Very very nice I would love to catch action shots like those

It was me being picky, I see noise in the darker areas and wondered if by lowering the iso to reduce the noise I would still have a fast enough shutter speed to stop any motion blur.
Glad you like it, it was my first time photographing a swan

Got away from my original question of noise but from your comments it seems it's just me being picky so that's cleared that up :D

The other opinions about the composure, cloning out of objects and typical shutter speeds are very welcome too, thankyou.

I can see me spending a lot of time here.

Here are the pictures
My wife's is the goose and mine is the otter

Here is my wife's, then my ,favourite picture of the day at Slimbridge wetlands trust site in Gloucester.
Feel free to comment good or bad points

Edit: pictures won't upload I will try again when I get home

I hadn't thought of our natural tendancy to look left to right so thankyou for pointing that out, I will definately keep that in mind in future.

As for the crop I was limited by that damn post again ;)
Here is a small version of the original and as you can see I also had to clone out the other swan

Don't you just love the different opinions, I personally didn't have an opinion about the post either way.
Anyway after looking through all of my shots again I found one without the post and also had a little room infront of the swan. It was also shot at a slower speed, albeit still high at 1/2000 but it does go some way to answering my own question.
I do seem to be falling into the habit of placing the subject centrally, still so much to learn but loving every step

Ok maybe I am being too picky, I think that is my nature though ;)

I have tried to clone out the post but cannot add space to the right as there is part of another swan which would be too prominent to clone out.

Thankyou for your help it's much appreciated

I took this shot with a canon 1000d and Tamron 70-300 lens in aperture priority mode with iso at 400 and a shutter speed of 1/3000

I would like to lower the iso to remove some of the noise but don't know how quick the shutter would need to be to prevent the wings from blurring.

Thanks in advance for any help

Yes I did get a camera. Popped into a shop just to see what was available and to get an idea on price. They had a 1000D with kit lens that was old stock but had never been opened. I bought it for £189. Less than I thought I could have got the body only for.

Anyway I have taken a few shots of the moon which can be seen in this thread --> http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-39684-1.html

Too cloudy lately to get the telescope out, another reason I am happy to have bought it with a lens as it means I can still use it.

Hello, my name is Mark and I live in Bristol UK.

I wanted a dslr camera body to use on my telescope but as it came with lens I decided to use it as a regular camera and am now hooked on 'normal' photography.

Absolutely love how much there is to learn about every aspect of taking a picture and the amount of information here is greatly appreciated.

The reason I got into photography was because I bought a dslr to use with my telescope. Only needed a body but as it came with a lens I started to use it and am now fully hooked.

Here is my first shot of the moon using a Canon 1000D attached to my 8" F6 reflecting telescope at prime focus 1200mmfl.

Absolutely blew me away, hope you like it too. Boosted saturation in PS to add a touch of colour.