The praise was sincere, and you know I've seen some spectacular photos on dpreview, pro quality or better. I have a nice tripod and even got a neutral density filter, but don't think we have any falling water around here except at the kids' zoo :-(. So I've had to put that desire on hold, maybe a spillway on a dam or something around here. Thank you, they are among my best but I think yours have an edge in IQ and technique, doesn't bother me. I think you might have seen the Hillary photo on dpreview. I posted it because they do that when they get a shot of somebody high profile. I tried to keep it neutral and will continue to do so. That owl was the sweetest little guy/gal. They bond to you and grow to trust you, be we aren't allowed to feed them. That one clawed my arm (not bad) setting up that shot. I was down on my stomach to get it, am sure I used the 24-70. I just grew to love those babies, but they soon disappear and you never know if they made it or not. At the link, there is a photo by gazania of her RW monarda. Sure hope mine doesn't get that tall. The reason it has to be monarda is that it is very damp there, over a french drain I had to dig to drain pooled water. The white I got last year, I found out what you mean, it spreads fast, but it's nasty mildew. So I decided to try this, 3 plants from BS, only need one but am going to try it on a problem corner of the garage where I can't get anything to grow and replace the white. I'll just yank what I don't want; it pulls easily enough if the soil is damp. It looked double in the photo at BS so I asked about it on the useful link thread. Some are and some aren't. I'd prefer single actually, and when it comes down to DD coneflower or that thing you posted (good shot), the coneflower wins hands down. Have a lot of time today because it's raining. Got most of the lawn spread with Grubex, so I feel like I've accomplished something, never attempted that before. I ran out before I got everything but hit the worst spots and did the best I could except skipped one terrace and out back. $37.xx at HD, so I really don't want to buy another bag this year. Made do with an inferior spreader that is hard to control and a hand one that doesn't dispense evenly, have to guess. Better than doing nothing, and at least I didn't have to worry about watering it in because of the rain, managed to do it between downpours. Have been worried about that, getting it down and wasting it because no rain. No way can I water it in well with the hose. It's not going to eliminate the JB problem but makes me feel like I've done all I can, and lots fly in from elsewhere, but I'm sure they start looking for a food source closest to where they hatch. Enough of that. Haven't checked dpreview for awhile. Just as well for now. Will get back into it come fall. I thought I'd upgrade but think I'll wait until next year; I'm still doing ok with the 20D for now. Is the metering better on the 30D? It has spot. I always use pattern and exposure comp negative, only positive for snow, amazing. Never really liked center weighted or partial and one is my biggest faults is I get in a hurry and forget to change the settings back to where I like to start. Another talkative post :-( Here is a link that might be useful: gazania's RW monarda in thread, she wasn't the OP

Oh, Tiffy, I have absolutely no idea what the name of that azalea is. That bush was here when I bought my house 10 years ago. That pic does not do it justice, it was gorgeous this year. (That was a pic I almost erased before posting the link to my album!) Marianne: All I can say is take as many photos as possible and make good use of your zoom lens! The absolute joy of digital is being able to take a hundred pictures of one thing and being able to dump the 99 that didn't work. I just use a point and shoot, and I honestly 99% of the time use the auto setting. My first Panasonic had a 6 optical zoom. This new one only has 5, and I really miss that extra 1. Pitimpinai, oooh, I love that clematis. Purple is my favorite color! I have several clematises, but I think somehow they mostly ended up dark purple. I would really like to get a large white one. A couple streets away from me, someone has one on their fence and I just drool every time it blooms. Bonnie: If you're still following this! That yarrow I think is Moonshine...moonbeam? I love it. It's the only achillea I still have left in my garden. The others have all come and gone. Did I miss any other questions? I think someone asked about the name of the salvia. I don't know, I'm sorry. I am VERY type B about that kinda stuff and I never keep track of names. I do well to remember the official name :) Everytime I post over at the daylily forum I have to begin my post with "I'm sorry I don't know the name of this ...I just want to share....or....look at my beautiful seeding...uh, I have no idea who the parents are!!" I always feel so inadequate when I have to admit that! Aliska, I'm going to try to fiddle with some of the settings. I do enjoy taking photos. A friend of mine is raising her granddaughter and I am the official photographer. I keep a normal photobook with a tons of pictures in it, but since she was two I have been making books for her chronicling her year (This is the year I was two, these are my adventures when I was three...) Have you seen Shutterfly? I upload the pictures all year to there and then after her birthday I write the dialogue and pick the photos and presto, a hard bound book arrives. I have thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed doing that. I don't really have any memories of my early childhood, so I wanted to make sure she will always remember all the fun times we had. She loves reading the books. We used to read them as bedtime stories! Uh....grab a cuppa tea, I'm really going off topic! (like I haven't been!) Here's one of my photos that I just love. It was a total accident. My nephew pointed out to me later that I had a "sports" setting on my camera :) But then I wouldn't have got this cool pic! We were at a tiny rodeo in Beaver Creek Colorado when I took this.

Marylu, I don't know much about the Sony H5-- it came out after I'd already moved on to my Canon camera. But! There's a really active and helpful Sony forum over at DPReview.com. There are lots of "personalities" over there, but more often than not you'll get some great help. Even if you didn't want to get involved in another forum, it would be well worth reading through posts. Every conceivable question gets asked and answered. Thanks wigardenerwannabe. I mostly take photos for my own pleasure, but have used them for my work (graphic design) quite a bit, too. I've sold a few images, but it's not something I actively promote. I'd like to do that someday, but have to get to the point where my portfolio is a lot stronger than it is now. The good news is that I am finally almost to the point where I am pretty consistent at being able to grab the shots I want, but I still have so much more to learn. As far as knowing when things are in focus, it's likely just going to take some practice. I know nothing about Panasonic cameras, but check your manual to see if there is an option to turn on a beep when it's focused. Or some cameras have a blinking "shakey hand" icon which shows up when not in focus. It took me forever to realize that a sort of moire pattern would show up when my Sony was focused. Lisa's settings will likely help you the most. It's cool that it's got a macro/flower setting. One other thing to consider is that camera lenses generally need something contrasty to focus on-- light/dark or hard edges usually work. For a kind of decent tripod at a next-to-nothing price, check out Walmart. I used one of these for a couple of years before moving on up and it did just what I needed it to do. Anne, something you'll need to get used to is that Canon images are generally not sharp right out of the camera. They've done this on purpose, because in the long run it will give you a great deal of flexibility. Do you have Photoshop or some other image editing program? Are you after trying to zoom in for macro shots or are you wanting to zoom into things that are further away? If you are like me you probably want to do both, but I am going to guess that you are wanting to zoom closer to things further away. Heh... you can always do what I was told to do after a friend got tired of my whining-- zoom with your feet. ;-) In all honesty, the best image quality comes from lenses designed for each specific job. Most of us would give a lot to own one lens that does it all (macro, landscape, zoom zoom). There are a few lenses that come close, but they all sacrifice quality. A DSLR owner eventually has to wrap their brains around the idea of switching lens. A lot. I still hate it, but I've finally accepted the notion.... though I still look for and dream about *the* lens. Disclaimer: Lens selection is an extremely personal thing. There are so many choices and so many individual needs. You can read up on these lenses (highly recommended!), but for every pro recommendation, you'll read a con. Photographers are very opinionated and aren't shy about saying what they think... and what they think is often based on limited experience with a particular lens. I guess I am no exception. No matter what I tell you, you still need to make the decision for yourself and you need to know that you won't make me feel bad if you end up doing what you want to do and not what I think you should do. (lol) So here I go, telling you what I think you should do. The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM is a lens that I actually have on my Maybe Someday list. I've researched it like crazy, because it has a super duper range on it -- great for a walk-around lens. The IS is really attractive for sure. The problem is that it's only F4, which means it's a slower lens-- you can't stop it down any further to let more light in. The IS compensates, which is great.... but you're not going to get the great creamy backgrounds that you'd get with an F2.8 lens. The other thing that concerned me is that I've looked at hundreds and hundreds of images from that lens and have seen only a small handful that I really loved. The color isn't even as good as the kit lens, which strikes me as odd for a Canon brand lens. A couple of lenses you might think about: Canon Zoom Wide Angle-Telephoto EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM The 24-70mm is an "L" quality lens, which is about the best quality you can get in a Canon lens. It's just so hard to put into words the differences between L-quality and the rest. Incredible sharpeness, incredible bokeh (background magic), color, brightness, etc. This lens doesn't have the IS, but it's an F2.8 lens, which will let you shoot some really low light shots. The older version of this lens (28-70mm) is my current walk-around and portrait lens and I wouldn't trade it for any amount of money. The biggest drawback is the weight (loads of glass inside there!), but I found I got used to it fairly fast. Having waxed on about the 24-70mm, the lens I would really recommend to you is the Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. Oh man, this has everything, including a great price! Great reach on the long end, plus you can focus this thing at a distance of only 5ft., meaning that you can actually get some decent macro shots. What I am trying to say here is that you won't often miss the 24mm on the wide end.... unless you want wide angle (landscape) shots, but then you'd probably switch to the 18-55mm kit lens. The color is really nice on this lens and it has a decent brightness to it. Even though it's only an F4 lens, you can get good creamy backgrounds by zooming into subjects. On this lens, the IS really does count toward getting those lower-light shots. The really good news is that if it turns out that you don't like your lens, you can sell it without much loss. There's a real market for these lenses-- a great place to sell them is on FredMiranda.com. As for that 18-55mm lens being sharp, hang in there, because for such a cheapy lens, it really is a workhorse. Check out the link at the bottom, then read the EXIF info below the photo. This image was taken at a super low speed at ISO1600, no flash. Just imagine how sharp it might have been with decent light. Nancy Here is a link that might be useful: Miss Em

Got up at 5:30, darn race didn't start until 8, they said 7 on one of the news websites. Had to get there early enough so I didn't have to park too far away, people everywhere all over town. Hot already but not as bad as I thought. Here I am telling you what to do and my photos did not turn out too great. I shot sports mode, buildings & background were bright but runners too dark, many blurry or out of focus, many good and fixable. I am going to have to process each one that's worth keeping (shot 594) and brighten most of them up with shadow highlights. Good learning experience. I shot most in sports mode which kicks into burst, but I'm not happy with a lot of today's because I can't change any of the parameters in that, picks too large apertures and too slow shutter speeds and continuous auto focus I'm not used to at all. It is hard shooting a sea of people, never been in a situation quite like that before. I'm thinking about what to do next time, couldn't figure out how set burst so I could use tv mode standing out there with all those people, should have shot tv mode, 1/800, ISO 800, partial metering. Maybe. I'll have to get some help with that. Coming home, I was trapped in by lots of street closings, had to go way out of my way to find a way out of that maze, lucky I know my streets around here, only one way out from where I got myself. Filled two 1 gig flash cards in about 1/2 hour! Good timing though, a few stragglers were coming up the hill when both cards were full. I'll wait for your photos. Yours will be easy. I know people steal photos. I haven't caught anybody doing that to me yet, maybe mine aren't that good? Somebody in France liked my peacock java applet and wrote and asked, I said ok. What do I care? I just don't want people making money off my work. Will address some of the other issues later. Too bad you have to break up your lily garden, that would be very hard for me to do. You must be either a specialist or have special lilies and maybe getting older like I am? Granny out shooting a race. Hah! I wonder which lens would be best for that? Used 50mm with a different race, much smaller, this time went with the 28-135 so I could zoom. 70-200 not wide enough even if I had it which I don't. That is a conundrum for sure since I was so close to most of them standing on the sidewalk, brushed by a few, tried not to get in their way. Then some other photog gets in my way. There now you taught me something about bracketing. I've been doing it the hard way. Shoot, look at histogram, set exposure comp or some other adjustment. I'm going to try bracketing and quit on the bright end like you do. So thanks for that tip! I dared not shoot that race in AV (my favorite) because with the early morning bright light and shadows, it would have picked too slow a shutter speed. Frustrating. THIS is where I would like to have been positioned lol. She hadn't turned her camera toward the race yet, she had to swing it about 45 degrees to her right to be pointing at the runners coming up the long hill. I fixed this one a little. Later, Alice