Well, it's not only shutterbugs with the appropriate software who appreciate photographs. Call me old fashioned, but I like a nice, not obtrusive (or garish) representation of my name in one of my shots lower corners. (Even though in the old film days this wasn't possible- for me) And I like looking down in the corner of pictures myself to see who's.work it is.

I believe that in astronomy some of the stacked photos are of entirely black images (like shooting with a lens cap on). Random noise is generated on all the exposures and when stacked those exposure elements with the noise are replaced with those that do not. Some consumer cameras will do this with long exposures.

I think I've got that right.

Ahem. I would be surprised if most amateurs would give a tinker's damn if someone stole their photo and made money off of it. What a compliment! Of course the watermark is there for "ego". I don't think any of my shots are worth stealing and am still pleasantly surprised when one gets a lot of favorable response but when that happens I sure want people to know I took it. A watermark is also a signature and what painter, no matter how much a novice, does not sign his or her work?

Every day. Winter can be tough but rain and snow can lead to some interesting shots. This time of year I look for interesting things to shoot indoors, usually macro.

I agree that the more we shoot, deliberately, the better we get. The 10,000 hour rule.

Each year, at the end of April, my wife and I go to OBX, specifically Cape Hatteras. As it's the "shoulder season" you can get great rates and there are very few tourists (although we always seem to go during Bike Week but then I like bikes and bikers - more to take pictures of). Except for last year, which is cold and rainy, the weather has always been great. Warm enough to sit on the beach but too cold to go swimming (fine by me).

And we usually stay at a very nice condo type place called The Lighthouse View, which, as the name implies, is very close to the famous Hatteras Light (though you can't really see it from there.)

And it's an easy drive south to the Ocracoke Island ferry, but if you are coming up from the south yourself you may end up using it. Unless you stay on Ocracoke, which is pretty nice.

Those look great. Speaking of eye cups (well the inventor of those glasses spoke of the Hood Eye) one of the problems I've had with glasses is that the rubber tends to make marks on my eyeglass lens and, as mentioned before, it also adversely effects eye relief (field of view). I wished I could find an eye-cup that you could roll the edges back when using glasses like they have on binoculars.

So I scavenged an old pair of large binoculars and mounted their eye-cups onto the plastic that the original Olympus rubber was attached to, the part that slides over the viewfinder guides. Now I can flip them back flat if wearing glasses (usually when focusing manually) and switch back to nice deep cup otherwise. An added benefit is that the eye-cup is much more secure, now. Olympus eye-cups are notorious for falling off.

Looks good, but I have to say that the Optech glass works well and it's less than 20 bucks. I was fooling around with it the past couple of days and here are a few examples (nothing fancy and the bug ain't pretty).

These were shot with an Olympus 40-150mm and the add-on lens is 10X.

I think I understand the two open eyes concept. It's not that both eyes need be in focus (it's the same for target shooting, btw) but that you have a sense of what else is going outside of your small frame of focus (like a line backer barreling down on you :shock: )

My particular problem here is that I am left eye dominant and right handed. Thank god (for me) that cameras are set up for shooting right handed, but it means I tend to press the left side of my face up against the camera back. Which makes wearing glasses even more difficult as they tend to smear more.

Not exactly on topic but what DO you lefties do when shooting? Or is a non-issue?

And you save some significant battery power as well.

Its possible, and faster, to copy your negatives using your camera and a light box. I was thinking about doing this. You can find some techniques on the web. Just Google it.

Well my solution was to fall back on my old 35mm days. I just turn the LCD around to face the camera body (or you could turn review off). That way I just keep my glasses in my pocket and set the diopter for my eyes alone. I found it funny how I kept "chimping" anyway, looking down at a blank camera back. But that stopped soon enough and I find my pics haven't suffered and I take a lot less!

Right, like so many others. Keeps me from hating my job too much. An expensive passion, photography can be. But at least we don't have to buy film or pay for processing anymore.

Thanks. The OM mount, maybe but...I'm on a TIGHT budget. :wink:

True, but I've found with this add-on lens, it's bright enough that I can shoot with a much smaller aperture and get a wider DOF. Even when I was shooting with the Canon 50mm macro it was pretty narrow. Bottom line is, shooting on a tight budget, this gives me a way to practice with close-up/macro until my fairy god mother springs for a true macro (and considering Olympus' higher grade lens prices that could be a long, long, time from now).

I've been struggling with this as well because I just can't plain afford a nice digital prime macro (and stay married). I shoot Olympus and have played around with the various legacy "macro" zooms and even some macro primes (Canon) with the proper adapters but never too satisfied. Recently I sprang for Olympus' dedicated digital ex-25 extension tube (used $125) and began taking better shots but with significant light loss.

I've always heard about the deficiencies of macro filter lenses but I read some very good reviews about Opteka's mult-element 10x macro lens "filter" and thought that,for less than 20 bucks, I might as well take a risk. And I have been blown away with the results. Bright, no light loss, it will even auto focus (whereas the doubler would not - often too dark). As for any distortion around the edges, if it's there I don't see it (perhaps due to the narrow DOF). First time I've gotten a shot of an insect (stink bug) where you can clearly see the multi facets of the eyes. I highly recommend checking out this surprisingly high quality piece of glass.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=809469&is=REG&Q=&A=details

Anyone want to buy an Olympus digital extension tube?

I would post a shot of the bug but it's not on this computer. However, you can see it on 500px (not too pretty and there is a big flash shadow and it is highly cropped, but still...)

http://500px.com/photo/24979197