Pete

Great photos Jonathan. I had my 70-300mm lens arrive yesterday, so will have to head down there again to test it out.

Oh, forgot one of the most useful ones: Appfresh It will automatically check for updates for all the software installed on your laptop, and update it for you. It also integrates with IUseThis, which allows you to store a list of all the software you use on the internet, then in the event you need to format your laptop, or you get a new one, it will download all the software you previously had installed.

Quicksilver (Quickly launch programs, compose emails, perform calculations, etc) Adium (MSN, AIM, Yahoo, Jabber client) Address Book Sync (for syncing address book contacts with facebook) Hotspot shield (VPN client for secure browsing when at an open internet hotspot)

Hi Strowager, I've had the 500D for about a month now, and am loving it. Like you I went for the 15-55mm lens, as due to the cashback offer on the kit, I could get the kit + a 2nd lens for the same price as the body only and a lens; which gave me the benefit of being able to experiment a bit before forking out/choosing for a 2nd lens. I find the images taken with the 15-55mm lens to be of decent quality. It does however have a pretty narrow range, so I've been looking to get the 17-75mm lens, which I believe Musiclive uses. Before that though, I'm going to get a zoom lens; probably the Canon 70-300mm IS one, as this would suit the sort of photography I do more.

I'm still learning myself, here's what I'd suggest though as a starting point. Short focal length lens - these were taken on an 18-55mm lens Tri-pod Long exposure - around 30 seconds ISO as high as it will go - these were taken at 3200 Focal length as low as it'll go Focus set to infinity - if possible Clear night Minimal light pollution

Decided to see if I could get some photos of the Geminids shooting stars last - my first ever shot at this sort of thing. Here are the results. They are all 30 second exposures as ISO 3200. The orange light at the bottom of the photos is from Great Yarmouth (damn them for ruining my photos! )

Great pics Clive. Just to point out to anyone visiting Horsey gap - the beach is currently closed to people to protect the seals; so you have to stay on the paths in the dunes.

for the advice. I've actually had my eye on that lens for a little while now. Will probably wait until after Christmas however, to see if I can find it discounted anywhere.

Thanks! Now I just need to learn how to use it properly; and get my hands on a lens more suitable for wildlife photography. This is still quite early into their birthing season, they should still be around well into February; so should give you plenty of opportunities to get down there.

Went down to Horsey Gap yesterday to see the seals, and try out my new camera. There's hundreds of the things down there! One lady I spoke to said that they had been seeing record numbers for this time of the year, and it's still remarkably early into their birthing season.

Are you sure you clicked on the right download link? There's an annoying advert that looks like the download link, but in fact isn't. If in doubt send me the youtube url, and I'll give you the download link. Pete

Hi Trevor. I've recently bought the 500D, which is one up from the 450D I believe. The 500D and 450D (with the standard lens) both currently have special discounts on Amazon (£50 and £30 respectively), which may be worth considering when making your decision. Pete

Pop the URL into: http://keepvid.com/ You will be given a .flv file to download, which can be opened on any computer that has flash player installed.

Congratulations for going for a Mac! Once you've been using it for a couple of weeks I'm sure you'll probably never want to go back to a PC. Mac's now come with Exchange support out of the box - http://www.apple.com/macosx/exchange/. Mac's don't use outlook, instead you have 3 separate programs, but which all tightly integrate with each other.

This might link might be of interest to you http://magicseaweed.com/Lowestoft-Surf-Report/19/ It's primarily designed for surf predictions, but it may be of use to boaters who venture further from shore. The canoe club I'm in uses it quite a lot to decide when the best surf is about to go kayak surfing. From experience, it tends to slightly over estimate the size of the surf, but this may be down to the shape of the beach.

It's an unusual place isn't it. We have a holiday cottage down there, so I know the area well. The power station looks really cool on a clear evening as the sun is setting, the colour from the sun turns the power station from a cold grey box to a warm object covered in shades of yellow, orange and red. There's also loads of photo opportunities to be had with the miniture railway that runs from Dungeness to Hythe.

Great job Simon. I especially like the stained glass ones.

Great tale so far Jonny. Looking forward to the next installment. Perhaps next time you go on holiday we should ahave a forum sweepstake, guessing how much coke you'll drink!

Try giving the hireyards a ring directly. I think the 3nights price = 4nights price may be down to Blakes/Hoseasons. I'm sure if a hire yard have a boat free for a 3 day period, they'd welcome your business.

It depends very much on which provider you go with, and what area of the Broads you are likely to be frequenting. The maps I linked to should give you an idea, but you'll notice that outside of Norwich, 3G (mobile broadband) coverage is very poor. I imagine dongles will fall back to GSM/Edge when there is no signal. This has the advantage of being much more widely supported, but much slower speeds. If you are just checking emails though, this should be sufficient.

Great photos Simon. Is it Dungeness? I heard someone say a while back, that making a photo black and white is the easy way to make it look good.

I should just point out that those maps are from January I believe, so the situation may have changed since then, or may change in the coming months.

Here's a link that displays the 3G coverage maps for the different mobile operators. May be of some use when deciding which provider to go for. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/radiocomms/ifi/ ... e_maps.pdf

I've just edited your post with the 3 different sized photos to show you what I mean. If you click on the mid sized photo, it will open up the full sized one. So you can go to your post, hit edit, and see what the code looks like.

I think theres a mod that lets you attach photos from photobucket, so that they work in in the same way as attached images. I shall have a look tonight.