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Hi Simon Nice shots of St Benets. You should have hung around for dusk, as it get's really eerie then. I'm no great believer in ghosts, but being in this place at night almost makes you feel there could be such things. Sharon had to take Harry back to the boat as he was so scared I was playing about with some light-painting there last year, but I can only find this one crap shot. I seem to have deleted all the better ones

Hi Cygnet I may have this wrong, and I'm sure I'll be corrected if so, but I was under the impression that you could no longer install gas fridges on boats. If the boat already has one, that's fine, but once it is removed only an electic one can be replaced. We fitted an Isotherm when we revamped our boat and are very pleased with it's performance, and I am sure it is much more efficient than the gas alternative we previously had. Despite the hot, humid weather this weekend, we still managed to have it turned up too high and froze the lettuce an cucumber! We have 2x110Ah domestic batteries and have never flattened them so as long as you are sensible with engine running times.

Count me in Simon

Is the engine thermostat working properly Simon? I would have thought that even at tick-over an engine should reach normal operating temperature, as the the thermostat should close down most of the coolant flow until that point in reached?

I'm impressed! I have a Tasco telescope, and I can;t even get a picture that clear with my eye, let alone mounting a camera on it. What telescope do you have Ian?

Well done Paul. I've only ever seen one before, last year at Cockshoot. I was so intent on looking at the reeds trying to spot one, that I nearly trod on it and it flew up past my nose. No chance of a shot of that one

And to think I used to like you

Paul, YOU GIT In my defence I was simlply pointing out to Paul that I also occassionly went topless!

HI Baz That looks to be about the size we have, although ours is a Johnson pump.

We tend to fish from the boat with light tackle (4m elasticated poles with size 20 barbless hooks) and have not failed to catch yet. There have been some nice perch and a few bream but no monsters yet . What amazes me is the number of people who just start fishing without plumbing the depth and then wonder why they don't catch anything when they are only set a 2ft deep

It really depends on the yard Bill. I know from personal experience that the yard I help out at have a check sheet for every boat that goes out, to ensure nothing gets missed. Having said that, though, with older craft there are always the odd bits and pieces that crop up from time to time. A lot of the systmes on boats are hidden under floors etc and it isn't practical to check them every week, but engine wise the normal rules apply (water, oil, fuel etc) with things like glow plug cleaning etc tending to be done over the winter months. Most yards only have 4-5 hours between the boat being returned and sent back out again and at least 2-3 of that is for the cleaners. The engineers only have a couple of hours at most, so only the basic maintenance is possible in such a short time.

Hi Frank You could try Edward William Insurance, who we are with. If you call in to DRL Marine at Womack Staithe, they have an office there, so you could speak to Clive face-to-face if necessary. I would guess, though, that most insurers would exclude any claims that arise due to anything below the waterline if no crane-out survey is done. Unfortunately, you can't really expect an insurance company to take a gamble on something they have no knowledge of.

It's probably my misunderstanding of the term "macro lens" then Simon. I've always thought of a macro lens as being one where you can focus down to very short distances, meaning you need to be close to your subject. Obviously a 300mm zoom cannot focus down to less that a couple of feet generally, but can still take close-ups from that range. If you had a proper "macro" lens on, wouldn't you have to have your nose on a bee to shoot it then?

That's looking good Andy!

Great shots Jill. I agree with you that for that sort of photography, a macro lens isn't the best tool as you need to get too close, whereas with a zoom, you can stand a little further away and not spook the beasties. I took some close-ups last year of dragonflies in the same way, as they would only let me get within a couple of metres, but with a 300mm zoom, you can still get close enough to see every individual vein in their wings.

Hi Jonny When I did the hull of Tranquil Breeze last October, I fully prepped the hull with an orbital sander (yes, it was a Line Azurro boat, yes the paint was a bit dodgy ). After filling and rubbing down again, she then got 3 coats of International undercoat, followed by one coat of International gloss, heavily thinned. This gave us a very nice finish, which has survived well so far. My own experience though, is do not underestimate how much boat there is to cover. I was quite amazed at just how big a 32' hull is when you;ve got to paint it all 4 times

No, the tin hat wasn't in your direction Simon In the develop module of LR, the presets are on the left hand side, and you should find "Punch" in the general collection. It's one that ships with LR, along with a whole load of others, most of which are a bit useless IMHO (eg cyanotype etc).

Hi Simon You know me, always up for a bit of PP This may not be to your taste, but what I've done is.... 1. Added the LR preset General-Punch 2. Slight cropping of the top and sides 3. Added a slight S-curve to boost the contrast 4. Increased saturation a bit 5. Added a slight grad filter to the sky 6. Increased the exposure of the tops of the towers where the grad filter had darkened them too much. Only a quick 3 minute fiddle, but the result is not quite as "flat". Tin hat on ........

The Stofens do work well to diffuse the light, especially when using bounce flash rather than direct, the problem is that with only one light source, and something with very straight edges like the sarcophogus there isn;t really any way of avoiding shadows with only one light source. The high ISO picture though, looks nice and natural.

Good shots Simon. I don't think there is anything at all wrong with your camera's low light abilities! I think you were right to take those shots without the flash too, as withou proper reflectors etc, you would have got some really harsh shadows.

Hi Ian I agree with Simon. When I did an evening course on digital photography a few years back, the lecturer said it was a cardinal sin to shoot B&W in the camera for exactly the reason Simon has mentioned. In the days of B&W film (though I assume there are still a people around who use it still) the photographer would often use coloured filters, even though shooting B&W, for example a green filter when shooting trees etc, to alter the contrast. If you shoot in RAW that when back on the computer you can add various coulour tints or change the white balance after you have desaturated the image which can have a simlar effect by changing the contrast between the various shades of grey dramatically and can make massive improvements to pictures. Make sure you post the shots, as I'd love to see them

No Roy, it can't be Paul as he has his shirt on

Yes, that's the one Simon

Hi Jill, Well done with those shots, I particularly like the 2nd and 3rd ones. Next time one of the little critters sits still for more than 0.1 seconds, you could try setting your camera to single focus point (in the middle) as you have already said, adjust the metering mode so that the shot is being metred from the middle of the frame, and even try the flash too. That should help the bee be more distinct, as at the moment, the camera is reducing the exposure to compensate for the bright white flower, which is why the bee seems a little dark.

Thanks for the kind comments guys. The weather couldn;t have been more different from the morning to the afternoon Simon! On the trip to Holkham, we were all wrapped up, hoods up, with gale force winds and showers. Then the cloud just broke and the sun came out, and we spent the aftenoon putting on suncream in Wells! British summertime at its best Hi Clive, I only posess two lenses, a Canon EF-S 17-85 f4-5.6 IS USM, and a Canon EF 70-300 f4-5.6 IS USM. All these shots were with the 17-85 which is my main lens, though I do want to upgrade in the future to something that won't suffer with such bad distortion at high f-stops. The shot with the poppies also used a 2 stop ND grad filter as the sky was so completely blown out, but even this was rather hit and miss as I did not have my tripod with me and the wind was so strong. Perfect shooting conditions - NOT