Having had some reasonable success with concert photography last year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortonstal ... 79/detail/ I'm now very excited that my daughter has managed to get us front row seats for The Overtones next year. It's the same venue - Blackpool Opera House - but for Olly I was about two thirds of the way back and used my 55-250 lens. Obviously this won't be any good for the front row seats, so just wondering if anyone can suggest a decent lens for me for this distance. Cheers

Having had some reasonable success with concert photography last year: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mortonstal ... 79/detail/ I'm now very excited that my daughter has managed to get us front row seats for The Overtones next year. It's the same venue - Blackpool Opera House - but for Olly I was about two thirds of the way back and used my 55-250 lens. Obviously this won't be any good for the front row seats, so just wondering if anyone can suggest a decent lens for me for this distance. Cheers

Big Graeme wrote:Entry level Canons and Nikons will all do a great job, just check with the Nikon how long it has been around, their entry models tend to be around a bit longer than Canon's and you may get more for your money with a Canon. Your idea with the lens is right, the Canon kit lens isn't that bad but if you have the money have a look at some second hand Sigma's 24-70 f2.8 is a fantastic lens for the money. Any recommendations on a Canon? All seem a bit pricey except for the 1100

Big Graeme wrote:Entry level Canons and Nikons will all do a great job, just check with the Nikon how long it has been around, their entry models tend to be around a bit longer than Canon's and you may get more for your money with a Canon. Your idea with the lens is right, the Canon kit lens isn't that bad but if you have the money have a look at some second hand Sigma's 24-70 f2.8 is a fantastic lens for the money. Any recommendations on a Canon? All seem a bit pricey except for the 1100

casman2 wrote: Big Graeme wrote:Entry level Canons and Nikons will all do a great job, just check with the Nikon how long it has been around, their entry models tend to be around a bit longer than Canon's and you may get more for your money with a Canon. Your idea with the lens is right, the Canon kit lens isn't that bad but if you have the money have a look at some second hand Sigma's 24-70 f2.8 is a fantastic lens for the money. Any recommendations on a Canon? All seem a bit pricey except for the 1100 My cousin has just bought that and she shot a whole wedding in automatic with the kit 18-55mm lens. Horrible as it sounds, she did a decent job and her friend was over the moon, I was gobsmacked.

casman2 wrote: Big Graeme wrote:Entry level Canons and Nikons will all do a great job, just check with the Nikon how long it has been around, their entry models tend to be around a bit longer than Canon's and you may get more for your money with a Canon. Your idea with the lens is right, the Canon kit lens isn't that bad but if you have the money have a look at some second hand Sigma's 24-70 f2.8 is a fantastic lens for the money. Any recommendations on a Canon? All seem a bit pricey except for the 1100 My cousin has just bought that and she shot a whole wedding in automatic with the kit 18-55mm lens. Horrible as it sounds, she did a decent job and her friend was over the moon, I was gobsmacked.

The Nikon d3100 seems to have a better spec than the Canon 1100

Glasgow Gal wrote:They are a gorgeous pair. They are moving them up to the Highland Wildlife park as soon as funds allow a new enclosure. I can't wait to see them in the snow. They are an elusive pair though so I've no more decent ones of them (plenty of their tail disappearing though ). I've got one of Marwell's Amur Leopard from holiday last year. A few more of my favourite big cats Tiger cub HWP on Flickr One of the three Amur Tiger cubs from HWP who are all now grown up I love HWP, it is such a great place. The wife and I did the keeper for a day package on our honeymoon and loved every minute of it. Glad we got to see the cubs when they were small(er). I was sad the Uri was euthanased along with Mercedes, but they were getting on a bit. Anyway here are a few pics from the day (April 2010) Feeding Uri Uri sat by the lake One of the cubs, because we had been feeding them, they were very "friendly" Cubs have big teeth too! Putting all the beef out for the little puddy cats Watch those fingers Rewarding Mercedes the polar bear after sucessful target training. All in all a good day.

Glasgow Gal wrote:They are a gorgeous pair. They are moving them up to the Highland Wildlife park as soon as funds allow a new enclosure. I can't wait to see them in the snow. They are an elusive pair though so I've no more decent ones of them (plenty of their tail disappearing though ). I've got one of Marwell's Amur Leopard from holiday last year. A few more of my favourite big cats Tiger cub HWP on Flickr One of the three Amur Tiger cubs from HWP who are all now grown up I love HWP, it is such a great place. The wife and I did the keeper for a day package on our honeymoon and loved every minute of it. Glad we got to see the cubs when they were small(er). I was sad the Uri was euthanased along with Mercedes, but they were getting on a bit. Anyway here are a few pics from the day (April 2010) Feeding Uri Uri sat by the lake One of the cubs, because we had been feeding them, they were very "friendly" Cubs have big teeth too! Putting all the beef out for the little puddy cats Watch those fingers Rewarding Mercedes the polar bear after sucessful target training. All in all a good day.

Polar Bears look a lot beter surrounded by ice

It's a great place Thornton Saint. We're regular visitors. If you go up again there's now a fantastic cake shop in Kingussie called the Potting Shed that is well worth a visit. They are the same people that have the nursery and cake shop out at Inshraich.



They do, but even wild ones aren't on ice all year round as shown by the Frozen Planets programme.

In Mercedes' case she'd have been dead in 1984 without the intervention of RZSS and the car company so whilst she lived in not ideal conditions at Edinburgh it's better than being dead. The enclosure built for her at HWP is great and that enclosure and her 'roadtesting' of it is going to play a big part in helping in the conservation of Polar Bears in the future.

rover49 wrote:Polar Bears look a lot beter surrounded by ice And we don't have any of that in Scotland, close to Aviemore... Mercedes lived a long and fruitful life at both Edinburgh Zoo where she bred cubs and HWP where she had a couple of years of fantastic conditions, anyone who saw her romping through the snow would have seen an animal completely happy with her surroundings. She ended up in the zoo because she had become a pest wandering to town to scavenge for food, more info here http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/support/ ... ppeal.html

rover49 wrote:Polar Bears look a lot beter surrounded by ice And we don't have any of that in Scotland, close to Aviemore... Mercedes lived a long and fruitful life at both Edinburgh Zoo where she bred cubs and HWP where she had a couple of years of fantastic conditions, anyone who saw her romping through the snow would have seen an animal completely happy with her surroundings. She ended up in the zoo because she had become a pest wandering to town to scavenge for food, more info here http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/support/ ... ppeal.html

anyone who likes "wildlife" photography should get themselves to Chester Zoo and/or Longleat, I'll try and post some of my pics tomorrow.

And this is when I will concede that, on the day in Longleat I do wish, with all my heart, I had bought the D60 and not the 550, with the lens I hired the shutter speed just wasn't quite fast enought to catch the bird of prey show as well as I'd have liked. Still got some shots I am fairly proud of on a personal level though.

Sounds a bit niche that, probably not for a family web site.