hello, While I really do not want to meet up I will put my two cents in, and give a website or two... some are for beginners and some are more technical. if you do not under stand some of the terms I suggest just keep reading, some people can explain some concepts well, while others will explain other concepts well. once you have gone thru these then you can just get out and shoot some pictures. Remember there is no issue with how many pictures you take (except for time looking at them) with digital, if you do not like it then delete it. http://www.gardenguides.com/2128-photograph-flowers-part-1.html http://www.ehow.com/how_18308_photograph-flowers.html http://digital-photography-school.com/photographing-flowers http://www.tabletopstudio.com/documents/bouquet_photography.htm

Thanks, Sharon, for taking the time & effort to do this. Your concentrated series has been more informative & interesting than many local classes. Another reason that makes this forum so special. Hester

Quote:"your area is so full of wonderful subjects" Years ago I drove 18 wheelers covering the entire U.S.A. Every year Labor Day seemed to open the flood gates as people began their annual vacation migration in search of something to see. But what I found most amazing is that for every person that heads out of your community there is another traveling vast distances to come see your town. To that end I used to offer people a challenge. Take out a road map of your state and locate where you live then take a simple drawing compass and scribe circles at 5, 10, 20, 30, 40 & 50 miles. Now locate all the communities within those circles and contact their chamber of commerce for information on sites to see in their community. You will find a vast wealth of sites to see, all within a short one hour commute of your house, and many of them are absolutely free of admission. Now consider how much money you can save in fuel, food and lodgings and you have just saved enough to pay for that camera or new lenses you been dreaming about, not mention that you can continue that project year around instead of trying to pack it all into two weeks. Now in regards to how long it takes to edit 1300 photos. Actually the problem is not as difficult as it might seem. I began my interest in photography with a Pentax Spotmatic, which was the first 35mm SLR to have a built in through the lens light meter. (The Nikon F offered a light meter in an accessory viewfinder and Canon had not yet got into the professional SLR market). Lenses were manual focus, manual aperture and exposure was controlled by manipulating the shutter speed and lens aperture to center a match needle indicator in the view finder. As if that was not enough, in those days most films had an ASA (ISO) rating ranging from 64 to 325. I can vividly remember when AGFA introduced a 1000 ASA B&W film for the first time, and Fuji film almost took over the industry with a 500asa high resolution color print film. In those days getting the correct exposure was at best a bit iffy so it was common practice amongst the pro's and advanced amateurs to use a technique called "Bracketing" In fact, Bracketing is an automatic feature on most DSLR's but most people fail to use it. Bracketing is a technique where you shoot one frame at the measured exposure, then a second frame one f-stop under and a third frame one f-stop over. We could then push or pull an additional f-stop in the darkroom if need be. In those days there was no "live view" or "instant replay" so that is how we could insure we would have a usable print when we processed the film. I still rely heavily on that technique when i am out in the field where it would be difficult to return and try again, especially when shooting birds or wildlife where the shots cannot be repeated. When shooting macro shots of plants & flowers on a windy day I often set the mode to "Sports" which is shutter priority mode keeping the shutter speed as high as possible. This has a two fold effect. 1. By keeping the shutter speed very high it assures stop action when the subject is moving in the wind and 2. it keeps the aperture open, limiting depth of field, which generally puts the background out of focus giving a nice soft pastel background that does not detract from the subject. Back in the days of film bracketing the exposures was rather expensive when you considered the cost of film and processing, but in this age of digital when i go in the field I carry 5 or 6 SD cards and 5 sets of batteries so I am not concerned about wasting a shot or two if I can be sure that I will ultimately have the shot i want. In addition, I generally do not take just one shot, but rather I like to shoot a series of shots that show different aspects of the subject. By example, I am attaching a series I took of the evolution of a Dandelion. My brother said i was as crazy as an outhouse rat for taking pictures of dandelions but I like the outcome. DANDILION PLANT IN BLOOM DANDILION BLOSSOM DANDILION IMMATURE SEED POD DANDILION MATURE SEED POD DANDILION MATURE SEED POD DANDILION SEEDS

Clam Digger, OK, this one isn't cropped (from a P&S Sony with an amazing flare resistant lens). The point of the cropped photos was to show the level of quality available from a viewfinder camera. Sorry about the dig with the pelican photo but you asked for it when you patronized my cat. I understand that you have a long lens on an SLR and that's a capability that few viewfinder cameras possess. And if you want to shoot wildlife then an SLR is the way to go. Long lenses is the biggest reason for an SLR. People are different. The most important lens for me on a 35mm camera is a 28mm and I must have a 24mm as well. Using a lens longer than an 80mm is an occasional experience for me and I could do without it. Different cameras for different people. As for stubborn denial, I prefer to think of it as stubborn assertion. I assert this and I'm right about it: It is fair to say that the much more expensive DSLRs as a group are more capable cameras than the cheaper consumer oriented viewfinder cameras. But there are enough exceptions in both groups that the groups overlap at the edges. A novice like Jean may be very happy with a camera like Susan's 5 megapixel Lumix... And when did someone say something bad about Tokina? I said digital sensors and film have different requirements and lenses designed specifically for digital maximize the performance of the digital sensor. Tokina knows that, that's why they're making a series of lenses for DLSRs. That doesn't mean older lenses are useless, it's not a B&W world. Back to the original point of this post. Jean is shopping for a camera and buying a DSLR isn't the only or necessarily best option for her. Joe, you're a nice guy trying hard to keep the peace. You and Susan are right it's about the photos first. Clam Digger, that's a nice shot of the water bird, what is it? is it some species of tern? Joe