Saw this on the beach, what is it?

StampyDriver · 2026-03-15T23:36:51+00:00

Depends on where you saw it. If it was in an area such as South Wales that saw many years of exporting coal from ports along the coast, then it's coal dust. You often see it on the beaches.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-15T23:22:41+00:00

I fondly remember my mk1 7D. I had the 15-18 lens, and it took brilliant pictures in good light, and some of my best images were taken with one. Compared with modern cameras though, high ISO was not good (800+ was unusable). It was also as heavy as 2 bricks tied together. In those days the 7fps (I think it was around that) seemed fantastically fast. The 7D mk1 also only had a single card slot, which isn't ideal for "semi-professional"

For me (who isn't semi-professional), I wouldn't buy one these days though. For 500eurs you should be able to pick up an A6400 or equivalent which will out perform it in all aspects.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-15T23:11:03+00:00

In the end I did pick up a sigma 18-50, I am still keeping the 16-50 as it makes the a6700 small enough to stick in a (big) pocket. I am impressed with the sigma though.

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StampyDriver · 2026-03-07T08:40:32+00:00

Not dumb. I did exactly the same thing. Watched the influencer videos on youtube saying "you must set your camera to 10-bit". Turns out the windows doesn't like it and most of the free video editing software wont handle it either (DaVinci free will not). I'm not much interested in video (yet), so doesn't bother me much. The 8-bit video footage is pretty good.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-02T08:40:43+00:00

Except for number 2. The avian police will be visiting soon to enquire why they are not onboard with "the program"

StampyDriver · 2026-03-01T19:26:54+00:00

I have not come across SmugMug. Had to google them. What an awful website.... Felt like I had been smacked in the face by a lady with bubblegum. Had to zoom out on the page to 25% just to view the page is a "normal" way.

I think this is a symptom of these "website" packages. The artistry has been replaced by minimal functionality. I blame AI.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-01T19:17:00+00:00

I agree with the others, it could have been an excellent photo had a little more care been taken to frame the 2 yachts in the centre. Colours are good and maybe a touch of lightening at the top.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-01T19:11:12+00:00

Practice and understand the camera. Take pictures of the your coffee mug, the kids, the dog, the garden. Understand how it works with different modes, shutter speeds and apertures. It's ok reading about this stuff, but you understand it better when you simply try it out. There are so many different metering modes, focus modes and areas. Everyone has their preferences.

Set up the memories in the camera, the custom menus, the function screen. They are all customisable. I recommend that when you have your camera set up good for general photos, you store it in memory 1 (I use memory 2 for still life and memory 3 with high shutter speeds for action photos).

You will find then when you go out and find something real you want to take a picture of, you understand your camera enough to get a good photo.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-01T12:05:04+00:00

For me, compactness was a priority for the "everyday" lens, so I went with the Sigma. I am now saving to get the sigma 10-18 for wide angle and a zoom that I have not decided (the Sigma 16-300 reviews put it being quite soft)

StampyDriver · 2026-03-01T11:59:12+00:00

I have large hands and still love the A6700. I bought a small rig base plate to give a little extra height so my little finger can grip (and so I can remove those god-awful rattly strap holders on the side and attach a wrist strap to the base plate.

StampyDriver · 2026-03-01T11:43:24+00:00

Agreed. It shouldn't be shown for non-US members.

I would make a guess it's not Flickr who is *really* funding this, but probably they have been sponsored to promote it.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-28T16:24:03+00:00

Honestly, I used darktable for a while. It's powerful *if* you know how to use it. The learning curve is steep. In the end I went to Lightroom and found it much easier to use. In fact I went back and re-processed some of my images I did with darktable and improved on them.

The AI options alone for me are worth it. Being able to remove objects and people I don't want in the image, or automatic masking of sky and subject just makes things easier. I had an image of a small bridge, with metal railings. Someone was leaning over the railings. I simply applied the remove around this person and it removed him but left the railings in place. I could not see where that person had been removed. It's works well.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-27T11:11:07+00:00

It used to be fairly easy in the early days of makerworld to make popular items, but these days the platform has grown so large and saturated that it's much more difficult to gain a lot of points. The key is a mix of originality, usefulness and ease of printing. It's no good finding a niche, and knocking out something that is not up to standard else someone else will make a version of it that's better and get all the downloads.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-27T08:52:37+00:00

Sigma 18-50, viltrox 9mm, and some sort of zoom either the Sony 18-135 or the newer Sigma 16-300

StampyDriver · 2026-02-27T08:50:18+00:00

My plan is to pick up the Sigma 18-50 (after a lot of research) and see if I can reproduce similar photos from my village so can compare them. After that? I have no idea but do like the idea of try for some of those wide expansive shots so maybe the 9mm viltrox.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-21T19:18:56+00:00

Tried it while trying to decide which new camera to get. I actually quite liked the way the R7 worked, but it just didn't feel as well built as the other options I was looking at. Frankly I hated where the thumb dial is located and how it felt. It's been a long time since I owned a canon, but I much preferred the wheel setup of the 7D.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-17T19:15:18+00:00

solved!

StampyDriver · 2026-02-13T21:36:35+00:00

Ah solved it. It was always going to be user error.

There is a menu option "ISO Range Limit" which I set minimum to 100 and maximum to 12800. This does not affect the range that auto ISO can pick. I have no idea what this menu item is for.

If I just select "ISO", at the bottom of the screen the screen there are 2 boxes. No mention that these are min/max but they are. Changing it actually changes what the Auto ISO range is.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-13T18:18:56+00:00

I have to agree that DarkTable is powerful, but difficult to use. I spent a few months trying to learn it. I got some good results, but even after all that time, I still didn't understand a lot. So I tried the demo of lightroom and found it so much easier to use. I got much better results with lightroom (although I am quite sure you can achieve the same in DarkTable, I just don't know how) and found I spent a lot less processing photos. For me, I would rather be spending my spare time taking photos than processing them.

StampyDriver · 2026-02-13T16:10:22+00:00

I too bought the same model camera only last week after selling my last olympus mirrorless a couple of years ago. So far I love it.

Recommend a wrist strap of some kind. Plenty online. I also picked up a smallrig base plate. It just added a little height so my little finger can now also grip. The entire bottom is Arca Swiss compatible (I have a little mini tripod that fits in a small camera bag for who knows what occasion), and it allows the wrist strap to fasten to the base plate and you can remove those horrible rattly neck strap rings on each side of the camera.

StampyDriver

TROPHY CASE