peter_gaunt

<p>I echo Robert K about the importance of setting up a 'digital darkroom' which is assuming you want to do it yourself of course. Buy something such as Aperture (Mac only) or Adobe Lightroom and learn how to use them. If you've always been happy getting your films processed commercially that option is still available of course.</p>

<p>Yes - expose for the highlights, ie treat it like a much more forgiving slide film. Aperture priority is probably what most DSLR users use most of the time with the lovely addition that you can also set up auto-ISO if you like in order that you don't absolutely have to keep checking the shutter speed isn't stupidly low.</p>

<p>My old 85/1.8 (pre-D but same optics) has been rather noisy since I bought it used about five years ago. It's the only screw-drive lens I have which is that noisy but works well. I put it down to being about a million years old.</p>

<p>I second Bob's advise on spot metering. Learn how to use it in manual mode for those pictures where you have time to think. If you want incident light metering and can't be bothered carrying around an 18% grey card, use the back of your hand and adjust. The average 'white' skin I find to be about a stop and a third and brighter than that so your meter will read too low. Open up a stop and a third and it's a good starting point if you're white. I find fairish Asian skin to be about half a stop brighter while my friend's Asian skin is pretty close to spot on - if she's with me I've been known to use her. 'London Caribbean' skin is about a stop too dark so open up a stop while 'London African' skin is maybe a stop and a half too dark. All rules of thumb used by me. Categories are in my own head. Your mileage may vary but once you've worked out the back of your own hand it doesn't change that much. As others have said you can also learn to meter off different parts of the scene and make your own averages and/or decide what you'd like to be 'middle grey' in your picture and meter off that. If you can find the time spend an afternoon hanging around getting the hang of it.</p>

<p>I second Thom Hogan's. Comprehensive and knowledgeable.</p>

<p>If you take the pic in RAW and convert to JPEG in camera do the lines still appear?</p>

<p>I love my 18-70 which I've had since 2006 and currently use with a D7000. Always wished Nikon had produced a VR version. It's as near as damn it a constant f4 lens too which is kind of nice (there's only 0.6 of a stop difference between the f3.5 at the wide end and the f4.5 at the long end) which makes it good in lowish light.</p>

<p>I always set my screen to the same brightness when I'm processing pics which are destined for paper. However, it's still too bright and prints come out dark. I use Aperture for processing and there's an option in the print dialog to set the brightness (used to be labelled 'gamma' in earlier versions) and I worked out through a little trial and error what this needs to be set to - it's always the same (1.27 in my case). My screen's colour is calibrated with a Huey Pro and that results in a very close match between screen and paper; it's only the brightness which needs changing. Other applications may have similar print brightness adjustments.</p>

I certainly wouldn't bothet with

single element close up lenses.

Results are mediocre even with

good ones. Can't comment on

multi-element ones as I've never

tried any.

I second SuperDuper. Been using it

for years to make nightly backups

and it's never really let me down.

The backups it makes are

bootable- if your main drive dies

you can boot from the backup if

you like. I use Time Machine too

but it's purpose is somewhat

different.

<p>An alternative for taking macro shots is to use an inexpensive M42 screw thread lens (eBay), an M42 to F-mount adaptor (cheap - eBay) and a set of entirely manual extension tubes (also cheap - eBay). You have to focus manually but then you should be doing this for macro anyway. My D80 and D7000 will both meter (at the taking aperture) with such a set up. I use a 40 year old Carl Zeiss (Jena) 135mm for macros quite often with excellent results. I've also used 50mm and 85mm Nikon D lenses (the G lenses aren't suitable because they have no aperture ring) with good results too. Most of the time with macro shots is takenup with setting things up. Having to manually set up focus and exposure is a minor inconvenience. Worth trying in my opinion.</p>

That may not be a photo of a bottle.

Looks suspiciously like a drawing

to me.

If you have an Android phone or

iPhone look for an app called The

Photographer's Ephemeris. It will

show the position of the sun and

the directions of sunrise, sunset,

moonrise and moonset at any time. A very handy tool indeed.

<p>There will be the usual 'little green dot' (electronic rangefinder) in the viewfinder to show the user when non-CPU lenses are in focus. I use a couple of entirely manual lenses (M42 screw lenses with adaptors) and the electronic rangefinder works just fine with those.</p>

<p>If it behaves like the D7000 (which it almost certainly does) an extra option will appear in the Setup Menu when an Eye-Fi card is in use which allows you to enable/disable Eye-Fi upload.</p>

<p>So far as compatibility with the camera is concerned my experience of the Yongnuo 460 II is that it is entirely manual (but I knew that before I bought it). So far as I'm aware the 560 is very similar. The camera does not even know it has a flash attached. You set the f-number on the camera depending on the flash's guide number and the power output you have the flash set to. This is the way we all used to work before the advent of more modern flashes which are controlled by the camera. If you're using it in fairly controlled situations it's just fine but if you want to be more spontaneous you may need to look elsewhere.</p>

<p>Yes, Jonathan I did try to explain but the woman was soon surrounded by what can only be described as people in sub-vigilante mode (the type who 'know their rights') who were egging her on. As I've said it isn't her reaction so much as the attitude of the police which concerns me. She had a right to feel alarmed just as I had a right to take the pics. I could probably have calmed her down if it hadn't have been for the 'mob'. The police attitude to me was contemptible and that is what I shall be complaining about.</p>

<p>The woman herself was quite reasonable other than being agitated and difficult to calm down. It was the hangers on who all thought they knew exactly what had been going on (though, of course they didn't) who were the problem. Several of them were very intimidating which rather scared the willies out of me :-)</p>

<p>I've done some digging around about Breach of the Peace. In English and Welsh law it is not either a civil or criminal offence (althought it is in Scotland). The most which can be done is that you get 'bound over' to keep the peace which does not count as a criminal record. The police can in fact arrest you, in certain circumstances, if they think that your continued presence is likely to cause a breach of the peace even if you are the one who is being threatened. I have also ascertained that they had no right to demand my name and address (which I was pretty certain of at the time) and neither would my refusal to give it have constituted a reason for arrest.<br /><br /><br>

I shall be contacting the police with regard to what is on their records etc. and also to complain about the heavy handed way in which this was dealt with and their refusal to listen to my complaint against my accuser.<br /><br /><br>

I have since used a file recovery program to recover the picture just in case it is ever needed.</p>

<p>Thanks for all your comments. Much appreciated.</p>

<p>There was one of me and quite a number of them some of whom were, erm, not exactly going to let me just walk away.</p>

<p>John H: it really was very threatening. It really wasn't all in my head but, as I've just said, I'm more concerned about the response of the police being rather bizarre.</p>

<p>I'm more concerned about the police threatening to do me for Breach of the Peace since it seems to me that that was a somewhat bizarre idea of theirs. The suggestion of the officer who came up with this was that I might have been causing a Breach of the Peace by alarming the woman. I suppose he may have meant that by alarming the woman I myself might have become a victim of violence. I've since been reading up on Breach of the Peace and it is indeed sometimes used in very strange ways.</p>

<p>Note that it was ME who called the cops initially since, so far as I was concerned, I was being held against my wishes and that's what I told the person who took my call. The cops were probably simply trying to diffuse a potentially bad situation but going about it in entirely the wrong way.</p>

<p>I'm quite aware that, unfortunately, some people are very wary of any form of street photography these days and perhaps it was unwise (although not illegal) to include the child in the photo. That's not my issue: I've learned a lesson in that respect despite having been doing occasional street photography for over 40 years.</p>

<p>This afternoon I was taking photos on the street in Peckham mainly of things found but also some of people. All the photos were taken in a public place. One person got very agitated when I took a photo which included her, her teenage son and her three year old daughter. She was concerned about me taking her daughter being in the picture and asked me to delete it telling me that I was 'breaking the law' (which I knew that I wasn't). To prevent argument I did delete the picture. However, the woman (and to a lesser extent her son) were not satisfied with this and insisted that I went with them to her hairdresser's shop from where she would call the police. Since a slightly ugly crowd had developed by then I agreed to do this - I was given the impression, though not by the woman or her son, that if I didn't go things would go ill for me.</p>

<p>When we got to her shop she repeated her story to everyone there and they were all very angry with me, in particular one man who physically prevented me from leaving the shop. At this point I called the police and asked them to come to the shop. This they agreed to do. One of the customers in the shop also called the police which resulted in two police cars and five or six officers turning up.</p>

<p>I have no idea what the police told the woman and her son but my concern is what they told me. They did agree with me that I had not broken any law in actually taking the photographs as I was in a public place and, to the best of their knowledge, no order had been issued stopping the photography of children in that area. I quite agreed with one of the officers who told me that while I had not broken the law I had been most unwise in taking that particular photo. The other two officers however were quite aggressive (one of them told me that if I'd taken a photo of his kid 'I'd regret it') and insisted that I'd been out taking photographs of children for some unknown purpose despite me showing them that the great majority of my photos contained no people at all and none of them contained children. One officer's response to this was that 'I must have deleted them'.</p>

<p>The other aggressive officer then told me that if I continued arguing he would consider arresting me for Breach of the Peace. When I asked him what he meant by this he said that my making the woman upset by taking my photograph could well amount to a Breach of the Peace in itself. They then asked me for my name and address which I gave them despite my probably not being obliged to so far as I'm aware.</p>

<p>Does anyone here with legal knowledge know whether the officers threat to arrest me for Breach of the Peace might have had any substance? I am also concerned that there is now a record somewhere of me having been spoken to for 'taking photographs of children'. I did ask the more reasonable officer to ensure that any notes made recorded that I was in fact taking photos of the street in general</p>

<p>I intend making a complaint to the Metropolitan Police about the way I was treated once I can find out to who to send it.</p>

<p>The megapixel thing is bonkers and that especially applies to compacts. Yesterday I went looking for an inexpensive (read dirt cheap) no frills, point and shoot which I could just stick in my pocket when I go out. Could I find one with under 12 megapixels? Could I heck and I could only find ONE of those. They were all 14 or 16 megapixels which the young woman with the holiday job assured me was 'much better'. I would have been happy with 5 since the pics are only ever going to viewed on screen or possibly small prints since it would have been much better in low light. In the end I bough a cheap 14 megapixel (£50) Fuji largely because I liked the way it handled. Complete madness if you ask me.</p>

<p>Try this one. It's comprehensive:<br>

<a href="http://www.pixelfinesse.com/_docs/D7000_AF_Explained.pdf">www.pixelfinesse.com/_docs/D7000_AF_Explained.pdf</a></p>