Don't do many 'people' shots but quite like this one from Easter.

Thanks guys.

no takers? None of you use this type of rack?

jon1973 – Member

It took 25 minutes to fold a towel…

Don't be so negative. With years of research and billions of dollars they'll get it down to about 5 minutes.

By which time it will be cheaper than paying national insurance for someone to do it!

Osprey packs are awesome so I think the small Raptor would be the way forward. Does the 10 not compress down?

If it's a short ride I carry a Talon 4 belt pack with a bottle and pump on the bike. Snacks in hip pockets and holds windproof if you need it as well as tools lights etc. It's fine for cross country rides but not really for rocks stuff, bounces around too much.

Wingnut also very good but probably bigger than your Raptor in total.

Biketreks in Ambleside have the 18, 10 and 14 in stock as well as the 20 and 25l Mantas.

I've got the 1.9 170bhp Alfa GT (Cloverleaf in blue). It is not at all slow compared to my old 2.0TDI A3. It's much more engaging to drive but does understeer if you're really pushing corners (it's front wheel drive). The Q2 limited slip makes quite a difference here. I looked at the Brera but it's a little too small inside for my liking (similar to the TT). You can get a bike in ok with the seats down but there wasn't enough height in the boot for the pooch.

The A3 quattro had great traction but just felt detached. I think the older TT's suffered from this as well (according to a mate who drives one) but the new model is a different beast.

The Peugeot looks nice. Although I can't help thinking it's what you'd get if a TT humped a smart car (it's the silver roof struts).

What do I know, I bought an Alfa GT last weekend. It will probably break down (allegedly) but I love it already. Will fit bikes etc but it's not German (therefore has personality for all the flaws that that brings with it). Much more fun to drive than my old A3 quattro.

Look at the Oly e-pL1 it's the E-P1's newer and cheaper brother.

£500 ish for the body.

You don't need to spend that much for a DSLR. You can get an Oly E600 in PCworld/Currys for £330 with (very good) kit lens at the moment. Capable of wireless off camera flash which you might find useful.

I wouldn't spend more than £500 all in if you can help it. You won't notice the difference until you're pushing the boundaries of low light etc. You could also look second hand on talkphotography or ebay.

If you're not comfortable with the controls I think the EPL1 has a really good interface that will get you the images you want rather than having to learn masses of detail.

You don't need a hugely 'fast' lens to get good shots but you do want a sharp one. Fairly small close focusing will allow you to do close ups. You might also want to look at a decent flash for your product shots. Off camera flash will allow you to get different lighting angles and remove harsh shadows. But that might be a bit further down the line!

Take a look a the new Oly E-PL1. It's a micro 4/3rds and the software's been designed for people stepping up from compacts (you get previews of settings). Autofocus is not as fast as a DSLR but perfectly fast enough for product shoots and quicker than a compact. There are some great lenses available for u4/3 but you can also get adapters for many other types of lens.

Can be had for about £500 with lens. This is more than a low end DLSR but the compact size and ease of use more than make up for it in my view. You also get a decent video option if that's your thing.

Big bud seems to have modelled his tractor on his missus. Unfortunate.

The license problem is with the OS, not Memory Map. Unfortunately the OS don't see fit to sell you a perpetual license for the maps hence old maps don't work out of the box. I'm not against paying for the public sector to make maps available in a format not everyone would want (and therefore can't expect it to come out of tax funds) but I wish they would do it in a fair way.

zokes and el_boufador. Thanks for the kind comments on the last page (been offline for a while). I was quite pleased with the shot (so's the skier!).

Faststone is very good and free (assume you're on Windows). Get it here.

molgrips – Member
I feel like an outcast now, a rebel determined to swim against the flow..!

It's that approach to photography that leads to some of the best pictures in my view. Know the rules, bend the rules…experiment and see what happens.

Cards – put both in. Use CF as the main card though, they're much faster (XD is very slow) and go above 2GB (the largest size XD goes to). XD is a dying format but it is useful to have an extra 2GB of memory in the camera just in case. The panorama function on XD is not really useful. Better to use software as sfb suggests.

The 70-300 is great. My gf's got one and it's great for the price. The 9-18 is also very good for ultra wide angle.

Comments re aperture on the standard range lenses are right, you need to watch the smaller apertures. In practice this affects focus speed rather than the actual shots (depth of field is naturally smaller at telephoto distances anyway). I believe the 70-300 is 5.6 at the long end. Have a look on Flickr and dpreview forums as well as four thirds user and e-system user group for examples. The 50-200 is the next lens up which is a cracker but it is more cash.

You can rent lenses though the e-system user group. It's a good way of giving them a try. There are also second hand ones available through that group and four thirds user.

Four thirds user
E-System User Group[/url]

BTW, I'm not Andy Elliott although I did meet him at the weekend. He's got some great wildlife shots. Just picked up a PanaLeica 25 1.4 and Oly 14-35mm. Fantastic lenses.

On the other brands front I did see that PCWorld has a few Olympus E3s for £899. Weather sealed body. The 12-60 is a cracking lens (one of the best zooms available). E3 was pitched at D300 (not s) so is a couple of years old. The 12-60 is awesome though (see dpreview for write ups).

I agree with tommy. I'd get a D90 and faster/better quality lens. From my (moderate) experience the step up in lenses makes more of a difference to a new body. The lenses also depreciate less. If you decide in a few years's time you want a better body you can get one second hand for more of a discount.

Also, consider looking at used kit. I've picked up a couple of used lenses recently. They're in great nick and reasonably priced.

Congrats.

I've got an E3 and E620 (same as E600 pretty much apart from a couple of "art filters"). Considering the 620 is nearly £500 its a great price.

You have a "one touch white balance" option. You can set the function button. Take a shot of a white sheet of paper that fills the frame and accept the custom balance. Frankly though, the white balance is the easiest thing to sort out in software if you want to.

Keep practicing with it, it takes a while to get used to a new camera.

If you want a portrait grip for it Jessops are doing them for £25 at the moment. Allows you to put a second battery in and gives you portrait shutter release and dial. That's a steal given the non offer price is £200 more.

If you want any Olympus specific tips give me a shout.

I'd recommend a course if there's one in your area. I traveled for Seb Rogers' mtb photography course. It improved all of my photography simply for a better understanding of the dynamics of photography as well some useful pointers and tips. I've read a number of books and felt the course helped most.

This is my fav from skiing early Feb:

Was still some snow and ice around on Sunday although I suspect it will go soon. Depends whether much more comes down over the next day or so. Main problem on Claife Heights was the ice on the paths. Seems that the paths/streams had melted the snow at some point and it refroze.

Not sure about Grizedale but Claife is a similar altitude.

WhatWouldJesusRide – Member

Apologies for the thread Hijack.

Unbelievable…or maybe not.

and Robertson was a presidential candidate! Amazing.

In terms of the fast/wide losing depth of field. You can select this for each shot but the lenses are generally much sharper and the wider aperture means faster focussing on any particular body.

In term of AF tracking, I would think the AF on the 300D could be set to C-AF (continuous) in Manual. It's one area where cameras have got a lot better recently though.

Personally I would invest more in the lens than the body. The investment lasts a lot longer and wider apertures help speed up autofocus. Given that I'd go for a used body (not on canon so don't know what's best) but put the bulk into the lens. I assume if it's for biking then image stabilisation isn't really a problem. The superzooms are generally too much of a quality compromise in my opinion (with the exception of the Pana-Leica 14-150) and tend to be slow at the longer end. With the extra MP you're going to get with a new camera the little bit of extra reach can be compensated for through cropping, you'll still have greater resolution.

You could also look at a change of system selling on the 24-70 of course, but that's more of an upheaval.

Loads of discussion on talk photography

How large do you want to print them? If A4 or less, the Canon Pixma ip4600 is very good and less than £100. You can then use the saving to get your larger prints done at http://www.peak-imaging.com who do a cracking job for me. The Epson A3 printers get good write ups but it's nearly 100 prints before you've paid for any consumables.

I'm getting married next year. Think I'll make guests wear morning suits until afternoon tea (finish around 5:30) and return in white tie (black tie just not formal enough) to dance and drink the night away. Barn dance in tails should be interesting.

On the other hand, might just make sure as many friends are there as possible.

Not at all, recruitment companies always do this sort of thing. Presumably your new cv has additional info on it so they should be able to tell the difference.

You might also want to look at the Panasonic G1 and GH1. Pretty good cameras although they use electronic viewfinders. They are small and get really good reviews. Main problem with EVFs is they can lag in very low light but you do get a large viewfinder otherwise. Depends what type of photos it's going to be used for.

or perhaps a fit of twitchers

Wow, a DSLR thread where Olympus gets mentioned more than once!

I'd echo the comments above. The kit lenses are excellent and the next step up are weatherproof and smaller than the faster equivalents (benefit of a smaller sensor).

The other thing that drew me to the E500 six years ago was the controls that are offered even in the bottom of the range models. As you progress you can take over more of the automated functions than is possible with many other entry level cameras.

I would definitely recommend going to a shop and trying them though. How they feel in your hand is more important than the specs (pretty much all contemporary DSLRs, even the entry level ones, take good shots). If it feels right, and the controls fall naturally to hand then you'll use it more and ultimately enjoy your photography more.

You definitely need to make sure that it's fully grown if you want to take a lab out or as others have said, you'll get hip problems in particular. As a general rule cross breeds are more healthy in this respect but you still need to build up. We've got collie cross labradoodle (lab x poodle). So it's basically a black dog. Intelligent, quick and doesn't bugger off. Not trained to the bikes yet. I'm not sure I'd take a dog on any technical trails in any case. Not sure I want to added distraction.

Great. Thanks very much for your ideas. I'll get the map out and see what I can string together.

Thetford's a little too far away unfortunately. About 90 mins. Think I'll try to string some bridleways together. Was hoping someone had already done it!

I don't think you'll find glasses you can swap between presription and non-pres lenses. I used to have some Adidas Eveil Eye glasses that had an insert with my prescription. That could be removed if I had my contacts in. I think others do this too (nike?). Have a look at GoSportsSpex

Give Cy or Paul at Cotic a ring. I'm sure they'd discuss it with you and give you an opinion.

I would certainly make sure you've got money to spend on a good lens rather than blowing it all on a kit lens with an expensive body. A 'faster' lens (wider apperture, lower Fstop) will focus faster and the pictures will likely be sharper.

You could also get the lens second hand, they hold their value better than the bodies do.

And once you've got the camera, play with it a bit and then go on Seb Rogers' course, it's brilliant.

I'd try a warranty claim first. If the torque wrench was set correctly it might be worth talking to the manufacturer/importer.