Thank you count.d and Fabio too - 'Praise from the praise-worthy is beyond all rewards'. I took the third photo holding the camera with one hand while hanging onto a branch with the other to steady myself as I lent out over a long drop. This seems to have worked quite well but not a technique I intend to use often. 

By the way, a friend of mine keeps banging about RAW, which I have only ever used once as the huge files ate up my memory. However, I've just bought a much bigger memory card so I'm going to shoot RAW from now on but the files are too big to post most places that I usually post so how do you guys get around this problem? 

RAW files should perhaps be thought of as original archive files. They contain the maximum data for the image. At some point during the editing of a photo, much of this data becomes redundant as selections on various parameters are made. A copy should then be saved in a more compact but (probably) lossless format. Even more comapct, and suitable for "posting" are jpeg copies. Various levels of compression are available with jpeg copies.

I'd suggest findning a good book on digital photography and processing. It will explain it all much better than I can, of course.

Hoop dream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/h_ronen/9560234936/

Sniper

To use an old hi-fi analogy, "garbage in, garbage out". When you shoot in JPEG (a lossy format), you lose information every time you edit the picture. However the RAW file is just that - a raw file unaffected by in-camera processing. If you have a decent camera it is worth shooting in RAW as otherwise you're probably not getting the best from it.

The best way to use these files, I find, is with Adobe Lightroom. The great thing about Lightroom, apart from its versatility and ease of use, is that your original RAW file is completely untouched. It's essentially a database of the changes that you've made to a photo.

The disadvantage is that RAW files are big (the ones my camera generates are 18.3MB for each picture) but storage is cheap these days so the trade-off is worthwhile IMO.

Lightroom also allows you to post directly to sites like SmugMug, Flickr etc. In both cases it will send them a max quality JPEG which is more than acceptable for most uses.

Thanks Winky and Kevin, now my tormentor is banging on about me using something he calls sRGB colour space - apparently this is the eighth and most deadly of the deadly sins - I have no idea what he is talking about but he is buying me a copy of CS5 whatever that is. Onwards and upwards. 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikon-d600/16

See this page for a comparison of RAW and jpeg on Nikon's newish D600 (which I am contemplating purchasing ). Basically, it shows that because RAW has all the data, image processing is more flexible, and if you know what you are doing, can result in a "better" result. Note that crops on that web-page are at 100% - that is, showing pixel for pixel on your screen. We virtually never look at photgraphs that close up on screen. Better to download the comparison files and look at them as you would your own images.

Sounds like your generous buddy can help you understand the differences, though.

Sniper,I set my camera to make one JPEG file and one RAW file everytime I shot.

Sniper, I set my camera to shoot raw. Colour space is set to Adobe RGB 1998 (and all subsequent processing colour preferences) in the camera, Nikon Capture, Photoshop CS6 and monitor. Stick to this colour space and you can't go wrong.

It can get a bit complicated, but to simplify things, I adjust most raw images with CS6, as the highlight retaining tool is unmatched. However, for portrait skin tones, I'll process the raw images in Capture first, save as a TIFF then process in CS6. 

Shoot and adjust in RAW and you'll be amazed just how much detail there is in the highlights/shadows.

House I've on site just now. It's (to be) clad all over in Pigmento Zinc below:

Glazing starts to go in next week (The dark areas in the top pic above which is taken by a friend).

G

Crossing the stream below Burg Eltz in Mosel, Germany last week.

A recent photo taken on holiday in Bermuda

Caves Beach NSW

The chicken or the egg?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/h_ronen/9477094108/

What comes first, the white wall or the red one?

Very nice indeed. G

In the world I inhabit, there is no way that could be described as a "Nice Photo". Sorry, just doesn't appeal to me on any level.

I think I probably wouldn't want to inhabit your world anyway Wink so it matters not. Onwards and upwards...

Kevin,

How'd you get to photograph the Mueck sculptures? Saw his more recent pieces in Paris the other week - definitely no photographs allowed.

Very impressive 'in the flesh' aren't they!

Phil

+1

They are great Phil. I took those photos at Wolverhampton Art Gallery, where he currently has a show, and the very nice lady said it was fine to shoot pictures as long as one didn't use a flash.

I find the hyper-realism, along with the non-human scale (most of his works are smaller, or much bigger than, life size) rather disturbing and disorentating. Which is why I like them I guess.

Here's another for you Phil. "Spooning Couple" (2005)