gingerjon

Okay. I wont! Kirkwall Bus Station. No buses. Possibly a sensitive building though.

Look into my eyes ... Details: D40x @ 300mm; 1/400; f/5.6; ISO 400

Excellent. Some great expressions there.

From a free concert in Victoria Embankment Gardens yesterday lunchtime: And in the evening, a Covent Garden street entertainer:

You see that's a good response but it took you hours and it still ain't as good as my phaser line. Incidentally I did a kelkoo on the A200 and Amazon is the most expensive for that set-up.

Black & White first and foremost. Yes, yes. It's sunny here now actually. Meant to ###### down tonight though. Like that a lot.

The aussie rules and cricket ones are belting. The others: merely superb. Do you have a gallery page at all?

Right. Outside. Now.

Yes, yes. That's what they all say. Anyway, in the absence of anybody else sticking their photies here here's one from yesterday: ITV were shooting a commercial for their football coverage next season. The crew were more interesting though.

You'd think wouldn't you? Linky dink

Are they the bastards that have put blotches on the inside of my viewfinder?

What's the issue with plugging the camera straight in?

I am so far! Not had chance to test on action pics yet and it's a bit top heavy on my light camera but it really does the job. There's some free lunchtime concerts near work this week and providing I can dodge the PCSOs and Park Police I'll be taking some snaps there!

They're very good buskers so they're probably lying furriners. Well, to take the accordion player ... This is original - all I've done here is re-save the original RAW file as a jpeg. And here it's just been converted to grayscale. If I used the camera's B/W function this is what it would look like. It's okay here but you're right in that it can just be washed out - plus if all you do is desaturate or convert to BW this is what happens. Plus having the image as black and white/desaturated limits what you can in terms of filters. So. The gingerjon way - which is probably not the best way but it delivers the results I like is: Open the RAW image in Photoshop Elements. Sort out any under/over exposure and white balance. Boost the clarity. Open image in the editing window. With the image still in colour adjust first levels and the brightness & contrast. At this stage it will look somewhat unnatural in colour as I'm looking to build up contrasts (although without going crazy) - so the levels will probably move the midtones slightly and possibly drift in the under and over exposure bit. On the contrast I will probably move it within the range of +1 to +6 and move the brightness either + or - up to 4 or 5. So that's three layers after which I flatten the image to get back to 1. Then I apply the Gradient Map which is the best tool for converting to monochrome. It's best to experiment with this - I like using the orange/red end of the filter and having it almost black but not quite. Again flatten the image. Now go to enhance image and apply the Unsharp Mask. I tend to use: 60%, radius 1.0 pixels with 0.0 threshold - don't ask me what all that means I got there by experimenting! Finally apply any colour filters as required which will help with the overall toning of the image. This is something that can't be done if the shot has been converted to BW or was shot in monochrome mode. Flatten image. Save. And that's that. Probably clear as mud. Mods: Can we merge the two photo threads we have going please?

Right - where's everybody else's photies??? Here are some from my debut run with my lovely new Nikkor 70-300 on the South Bank on Friday.

Good stuff. Nice reflection in the water and nice trail from the swan to the pond/lake as well. Could it be cropped a little tighter though - just a personal opinion.

This is bloody genius: recreating famous images using Lego men. There are some on the BBC site but not this one: The Twickenham Streaker The Full Set

Any vomit-inducing combination of blue, red and white. The kits that taste forgot by and large. For once on matters of shirts we agree. That was a fine jersey. Harlequins RL have had a good run of away shirts as well. But Fulham's, as mentioned and kind of modelled by the Skolars these days I think, is the best.

A couple from strolling round London - bit blurry but never mind.

If you want. If you want a large one (fnarr fnarr) you can download from here I think.

Oi! Get yer stuff on here!!!

I'll put a few on ... According to views and favourties, this is my most popular pic on Flickr. It was taken last November at Smithfield Market, central London. But - I think, my mood changes on this - that this is my own favourite. This is from London's South Bank in February. And to annoy Townie, here's an arty rugby one I simply call "Try". More coming soon! And you'll all be thrilled to learn that I am now part of the credit crunch as I mortgaged my granny to get the Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 last night. Hopefully will get an outing at St Albans on the weekend.

I think the thread's an excellent idea. Get it started, Mr Townie! Although if artsifartiness is banned then I may struggle.

Looks a good camera. Not sure why anyone would buy a 450D in preference to it thought? I am going to collect my lovely new farcically expensive Nikkor lens on my way home. I am also going to be eating bread and water for lunch for the next few months.