The cheapest ones don't get very good reviews for robust use, I based the £250 on an article which was looking at similar tripods by different makers and a Velbon was given very good reviews by the article (£79.99 ish), it was just pipped by a Manfrotto costing around the £250 mark. There are some Manfrottos at over £600.

Quote ="rover49"The cheapest ones don't get very good reviews for robust use, I based the £250 on an article which was looking at similar tripods by different makers and a Velbon was given very good reviews by the article (£79.99 ish), it was just pipped by a Manfrotto costing around the £250 mark. There are some Manfrottos at over £600.'" You are looking at carbon fibre pods mate... Decent legs - www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MANFROTTO-190 ... 1c1f961b32 Decent head - www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Manfrotto ... 3cbd9daa47 If you shop around there are better deals to be had and there are some decent second hand ones around too.

Quote ="rover49"The cheapest ones don't get very good reviews for robust use, I based the £250 on an article which was looking at similar tripods by different makers and a Velbon was given very good reviews by the article (£79.99 ish), it was just pipped by a Manfrotto costing around the £250 mark. There are some Manfrottos at over £600.'" You are looking at carbon fibre pods mate... Decent legs - www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MANFROTTO-190 ... 1c1f961b32 Decent head - www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Manfrotto ... 3cbd9daa47 If you shop around there are better deals to be had and there are some decent second hand ones around too.

ND Filters. Individual filters or a single variable density filter?
Have read that with a variable one you need to be paying a fair amount of money to get a decent one yet i've seen them for around £8.99 on fleabay. Is it a case of you get what you pay for?
Cheers

I paid about £15 for one from [url=http://bit.ly/zFjUeB7dayshop[/url I have no complaints, right at the very dark end it distorts a bit (but then so do cheaper fixed ND filters) but I've paid about an 8th the price of a Lee big stopper.

Thankyou for the quick response BG. Just ordered one and will use it to experiment with. I guess that's what photography is all about.

I'm being sorely tempted by a very good offer to buy some image enlargement software called Benvista Photo Zoom Pro 4. When i read about this first, I assumed it must be largely BS, given that (you'd think) the ultimate resolution of an image is limited by the pixel size.

I was very sceptical but found that on the Benvista site you can download a free trial, and after just a first effort, i must say I'm pretty gobsmacked.
Here is an original image, an enlarged eye as best as my existing software can do it, and a Benvista enlargement. There are many fine tunes and I'm sure i could therefore do better.

I'm gonna have a play around this weekend but wondered if anyone has come across this, and is it as good as it seems? Or if not, anyoine fancy having a play and telling us what you think?

Back in 2008 I got a copy of Benvista Photo Zoom Pro 2 free with some other bundle. I've used it on a number of occasions, mainly when I have wanted (very) large prints, and found it to be very good.
The only likely reason I haven't updated over the years is that I don't use it frequently enough to justify it.

I'm looking for a simple (and free) photo template plug-in or whatever to give me three images on one canvas. I've got CS4 and ever after downloading the suggested plug-in, I keep getting an error message - 'Cannot find layout files in Presets/Layouts'

It appears I'm not alone in having these problems but I'm buggered if I can find a fix in CS4.

Basically what I'm after is the ability to place three images in one canvas: Imagine an A4 landscape, I want an A5 portrait image on the left and two A6 landscape images on the right (one on top of the other).

Any ideas guys?

Can you not do it in PS?
Resize the two pics to A6 landscape, resize the other to A5 portrait, open a new file in PS with the sizes of A4, new layer, drag and image in and lock it, repeat with the other two.

TBH mate I find PS a friggin pain to use for anything relatively simple, I only tend to open it when I want to do something special. I was just looking for any easy work around. Sonething along the lines of:

1) Open template
2) Click insert in frame one, then two then three
3) Save as

I'll have a go at that though

One very easy solution is download a free copy of Serif Photoplus
[urlhttp://www.serif.com/free-photo-editing-software/[/url

Create a blank canvas whatever size you want. Select view to fit screen (so you can see the whole canvas)

Paste the images in, one at a time, as new layers

Resize each image, on the fly, position it wherever you want

Print

Er, that's it.

Which is exactly what I've told him to do in Photoshop...

Thanks guys but as I said, I'm just looking for a simple template. Click, click, click, save as.

I don't need any other editing facilities and I'm not going to print anything out, it'll just be saved as a jpeg and then included on a web listing.

It seems to me that if you do what BG has suggested then you will have produced the template you require in the process.

Take great care with your first go so that it's exactly what you want and then any subsequent uses will simply be a matter of putting the new images over the old, deleting the layers no longer required and SAVE AS.

You had chance for a play yet?

Without being equally arrsey - no you didn't - you said:



Your method involves using some prog or other to resize the images before even opening up PS.

My method, you copy each image, and paste as a layer directly into PhotoPlus. You don't need to resize it in advance. When you paste it in, you can grab a corner and stretch it to whatever fits.


In PhotoPlus, just Export as a JPEG.

anyone got a Go Pro HD Hero 2?

after seeing some amazing skiing videos I've decided to get the kit for 3D imaging, hopefully it wont mainly consist of me falling over in 3D to a funky track! (I can't promise)

Nope, it is all done in Photoshop, takes a couple of minutes.

I have considered the GoPro HD system for fishing videos and screen grabs but have shoved it to the back of my wish-list as a "that would be cool" rather than "must have"

Why 3D?

I can't ever imagine viewing an amateur-shot 3D film for more than a few seconds without feeling nauseous

We've got some 3D and HD video from our last skiing trip and it looks brilliant, I won an ebay auction yesterday and saved about £80 on the list price so am quite happy (once it arrives!)

If you want it for fishing then the older GoPro (not the HD2) can be found for about £150 on ebay, but you'd need to make sure you got the waterproof mount as well.

Young Robin, today:



Older Robin, today:

My favourite bird



Seriously though, lovely shots

More from today:

Some poor quality snaps fro today.

Can you name the birds in this one:



Quite a rare bird (but locally common here):



A tough bird to see usually:

Looks like a Dunlin but it could be any of the sandpiper family