270413) Subject: Photoshop
Offline Location: South Norfolk	Sorry no photos here, just questions! I've decided its time I invested in some decent editing software, Paint.NET which I use at the moment is very good for a free program but I'm finding it a bit limiting these days and I really need something with a decent mask function amongst a lot of other things. I know a fair few people on here use photoshop but what version? I don't have a lot of money at the moment so am looking at buying Photoshop Elements possibly, just wondering if anyone else uses it and what sort of depth of functionality it has? ----- Website coming soon.....
Dave Clarke	Posted 18/11/2007 00:22 (#270416 - in reply to #270413) Subject: Re: Photoshop
Offline Manager Location: East London	Hi Chris, I use Photoshop CS3 Extended, i've had it a few months now and it is good, but I think i'll still be learning when i'm 90! The program is huge with literally tons of features (That i'll probably never use!) ----- Dave Clarke UKww Manager (Technical & Forums) -
StephenS	Posted 18/11/2007 03:04 (#270436 - in reply to #270413) Subject: Re: Photoshop
Offline UKww Editor Location: Bath	Chris, I use Photoshop on a Mac (v7.0, quite elderly now but it does what I want; it's broadly the same as the PC version and, as Dave says, you're always finding new features). It depends what you want to do, but Photoshop Elements is fine if limited... you might want to consider the DTP and image editing suite available from Serif, which has a lot of features for the money... and if you want to avoid paying altogether, try Irfanview or the Opensource package The Gimp. The last two are pretty good: certainly worth downloading and evaluating for free, at any rate. Irfanview is more of an image viewer with some decent optimisation tools, The Gimp is a fully-fledged image editor. You get what you pay for, in the final analysis: Adobe software is the best, in my view. and despite the daunting price tag, it's worth the investment if you can afford it. I bought Photoshop and Illustrator in about 2001/2 and I've felt no need to pay for new versions yet. I just wish I'd bought InDesign as well! -----
Paul Corfield	Posted 18/11/2007 09:36 (#270488 - in reply to #270413) Subject: RE: Photoshop
Online Location: Poole, Dorset.	I use Photoshop CS2 99% of the time. Irfanview is ok for the basics but it doesn't handle masking. GIMP is free but I hate the layout compared to Photoshop. You can download a free trial of Photoshop Elements to see if it will do what you want it to with regards to masking. There's also many free plug-ins you can download to add extra masking functions if yo need them. Look around the web for tutorials too. Paul. ----- Represented by http://washingtongreen.co.uk

[Howard Kirby]

I've moved the above to here to keep it tidy. Please continue below :)

[Howard Kirby]

Mason	Posted 18/11/2007 09:45 (#270499 - in reply to #270488) Subject: RE: Photoshop
Offline Manager Location: Machynlleth, Mid Wales	I know it's a bit naughty but ask around your mates to see if anyone's bought a scanner or digital camera lately - not infrequently these come bundled with Photoshop Elements, which has pretty much everything that most photographers need Cheers - John ----- www.geologywales.co.uk/storms Director, TORRO Extreme Rainfall Events Division

[4wd]

I have elements 2 which came with my 300D - and I've also got a copy of photoshop CS8.
They are OK, but I still prefer Gimp in 90% of cases.
This is opensource software (i.e it's free!) from www.gimp.org

You must install the GTK runtime environment' before the main program.
Also the help section is a separate download.

[muymalestado]

Oh, and raindrop, if you're still listening, do post some pics we can look at.>>Phil

[Raindrop]

Thanks, will do... as soon as I take something I'm proud of! Still erring on the side of blandness at the moment, but I guess these things do take time... :)

[Dave Hancox]

Put some of the links together supplied by members and added a couple.

PHOTOGRAPHY LINKS

 Lightning Photography

---

http://www.weatherscapes.com/techniques.php?cat=lightning&page=lightning

http://www.extremeinstability.com/misc07-3-10.htm

http://www.gographics.com/lightning/

http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/ltgph.html

http://wvlightning.com/

http://www.lightningphotography.com/tips.html

General Weather Photography

---

 

http://www.weatherscapes.com/index.php

http://www.picturecorrect.com/photographytips/weather_conditions_photography_techniques.htm

http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/take_better_photos/tips/rainy_day_photos.htm

http://www.extremeinstability.com/misc07-1-26.htm

Camera Reviews

---

 

http://www.dpreview.com/

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/digitalcameras/

http://www.ukdigitalcamerareviews.co.uk/

Camera Edit Software

---

 

http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

http://www.download.com/Digital-Photography/2001-2204_4-0.html?tag=...

http://www.photo-freeware.net/

 

Video Edit Software

---

 

http://www.download.com/EZV-Video-Capture/3000-2169_4-10342316.html...

http://www.download....ge-Burn-Stud...