First of all, you do not need to learn how to work with Camera Raw format. That format offers you abilities to do work on an image that a JPG doesn't, but if you mostly want to publish photos on the Web, then working with good quality JPGs is going to be quite sufficient. And yes, digital cameras all produce some degree of "noise" in images. It works pretty much the same way as film does: the higher the light sensitivity (ASA) the more visible the grain or "noise" becomes. So if you are setting your camera with a very high light sensitivity, 1600 ASA for example, the noise ("graininess") in the photos will go way up. Setting the sensitivity as low as you can is always advisable as long as it doesn't compromise your getting a sharp, clear image. Getting a good image depends on three basic factors: 1) shutter speed - the duration of the opening of the shutter must be as short as possible, within reason, to eliminate any motion of the subject or shaking of the camera operator's hands. Generally you want to use a shutter speed of at least 1/125 of a second or less. 2) depth of field - this controls how sharp the photo is by determining how much of the subject from closest-to-camera to furthest-from-camera is within the range of focus of the lens. Depth of field is determined by how small a lens opening (aperture) you set. It is usually a balancing act between shutter speed and aperture to get lots of depth of field and still use a fast enough shutter speed to eliminate any motion. Most inexpensive digital cameras don't allow you much (or any) control over these settings and simply make a decision for you. This isn't always ideal, but you may not get a full range of features from a camera in your affordability range. If possible, look for a camera that does allow you some manual control. 3) image quality settings - set the ISO/ASA ("film speed" or light sensitivity) as low as lighting conditions will allow. I personally enjoy shooting under overcast conditions which I feel best displays the full range of color of flowers and eliminates hard shadows and highlights. On a cloudy day you can often get a much more painterly look than a bright day. This means you may have to set the camera's light sensitivity to a higher setting, like 400 ASA/ISO or even higher, in order to get both a fast shutter speed and reasonable depth of field. (Keep in mind that depth of field is optional for some kinds of photos: sometimes you don't want everything to be sharply in focus from front to back, and so you may want to shoot with the lens wide open = very little depth of field) Under cloudy conditions I will often set the camera sensitivity to 400 or even 800 if necessary. If you are very lucky and the air is very still, you can use a tripod and leave the ASA/ISO setting way down at 100 (or however low your camera allows) and when you do that, you are reducing the "noise" in the image to minimum. I work exclusively with a Nikon D80 and I find that at its lowest ASA/ISO (which is 100) I can get a very large image that shows next to no noise. Even when I turn up the sensitivity to 800, I can still get a very good image with very little image noise. Its only when I turn sensitivity up to 1600 or more that image noise becomes very noticeable. A few other points: Jeri mentioned image editing software. Your needs are probably going to be very basic at the start and so perhaps Photoshop Elements might be all you need. I'm not sure what other tools might be available in the cheap-to-free range. I gather that Google's Picasa offers the basic photo editing tools. See link below. If you are up to grappling with a fairly steep learning curve, there is a free Photoshop type editing suite called The Gimp and it is almost as powerful as the full Photoshop suite, minus a few of the tools and filters. There are plenty of tutorials online to help you learn how to use it. Also, as Cass mentioned, if you are working on an OS X iMac (as I do) then you can do many image manipulations using the built in iPhoto tools. I can't tell you much about iPhoto though, since I use Photoshop CS4 as my tool of choice. If you can get your head around the idea of buying a used camera, you will undoubtedly get a lot more camera for your money. You might be lucky enough to get a DSLR for what you have to spend. I sold my Nikon D70 two years ago for less than half what I paid for it and the person who bought it got a really good deal. It was an excellent camera and I'm sure it still has years of service in it. So, you may want to consider buying second hand. People often sell their current camera to upgrade to a newer, more capable one (as I did) and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the camera they are selling, they just want to move up a level. Finally, if you already have an understanding of the basics of film camera photography, then you already know most of what is important in digital photography. All of the same basic principles apply to both, its just a matter of learning how to use the specific camera controls to get what you need from a digital. No need to be intimidated by digital imaging, especially if you have a friend who cam teach you along the way. Regards, Paul B. Here is a link that might be useful: Picasa

Resin, Some sources about Cedrus libani from Turkey Reforestation… http://ressources.ciheam.org/om/pdf/a75/00800313.pdf Ibrahim Atalay http://www.jeb.co.in/journal_issues/201001_jan10/paper_07.pdf Ibrahim Atalay http://www.uni-graz.ac.at/geowww/hmrsc/pdfs/hmrsc7/atalay29-38.pdf The turkish sources never mention the plant name Cedrus libani stenocoma. Just Cedrus libani. They should have use the „Turkish cedar” terminology, but they do not use it. If a turkish scientist knows only Cedrus libani, I’m ready to accept it as he is at home in his country. Generally I give much more credit in my conifer books to chinese scientists in describing their own flora (Sylva Sinica), as for russians in their country (Komarov, Czerepanov) like any others. Resin, I fully respect the british role in discovering in world’s botany, but since a time as the world is no more a british dominium, we have to accept the local science’s point of views. Sagalassos II The physical environment of Sagalassos http://books.google.com/books/p/leuven_university_press?id=L_41KIX2pVoC&printsec=frontcover&hl=nl#v=onepage&q&f=false The University Leuven followed archaeologic excavations in Sagalassos, which has a physical environment description. Belgian scientists were going on to give a complete picture about the excavating site, even deep climatic datas with. Here we can read, that the years average temperature in Sagalassos is 9,9 Celsius degree. This is the same as me in Hungary, but the Sagalassos environment is totally different. The coldest month is January with av. -5,8 with repeatedly coming -30 C. They have there 4 months dry and cold, and inside 80 days with dry sun. These are very hard circumstances with selecting power. The biggest problem is of these cedars the beeing without water. Maybe there is an av. yearly rainfall 600-1200 mm, the plants get water only once a year at snow melting! Summer is hot and dry, snow is even very much in winters, but the cedars there get water in a short month. Last, but not least about wind. I guess alaskan scientists know well, that a -20 C with 60 km/h wind works like a silent -40C. The USDA zones are used at us too, but not perfect. Cant make differece in frost resisting, climate resistence or winter resistence, which are very different things. My point of view with the high selected lebanon cedars, that if we carry them to a little or more better circumstances, they will not only survive, but they have very good chance to grow well in z5, as they do it. The new selecting program of HTJ is based on such like datas, and till now he brought out there 20 new cultivars ��" green, silvery or blue, also differents in habit, form etc. as Cedrus libanis are all different and variable inside the species. These plants are selected for dry continental circumstances in Eastern Europe and the Rockies in the States even up to Canada. The semidesert conifering will bring hopefully new achievements. Having an example of Cupressus. The semidesert cypresses from the US are very good selection matters to the continental Europe or even in Turkey. The last winter in Hungary was really hard with long -25-28 C frosts. The SW US originated cypresses in the very dry Arizonica Arboretum had no damage. The same cultivars in urban areas got heavy problems, many died or frosted up to 2-3 meters. I realized, that the continental cypresses have a big enemy: the water. The British Isles or Holland is not quite good for the continental cypresses: no heat, not enough sun and too much rain. If you want to select cypresses to the wet european areas, you should choose the himalayan or formosan specieses, which tolerate cold, sun and too much water. HTJ has some of them too after the world conifer discoveries of Debreczy and Racz in the last 30 years. Zsolt Notes Sagalassos II: report on the third excavation campaign of 1992 By Marc Waelkens, J.P. Page 231 and further Ibrahim Atalay, 1987 General Ecological Properties of Natural Occurence Areas of Cedar / Cedrus libani A. Rich./ Forest and Regioning of Seed Transfer of Cedar in Turkey Orman Genel Müdürlügü Yayini. Yayin No. 663 Ankara M. Boydak, Reforestation of Lebanon Cedar /Cedrus libani A. Rich./ in Bare Karstic Lands by Broadcast Seeding in Turkey Page 35 Zsolt

here are my c , at least what i have uploaded wich is not of individual pic more group shots of the gardens... christmas tree gala (2pic) captain kirk with a nice robin bird poop on it :(

I agree there are a lot of pink old roses, many of them very beautiful. What distinguishes CdC/'Mme. Boll', in my experience, is the Portland habit: upright and not over-tall: mine after a decade stays at around 4'. I have a lot of old roses, and I really can't call to mind another with a similar habit, flower color, form, and fragrance (and rebloom), and foliage. By the way, back in 2007 or 2008 I bought from Schultheis CdC, 'Mme. Boll', and 'Mme. Knorr' in one order. They turned out to be the same rose as far as I could tell. I don't know whether there's a distinct 'Mme. Knorr' in commerce. I don't know what's being sold in the U.S. under these names. But I would strongly suspect a plant with long lax or arching canes of being a different variety. My rose is beautiful as can be. I can't speak for its disease resistance, as it tends not to be a problem here. But for the rest CdC/'Mme. Boll' is perfect.