For heavens sake use your histogram!

When shooting a snow scene, you need to adjust the metered exposure settings by +1 or +2 EV, by using the "EV compensation" to compensate for the bright snow foreground which is "fooling" the meter into under exposing. All of your shots are at least two stops under exposed. Had they been correctly exposed in-camera, there would not be so much blue shift. It's all very well correcting under exposed images in post editing software, but you will never have the image quality that you would have had if you had correctly exposed images to begin with.

Checking the histogram on-camera at the time of exposure would have shown you the underexposure, allowing you to adjust your settings and re-shoot.

The root directory is the base directory of the card i.e. not within a folder.

Yes.

I wonder what Ansel Adams would have made of some of the "art" recently displayed in the Tate Modern? Or some of the recent winners of the Taylor Wessing portrait prize?

I don't use the Canon Utility program to update the firmware on my 7D. I just copy the updated firmware file to the root directory of a CF card and insert it into the camera. From there on I just use the camera firmware update menu.

Lightroom.

From: Her Majesty's Government , Foreign Office, Whitehall. May 1st 2013

Desk of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs

To: The people of The United States of America, by kind favour of Her Majesty's Ambassador in Washington (now appointed Governor General of The American States.)

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a competent government of the USA and thus to govern yourselves in an effective manner, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your grant of independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The rt. hon. David Cameron, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2020.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "sh1t".

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in The United Kingdom. It will be called "Reclamation Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. It is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Thank you for your cooperation.

This is completely incorrect. Disregard.

"Exposure value (EV) denotes all combinations of a camera's shutter speed and relative aperture that give the same exposure. EV corresponds simply to a combination of a shutter speed and an aperture setting, independent of any ISO setting—independent even of whether there is any light available."

Ref: Encyclopedia of Photography - Focal Press

You said it, not me....

I would sell the lot and replace with a Fuji X1 Pro with a FujiXF 35mm f/1.4 lens.

Not everyone who buys a DSLR wants to learn to be a photographer. They may just want to impress their friends and neighbours or their fellow cruise passengers.....

instead of calling it an APS sensor.....

People who post totally off topic in a thread such as this one.....