OK, here's one that didn't make it.

I still like this, but it wasn't quite good enough to make it into my competition entry* (closing date was officially today, but I've heard it may get extended).



Typically, today when walking around at lunchtime, in the gentle hazy sunlight I saw some wonderful images just waiting to be seized. Alas I had no camera, and in any case I need to stop thinking about picture now. I've been far too absorbed by the need to create images, and would like a chance for the head to relax and forget about such things for a bit.

One of the curious things has been how much we take image quality and size for granted. The original of this image, when re-processed onto lossless .tif format, weighs in at around 23Mb. I submitted a total of 28 main entry images and 32 supporting pictures: the original plan had been to burn them on CD, until I found that they came to 1.7Gb in total.

That's a big old bucketload of space for a few snaps.

Many serious photographers would only recommend shooting in RAW format (un-compressed, without loss of detail and without processing), but that's a lot of space for *almost* the same image quality.having said that, as I've been using DigiKam for processing I started wishing for higher quality images to work with, and doing a bit more processing in GIMP today (to resize downward for easy viewing - pulling 23Mb images from a DVD is slow) I again started wishing for higher quality tools.

Overall I've been really pleased with this camera. 500 shots (without flash) on a single set of rechargables isn't to be sniffed at either.

* These hydrants are everywhere around Heyford Park. They were made originally by Kennedy Valve in New York, and are one of the common threads throughout Heyford Park, reminding you that this isn't just another 60s council estate or industrial site.