I was just wondering about the best places in sheffield and surrounding districts for taking photographs , where or what is your favourite place and why ? .

I like the strong lines of the bridges and reflections you get in Ladybower and Derwent reservoirs. Depends what you're after, but the double-decker flyover and cooling towers near Meadowhall could be dramatic in the right light too.

was also wondering where the best places are for sunrise/sunset photos

if you're into landscapes, get yourself to curbar edge in the peak district over the next couple of months, the conditions there are perfect this time of year, heavy frosts and mist inversions and the sun rises at a perfect angle to shoot from. Check out my photos from derbyshire: www.peak-photos.co.uk

wow Richard some amazing photos on your site , I am assuming you used top professional equipment for those amazing photographs .

cheers! I use a canon 20d with sigma 10 - 20mm lens (semi professional) although the same results can be achieved with any DSLR. Tripod and ND Grad filters are essential though

all the best

rich

wow Richard some amazing photos on your site , I am assuming you used top professional equipment for those amazing photographs .

It's the person, not the camera. Richard took the pictures not his 20D. I hope!;)

There was an interesting article written about this on Luminous Landscape a while back, as Alan Briot got fed up with people saying, you must have an expensive camera to take those photographs.

yep I certainly did take them! :)

It's more patience than anything else, if you are happy to wait hours for a couple of moments of light, then you get the results. The amount of hours I've spent waiting for the right conditions and come away with nothing...

Patience is an essential attribute for being a good photographer, as you have to spend so much time waiting for so many picture opportunities.

Patience is an essential attribute for being a good photographer, as you have to spend so much time waiting for so many picture opportunities.

And getting out of bed in the middle of the night to catch the best light ;)

Why go to bed in first place? ;)

do you guys think that using a normal digital camera is good enough? how about a canon ixus 850?

It's not the camera being good enough, it's the photographer being good enough!:D
I bought my girlfriend an Ixus 850IS for her birthday to replace her ancient Ixus II. I'm now thinking of getting one myself it's so good. Several people who have seen her blog have asked about the pictures and what camera was used. I've used the 850 rather than my 5D on several occasions. Though it's now been replaced by the Ixus 860IS, which has no optical viewfinder and a few more pixels added, though higher res is not always a good thing. I got an S70 to replace my very battered S60, the only difference being 7MP as opposed to 6MP and the S70 is noticable inferior to the lower res S60.
More MP on a small sensor is not always a good thing.