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Hi Jimbo I spent about the same on my replacement lens as I did for the body and lens kit. If you can get hold of a body only and save a few quid towards a new lens, I would certainly consider that.

You and me both Stefan! All we can do is keep trying and hope practise makes perfect

Tried that, but the wife wasn't happy. I can't find anyone to buy her too though

Hi Jonny I think the vertical lines are caused by the planes landing light shining straight into your lens. SImilarly, the lines you can see on the shot of the Canada goose seem to be because the sun is bouncing striaght off the water behind the reeds and into your lens. I don't know what the technical reason behind this is, but you should probably avoid photos where the light is stright into the lens to avoid this.

Hi Jimbo Until recently I had the Canon 350d, which is the predecessor to the 400d. As my first foray into DSLR cameras, it served me very well as and entry level camera, although the kit lens (non IS 18-55) was dire, and soon upgraded to a 17-85 IS lens. I never found the camera to feel too plasticy, as Simon has mentioned, although it was clearly lower build quality than my current 50d (but then it was a third of the price!). I haven't used the 1000d, so I cannot comment on that I'm afraid, but the 400d would serve you well I feel.

Well, we are back form our weekend afloat. We managed to get to the Spring meet at the Dog .... eventually. I had rather a hectic day at the yard with a couple of breakdowns and then did a couple of trial runs too, so we managed to get away at about 4:45pm in the end. We arrived at Ludham Bridge at about 5:30pm, and the place was completely banged out. The only space I could see was at the water point, which you are not supposed to moor at for any length of time. We pulled in, and I wandered up the bank to see if there were any other spaces. One was available between "Sandpiper" and "Sally B", which I thought we would fit into. We got slipped moorings and came upstream to the spot, but from the river it looked about 3 feet shorter! I decided to try to squeeze in, and as luck would have it, we managed it with only 3 inches clear at either end, and I didn't touch either of them, all without a bow thruster A quick adjustment of Sandpipers spring lines, and the addition of one ourselves, soon meant we were not bumping into each other too much as boats went past. On walking up to the pub it was apparent we had missed the BBQ, as we kept stopping every 100 yards to greet some familiar faces who were all returning to their boats to freshen up. We decided to order some pub food instead as the BBQ had finished, and upon Dave's (Aquaholic) recommendation, I had the Steak and Ale pie, which was delicious. Slowly people started returing to the pub, and more specifically to the function room, for the evenings entertainment from Jon Collerick and Boycee. A great evening was had by all and it was so good to once again catch up with old friends, and put some new faces to names too. We had already planned to go to Coltishall on the Sunday, and it turned out that a number of other members had decided on that route too. As we were the last to get there, all the moorings had been taken outside the Rising Sun, so we decided to continue up to the lock until later that afternoon when the day boats had departed. We moored at the lock, and it was lovely just sitting by the meadow watching the cattle graze. The kids wanted to play in the mill pool in their Kayaks, so we paddled around there to let them have a bit of fun. Harry was a little wary of the white water, but Jack soon plucked up the nerve and was diving in and out of it in his Kayak. Eventually he bit off more than he could chew, and ended up getting very wet having capsized! I missed this bit on camera unfortunatley! Having got back to the boat and dried off, we realised it was gone 6:00pm, so decided to stay put for the night. Our apologies to Boycee, Flying Fortress, Red Rover and Boaters for being so anti-social. We would have loved to have come back to spend an evening with you all, but were simply too damned lazy! Hope to see you all again soon though

That was my feeling exactly Simon, when I upgraded from the 350D to the 50D. I have obviously gone down the Canon route, simply out of personal preference. I like the way the controls are all intuitively placed at my finger tips, but as I have never even held a Nikon, I cannot give an opinion either way. When spending the sorts of cash we are talking about, the decision can only be made by the user. It will be based on how comfortable you feel with the thing in your hand, as that is where it will spend it's time. If the camera feels good, is nice to use, does everything you ask of it, then don't be swayed too much by technical reviews. IMHO there is so little difference in quality these days between the big names, that reviewers tend to inflate minor issues out of all proportion as they use complete perfection as a benchmark.

I've just seen the price of the Lee circular polariser ..... over £200 , and then I need the adaptor for the holder which is another £30 Looks like the kids moneybanks are going to take a hammering too

Thank you all for you invaluable input. Perry, that article you linked to was just what I was after. Seems I need to raid the piggy bank again

My yellow pages is actually my monitor stand! I have never opened this copy as I use yell.com all the time.

Okay, I've got a lovely set of Lee ND grads now, and useful they are too. The question is now, do I invest in a polarizing filter. We are off to Greece later in the year for 2 weeks, and it strikes me this would be the perfect environment for one, or at least it would if I knew what one did and how to use it. Can anyone shed some light on these beasties please? I know nothing about them and would appreciate any help.

HI Bjorn I would think the constant moving and flexing of the hull would be a problem for a wooden floor. I have no experience of this, but had to replace several rotten floor boards in our bath-tub when we first acquired her, so a permanently fixed floor is probably a no-no. You might be better off with a look-alike "lino" type floor covering that can be easily lifted and cleaned. The floor boards themselves are screwed to the glassed-in timber bearers, so they would have to remain in order to provide you with a substrate to fix any other covering to.

Great pics Keit. I am envious of the Kingfisher shots!

I had the same problem Colin, when I put in a new switch in our dash. The problem was the new switch and the old looked the same on the back but worked differently inside. A multi-meter soon sorted out what went where though!

And yet the 50D body I bought afew weeks back has fallen by a few quid

Flippin eck Martin, that's a good link I've just bought 2 batteries from there for my EOS 50D, total price including postage £12.78. Proper Canon price £50 each! The odd thing is, the genuine Canon ones are 1390mAh, whereas these generic ones are 1500mAh so should last even longer! It'll be interesting to see just how good they are

I knew I was doing something wrong!

Lovely shots Simon, better than anything I took this weekend. As for looking where you're going, I shall claim I was trying to anticipate a yottie And you're right Loops, not a beaver in sight all weekend

And a few more

Just a few snaps from the weekend on our way to the Salhouse meet

Lovely sunset, Blackpool. Some late evening cruising was it

They are so sharp! I love the one looking for it's contact lens in the grass! I do think 4.83 fish per hour is a bit steep though. I'm sure the BA rangers don;t get paid that much

Andy My final point on the subject is that I have seen with my own eyes my primary fuel filter covered in a slimey snot like substance. It can't be algae as that requires light to bloom. It certainly wasn't rust or similar as that would be granular, so it had to be something else that I cannot define. In the event that "diesel bug" does actually exist, I am happy to spend £20 per year on a bottle of jollop to put in my tank. It only takes 5 or 10 ml per fill so it doesn't exactly break the bank, and if nothing else gives me some piece of mind. Has my engine ever stopped? No. Does it run any better with the jollop? Probably not, but it is starting better now than ever before. As to the whole detergent thing, the Oxford dictionary definition is "a water soluble cleansing agent". The last time I looked diesel certainly did not dissolve in water, and therefore it would seem it is impossible for any oil to be a detergent. It does contain detergent substances to help prevent injector clogging, but a detergent it ain't! Maybe all the studies are a smoke screen, maybe men didn't land on the moon. Who cares? At the end of the day it is what the individual believes that is important. Change your own fuel filter next spring and see if it is clean. If it is then you have no problem

I would be happy to have taken any of those. For me though, the greylags are the stars, the way one of them looks like he's shouting at you! Maybe a tighter crop could help the image, but I'm not too sure as then you could lose the context......

Lovely shots Simon, even on a dull day. Do you reckon that Thatcher has a mate footing the ladder for him?