[weeles]

October 14, 2009 at 9:13 pm

Never had any problems with the police, even when I photographed an incident where a police firearm was discharged. One of the officers asked (politly) if I had photographed the incident, and when I replied “Yes”, they asked for my Name, Address and a contact telephone number which I chearfully provided. No request was make to view the images. I sent some of the shots to a local newspaper and when they where published the officers faces had been pixelated and a note at the bottom to say that the PSNI had ask for the officers faces not to be shown.

I have had problems at an amature sports event in a local park when an overzelous official objected to me taking photos. When I explained that it was a public place and I could take photos of anyone or anything that I wished he threatened to take my camera. When I further explained that I was carring a heavy metal monopod, and would happily beat the bejesuses out of him if he so much as reached for my equipment, he reconsidered. He did treaten to call the police, but they must have been busy, as for the rest of the day they failed to appear.

That said, its OK for someone like me who can be quite biligerant at the drop of a hat, I am sure that many others would be intimadated.

As to the legal position. in a public place you can photograph anyone or anything with three specific exceptions

1. You may not photograph within the precints of a court of law. (could also be construed as persons entering or leaving a courthouse where identifing them may prejudice a case )
2. A MOD establishment where photography is prohibited AND you are aware of that prohibition.
3. Currency for the purposes of counterfeiting.

A police officer cannot compel you to show your images, nor can they seize your equipment without a court order. They quite specifically CANNOT order you to delete you images, for the following reason.
If the images were taken illegally, then they are evidence to that offence, and under PACE (Police and Crimanal Evidence Act) must be protected as physical evidence. Deleting the images would in its-self be a Criminal offence (tampering with evidence). If the images were NOT obtained illegally then you cannot be compeled to delete them.

[weeles]

October 14, 2009 at 8:11 pm

Sorry, but must disagree with Steve.

I have been using a Fotospeed CIS / Epson 1800 for over a year and have had no problems whatsoever. Others I know have been using the same system on a Epson 2100 for even longer, again without problems.

I would not consider going back to Epson cartridges at any price.

Les

[weeles]

January 28, 2009 at 8:02 pm

Hi Steve

Try Sandra at Frame 7 in Crumlin. A professional framer and does an excellant job.

Contact her on 07793 407774

Hope it works for you

Regards

Les

[weeles]

December 28, 2008 at 10:50 pm

D200 is built like a tank, fits beautifully in the hand and has capabilities beyond even what most Pro’s will ever use. It is heavy though, and you don’t mention if a lens is included.

Many of my friends have canons and they are also great cameras.

Typical cost on ebay for the D200 is around £400 – £430 Body Only.

If the D200 includes a lens, something like the Nikkor 18 – 70, and the price is right, then this is your best bet, but as other posters have said, try the cameras to see which suits you.

PS Don’t be swayed by Megapixels, DSLR’s are a whole new ballgame and more MP has con’s as well as pro’s, noise to name but one!

[weeles]

December 7, 2008 at 10:09 pm

I use the 17 – 55mm as my normal everyday walk about lens on both my now relagated D200 and my new shiney D300. I bought it just over 2 years ago and it is rarely off the camera.

Some reviews do mark it down as less value for money, NOT POOR, just LESS value for money due to its high price tag, but if truth be told it is one of the reasons I went for a D300 and not a D700, I would have had to part with this very dear friend. ( funny how one can get emotional about a piece of glass and metal)

[weeles]

November 20, 2008 at 11:11 pm

Yip! I’ve done mine without any problems.
Focus is supposed to be faster, but mine focuses so fast with the 17 – 55 f2.8 its hard to tell the difference.

By the way, firmware part B. takes a long long time to update, don’t panic, its a 7Mb file and needs several minutes.

Leslie

[weeles]

November 9, 2008 at 10:28 pm

Hi Caroline

Find a local camera club in your area and drop in to their next meeting, don’t know any club that won’t make a fellow photographer feel welcome.
Most are a mixture of all abilities and all types of cameras from point-and-shoots to SLRs and you won’t feel out of place as a beginner.

Then ask questions, always remembering, the only silly question is the one that you did’nt ask!

Good luck with the new hobby

Les

[weeles]

November 9, 2008 at 10:19 pm

Hi Sirvad

Inkjet printing can be very frustrating at the beginning, each brand of paper, and ink, and printer, even different models from the same manufacturer, all have different characteristics. However most of today’s printers, even the budget ones, can produce prints just as good as the commercial print shops once you have got the settings right.

I would suggest that you select one brand of photo paper and stick with it. You then need to find a printer profile which gives the desired results with your chosen brand of paper, and this can take a lot of experimentation. Make notes on every thing you do, the settings, the paper, the image being printed and the results obtained.

If you spent the time, and money, getting it right you should be able to reproduce exactly what you see on the screen time after time after time!

[weeles]

November 7, 2008 at 8:50 pm

Calumet on Boucher Road are very good, usually £10 – £15 cheaper than Jessops and an excellant customer service.

[weeles]

October 25, 2008 at 1:41 pm

I have been using their continious ink system on my R1800 for almost a year and have had no problems what-so-ever. I bought the system on the recommendation of my Sister who uses it commerically, and has done for probably 2-3 years, again with a single problem.

spend some time, ink and paper getting the settings right at the start. With 100ml cartridges you can afford to waste a little on test prints getting to know the best profiles, from then on you will find the results very consistant. I certainly would not go back to 8 x £12 cartridges!

[weeles]

October 24, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Big advantage of Lightroom 2 is the fact that on 64-bit computers running Vista-64 or XP-64, it runs in native 64 bit mode and totally bypasses the WOW64 emulator and is lightning fast!

Most new PC’s are actually 64-bit machines, but usually only have Vista 32-bit installed. 64-bit windows can access more memory, typically more than 4GB of RAM, (up to 128GB for Vista 64-bit Ultimate), and this can speed up other programs as well.

Photoshop CS3 is a dream to use on a 4GB machine, and CS4 due out next month will also run in NATIVE 64-bit mode.

[weeles]

August 22, 2008 at 9:59 pm

I use a R1800 with an Infospeed continious ink system. Never had so much as a smudge or a streek and the results are identical to Epson Inks.
1 set of Epson cartridges £90 plus, 100ml Infospeed Crystal Dye Ink £64, equivalant to about 7 sets of cartridges. I can only say that it works for ME.

[weeles]

February 22, 2008 at 9:22 pm

I have just installed a Fotospeed system on my Epson 1800 and the results are stunning, identical to Epson but costing only the same as one set of new Epson cartridges.

The R1800 is designed for dye inks so thats what I ordered. Pigment ink is available for the R1800 but its best to use the type matching the printer’s design parameters, for best results pigment inks are laid down in a slightly different sequence.

If you lay down two touching droplets of dye ink they will mix together creating a new mixed colour. With pigment ink the droplets will not mix, even if they overlap. When the droplets are laid close together the eye is fooled into mixing the colour so the photo will look similar. but its still best to use the designed ink type.

There are some really cheap systems on the market but my Sister has been using the Fotospeed system on her 2100 for more than 2 years and is really happy with it, thats why I chose the same brand.

Leslie

[weeles]

October 30, 2007 at 10:15 pm

Hi Jimjam

On the Nikon D200 the bracketing function actually takes the number of exposures which you have set up to a maximum of 9. It can also take them in 2 or 3 different orders eg. 0, +1, -1, +2, -2, +3, -3, +4, -4 or +2F or -2F or +3F or -3F

It can also adjust the exposure compensation between each shot in 0.3EV, 0.7EV or 1EV steps

You can even set it to timed exposure where the camera on a tripod will take all 9 shots in quick succession by itself, I have done this for some HDR night shots and it was very successful. Do you know that you can merge more than to just two exposures into an HDR composite, but ideally they should be 2 or more stops apart. You could for example take the 9 exposure bracketing above and merge the -3, 0, and +3 shots, or the -4, 0, and +4 shots

The resultant file is in 32bit format so you can do some limited editing. For more adventurous editing you can compress the dynamic range by converting it back to 16bit format. The most difficult bit is adjusting the curves to get natural looking tonal graduations.

Hope this info helps

Leslie

[weeles]

October 10, 2007 at 6:30 pm

Like Sean, I use the Sigma 105 f2.8.
It is an excellent lens and very sharp.
A good mid telephoto and not just for macro.