garydickson

I'll take a look at that, cheers. But for what it's worth all of the above were handheld and just JPEG. Tripod would have been nice - full size images have some ghosting in places, but the software does do some image aligning to reduce this.

HDR = High Dynamic Range imaging, which I think Wikipedia can explain better than I could... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging There's a demo Version of Photomatix Pro on their website - seem to be able to do one or two per day before it starts plastering logos all over your results.

Been playing with auto exposure bracketing so I could have a go at some HDR pics, and here are my first results, all generated by Photomatix. Quite like the dramatic (but a bit false look) they have. I can see I'm going to be a bit obsessed just like when I got my first panorama stitching software

Great colours. And to think, I was planning on getting out into the Peak early this morning to catch the sunrise, but a late night in the pub got the better of me, dammit!

Too far away No, I'll stick with Project 52 - much more managable, much more likely to be completed!

I could, but 1st Jan seemed a better day to start, plus this way if I forget one day I won't have to go back to day one!

(Before it starts to rise too early) I'm minded to go out into the Peak at silly a.m. one morning and try to get some good sunrise shots. So, question 1 is, where do you think would be best to take the shots from? Currently thinking of somewhere on Kinder looking over to the Great Ridge - sun should pop up near Mam Tor around this time of year. And question 2 - any tips for taking a good sunrise shot? Cheers.

1) Take better photos (I already take enough of the things!) 2) Like sound of the Project 365 thing, but I'm already too late, doh! So, Project 52 - I'll pick a photo to represent each week. 3) Maybe come on a forum photo meet.

Fingers crossed I do better than last month (and at least get one vote!). There are a lot of good photos there.

I like 'em. Is the sky in the first three from a different picture? I must admit I quite like messing about with my photos afterwards too.

I'd like to come along to one of these meets sometime and pickup some tips and tricks, but can't make this one unfortunately. Anyway, it seems appropriate to post the view of tonight's sunset from my office window on this thread. Twilight in the city!

Popped into the Botanical Gardens hoping to catch some autumn colour, but the sun went in just as I got there :-( So when I spotted a grey squirrel (and having seen some cracking squirrel shots on here recently) I thought I'd have a go. Oi! Come back! First attempt, hmmm... not so easy as it looks, maybe I need a zoom lens (and a tripod, and buckets of patience). Take 2. A lucky action shot. Take 3. When suddenly I realise they're actually quite tame, and will come towards you, probably looking for food (I'll take some next time). Take 4. My favourite. All taken on automatic settings.

Your photo favourite editing software should show the EXIF info too (Image Menu -> Image Information in PaintShopPro 9). And you can also see it if you right click on the image file in XP, choose Properties, Summary tab, click Advanced button.

Cheers for the advice, I'll give it a go (just need to get me to some water!)

I'm toying with the idea of getting a/some neutral density filters - I love those long exposure shots of flowing water, which is really what I want them for, to force a longer exposure. Problem is I wouldn't know what or how many to get - x2, x4, x8? So I thought, maybe I could get a second cheap polarising filter off eBay and use two to create any 'density' I wanted. Are there any drawbacks to that? Cheers,

Is this what you mean by selective colour? This was my first attempt at it - the dragonfly was against a fairly green background, so didn't stand out much. This way you can actually see it.

How about having a colour as a theme?

I got kind of addicted after getting my first panorama making software (ArcSoft PanoramaMaker 3, which I still use), and I'm still forever taking half a dozen or more shots to stitch together afterwards! Can't remember getting anything bundled with my Canons though, I'll have to look in the box again. Anyway, here are a couple of my favorites:

My walking club went to The Ivory for its annual Summer Do. We allegedly had an "all you can eat buffet" - but despite the management's advice not to all rush at once, and assurances that there would be plenty to go around, and that they would keep replacing empty dishes, etc. quite a few went hungry as it had all disappeared in around half an hour. For my £21 I got a sausage (singular), a desert spoon of mash and a slice of fruit. Luckily they'd decorated the buffet table with raspberries and strawberries - reduced to eating the decorations!! And then to cap it all when we complained to the manager he blamed those who went up first for being "greedy" (his words). A very poor show. Although those who did get something to eat said it was good, and my £21 banger (singular) and desert spoon of mash was tasty, if just a bit over priced!

Yes, but it was Hogmanay or thereabouts and I was p***ed so I didn't care!

Not in Meersbrook, but Mangala has been my favourite so far in year and a half in Sheff. One down the road - Kashmir? - has been reccomended by friends whose judgement I'd trust, and Butlers is ok too. Balti King I've also heard things about, but all from some time ago, so I think I will try it sometime and see as it's so local...

Yes, you can't make a pigs ear out of a sow's purse, or something like that, so changing to MPEG won't make things better. You'll never get better quality than what you start with. Try downloading and installing the DivX codec (compressor-decompressor) from http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/download Then, as has been suggested, use VirtualDub to recompress the file (http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/virtualdub/VirtualDub-1.6.16.zip?download). Then open your AVI file in VirtualDUb, choose DivX from the Video -> Compression menu, and play about with it (as you compress it, it wil give you an estimate of the final file size). Any questions, just ask, I've used VirtualDub a lot (and even have a qualification in video compresion!)

I'm pretty sure they're spinning all the time (unless you specify for them not to - see your Power settings, from the Screen Saver options window) to make reading/writing faster (otherwise they would have to be spun up each time).

If the motherboard is in a working PC you can try running some 'system information' program like Aida (free download here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/AIDA.shtml ) Or if it's sat on your coffee table, you could look for the FCC ID number on the board, and try to track it back that way (http://www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/)

Did you make the PDF document yourself? If the text comes from scanned text I'm guessng you might not be able to edit it.