skype on the iphone is great – I use it all the time when travelling. I might be selling my iphone 3G if that's any help…

Wahl Super Taper – worth every penny

It’s a great group, and many thanks to Simon for starting it. It has really got me back into photography which I’m hugely enjoying. There are loads of excellent pics by people on the group, and it has now grown well beyond its Ralli/STW roots…

My Flickr stream is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/modalshift%5B/url%5D. Here’s a summer cycling picture:

Many years ago, when I was single and had disposable income, I had an Orange E2 with a Royce Ti BB and Middleburn cranks (would they have been RS2s?). They worked like a dream at first but at some point started creaking: I never worked out if this was because the cranks had worked themselves loose and I’d then opened up the taper, or there was a Ti:Aluminium problem with the frame, or something else – this was long before the days of asking for opinions on internet fora. Anyway, despite a very enjoyable afternoon spent at Royce, trying to solve the problem with Cliff (who was astoundingly helpful) I never satisfactorily fixed it. In the end the bike was stolen, so some thieving scumbag inherited the problem.

It wouldn’t put me off doing the same again if I had the money, but I’d certainly keep a close eye on the crank bolt tightness…

here’s mine
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If you’re happy to be an old fart I’d wholeheartedly recommend them. I’m on my third after having had the last two stolen (well-locked, in broad daylight, with loads of people around). As Cheesy and Simon say above they all come with the clip now so no need to worry about spontaneous folding.

I have no doubt that an Airnimal is a better bike for riding – I came close to buying one myself – but if it’s not going to be used for long rides then for me at least the Brompton’s foldability outweighs the Airnimal’s rideability. But I know of others who swear by their Airnimal, or for that matter their Birdy, both of which are much more like proper bikes.

Just, whatever you do, don’t lock it up anywhere. I don’t even carry a lock any more when I take my Brompton to London – it’s a pain to carry it everywhere but less of a pain than walking back to the station.

And if you ever have cause to go to Paris on the Eurostar I can’t recommend taking the Brompton with you highly enough, even if they do now insist on you sticking it in a bag. It’s such a great feeling to cycle off across the city from the Gare du Nord, and few things so strongly reinforce the mad Englishman stereotype as turning up at a hotel on one!

having looked around on their website if there’s a specific project you could always rent from Fixation, or of course from others. I’m looking for a camera for daily use, so it wouldn’t work for me, but I might well do it to get the use of an unaffordable lens for a few days

fontmoss – I was at Fixation in Vauxhall last week getting my D80’s sensor cleaned and they had a second hand D200 for something like £340 – might be worth giving them a call

sheesh that Nikon 24-70/2.8 is pricey! Think I’ll take a closer look at those Sigmas…

Lorax are you http://www.flickr.com/people/modalshift/?

yes i am[/url] (thanks fonmtmoss) – couldn’t get lorax as a username there – but i managed to on shutterchance[/url]

so D300 it is, although the D700 looks tempting – imagine the possibilities with all those wonderful wide lenses being properly wide… ;)

I completely agree scott – the arrival of a new camera doesn’t make the old one any worse, but it does change what you can get for the money. I’d feel a bit sore if I spent that much only to find a week later that I could get something significantly better for the same money

Many thanks everyone – looks like I should bite the bullet and get a D300 – now I’ve just got to work out the finances…

And thanks fontmoss – of course I don’t mind – delighted to be added; I’ll reciprocate :)

I know – but then I’ll want the replacement with night vision pixel enhancement, a 6″ high resolution screen on the back, and an automated compostion robot that only takes perfectly composed pictures :)

Seriously though, that’s one of the things tipping me towards the D90 as that has only come out relatively recently, but there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on when the D300 will be replaced: if it were in the next month or so I’d wait, but if it were in a year I wouldn’t.

Decisions, decisions…

Sorry – meant to say – thanks mrmw. As you can see I’m leaning towards the D300, but I’ll bear you in mind if I do get the kit lens. No worries if you don’t want it if the situation arises – I’m happy to stick it on eBay – but also happy to give you first refusal.

Thanks Donald. I have in fact read Thom Hogan’s reviews – they’re one of the things tipping me towards the unaffordable D300!

Thanks mrmw. I just spoke to Dixons tax free and apparently the D90 ships with the 18-105 kit lens (she didn’t specify the aperture range but I assume it’s the f3.5-5.6 VR). The D300 is £150 less from them than I can get it elsewhere, so I may end up getting that, but if you’re interested in the 18-105 lens let me know just in case I buy the D90.

The cheapest I can find the lens for is £165, so I guess I’d sell it for something like £125 on the basis that you wouldn’t get the Nikon warranty, but I wouldn’t even have put it on the camera so it would be completely new and unused.

Thanks everyone. The thing about the D80 is the metering. I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated by its tendency to overexpose. If it did so consistently it wouldn’t really matter as I could just dial in 1/2 or 2/3 of a stop by default, but it isn’t consistent so while most pics are fine around 5-10% are washed out. Having looked into this it seems it is a well-recognised problem with the D80, apparently because the metering is over-influenced by the levels at the focus point.

The other reason is that I’m using the camera much more now I’m doing the photo-a-day thing, and my wife is getting frustrated when her camera (I bought her the D80 as a birthday present the year before last) isn’t around! So I’d be after a second camera body even if I didn’t have concerns about the metering.

It seems that both the D90 and the D300 have fixed this, although the review on dpreview suggests that it hasn’t been completely fixed on the D90, while they have almost no complaints at all about the D300. But it’s just a review on a specialist website, and these kinds of reviews tend to focus on minor differences that most of us won’t notice.

I had looked into Dixons tax-free but had discounted them as I don’t want the kit lens, but good suggestion to buy it and then flog it on – thanks happysnapper.

I’ve just joined the One photo every day 365[/url] group on Flickr – I’m modalshift on there.

I’m enjoying the challenge, although I’ve found it much harder to get decent pictures this weekend in the grey murky light than it was last week with the freezing cold and the clear skies. Anyway, I’m hoping to keep going for the year – it can only help me get better!

Excellent decision. I take most of my photos with a digital camera, but bought myself an old Pentax LX last year – I’d always wanted one and could finally afford one – and it’s brilliant. I’ve also got into medium format – in fact I’m selling a load of Bronica kit on eBay this evening, but only because I replaced it with a second hand Hasselblad that I slightly prefer.

I tend to send my 35mm film off for process and print by Ilford, but I develop the medium format stuff myself and scan it in. I ended up buying a decent Canon scanner as my previous one couldn’t cope with the medium format negatives. It’s clearly much more hassle than digital, and I can’t see myself using film for the photo a day project I’m doing, but I enjoy the challenge of thinking much harder about my pictures, and taking longer over them

In fact you’ve inspired me – I’ve got a couple of 120 films that I need to process – perhaps I’ll do it tonight…