A 12mp DSLR will be a far superior camera than a 13mp phone due to sensor size.

True. I haven't used it yet but the Samsung blurb boasts that the camera phone is free from shutter-lag. That is something I will (literally) have to see to believe. Incidentally I see my earlier posts referred to "megabytes" when of course I meant megapixels.

I'm currently using a full-frame DSLR - a Nikon D600 - which has 24 megapixels and it's like a brand new photographic experience. It's not so much the number of pixels but the low-light capability which is truly awesome.

I used to baulk at going over ISO800 with earlier cameras but now ISO1600 is practically noise-free and at ISO3200 there is noise present but it's perfectly acceptable. I'd rather have a (slightly) noisy shot than no shot at all.

Plus the lens on a phone will be nowhere near as good.


Lovely.
Bloody lovely.

As a Pentax user I would have to change makers to get a full frame camera, Pentax do some excellent models but you either have the SLR range with standard sensor or jump to the 645D with its monster 44x33mm 40 mp sensor (at £6k ).

I have tried other makes over the years, but have always drifted back to Pentax.

Never mind lens quality.

My old Fuji S602Z (3MP) is still 10x better than the 8MP on my Galaxy SII, they're fine for snaps/portrait shots but don't come close aside from speed of access

My brother coaches at a local rugby union club, anything from the U8's to U12's and a few years ago he dragged me in to organise their web site which had been neglected.

At one of the coaches/managers meetings the issue of photgraphs on the web was raised, each team from U8 to U18 all wanted their own gallery of matchday photos posting online, each one had at least one parent who was willing to provide photos on a regular basis, the question of legality of publishing the photos was raised especially for the junior age groups and of the sensitivity that some parents of the home and visiting teams feel about having their childrens images used online.

Other than the usual "PC rubbish" response (which was the majority) we got some feedback from a solicitor and our solution was to inform all parents as part of the player registration process that photos would be published online (more than anything the kids love to see themselves) but that identities would not be used - we don't hide individuals faces, don't edit anything and don't try and avoid close ups (which some other clubs do), but there are no captions to each gallery other than the date and the name of the opposition team.

To date (over five years) there have been no objections either at the matches or of the galleries on the web site.

In general, the fuss that suddenly sprang up out of nowhere about kids being imaged in school plays, sports days, games etc. I have always found very strange.

The impression to me was that people had suddenly started to hear widespread stories about paedos, child porn and abuse of children, and somehow, suddenly, loads of adults seemed to just assume there is a direct link between those evils, and relatives of other children in the same school potentially having images of our Johnny as a shepherd, or our Jane as Mary.

Instead of being summarily dismissed, schools quickly got on board, yet I have not seen any articulated REASONABLE objection to a parent being allowed to take such images at a school event. What are they? Does anyone on here feel that way? If so, why? Do you know anyone in that position? If so, what exactly is it that they are worried about?

Do they actually fear that one of the invited audience (which will never contain outsiders) may well be a paedo as well as a relative? Is that it?

If so, then what exactly are the objectors seeking to achieve?

The objections soon spread to sports days and other outdoor events, and now we have discussions like here about junior rugby teams. What is the fear here? That children engaging in outdoor activities are likely to be wearing sports gear and that somehow we must all be banned from taking pictures of what will be a great day for our kids/grandkids, just to eliminate the somewhat remote possibility that somewhere among the speccies, there's a paedo, and while the children are still fully dressed, well, a paedo may be turned on, and so we cant take the risk of the paedo having images to take away? Is that it?

Well then, when their kids are playing out all evening every summer, how do these tortured individuals allow that to happen? There is a whole world out there, and it is at least equally possibly that there is a paedo behind every bush or pair of curtains, snapping away. If your fear of a paedo taking an image is that great - how can you ever justify allowing your child outdoors at all?

What do you do if on holiday - say on the beach. Hundreds of cameras and camera phones packed in every location, and your kids wearing swimming costumes. Some very young kids wearing nothing at all.

If you could speak to the objectors about this inconsistent behaviour, what would they say? They don't want to risk a relative of a child at school being a paedo and having an image including their child, in a state of dress, but don't give a monkeys whether paedos are given free rein to take as many images as they want during the overwhelming majority of the rest of the child's life, especially outdoor life?

All kids, especially younger ones, get invited to birthday parties all the time. Loads of photos are taken. Yet how does objector parent cope with that? They won't even be AT the party, doesn't their over-worried brain scream at them that those images may fall into paedo hands?

I don't get it. If someone is phobic about these paedo possibilities, well, I suppose it's your kid, you make the rules, but how then can you ever let the child be exposed to any outside places, where the opportunities for paedo imaging are almost infinite? Isn't this essentially a totally illogical and absurd worry?

During our discussions over the inclusion of photos on the RU club web site the only reasonable, potential, issue that heard expressed was that if a photo of, say, an eight year old boy was shown with a caption that named him, then, potentially, an adult with an intention to abduct a child could use that information to trick his way past any questioning adults and also fool the child into thinking that he must know him as the adult knows his name.

A bit far fetched I agree, but child abductors (miniscule in numbers) have feigned friendship and family knowledge to target children in the past - it was a reasonable request to not caption any photograph I thought.

Other than that its the most favourite bit of the web site for the hundreds of 8 to 18 year olds who are members at the club especially the younger ones who check the updates all the time to see if they are featured in any of the photos (we have one mother who is very skilled at taking action photos and now does several age groups), I'd go so far as to say most of the kids wouldn't look at the club web site if the photo galleries weren't there and that they engender a club comradeship amongst the members, its very important to the club.

Top post.

The only point I can see is that which Jerry mentions – although the bigger issue with that, as I have heard, is that it may allow identification of a child by, say, a parent who is no longer part of the family unit and may wish to abduct the child of is abuse or whatever.

When I'm working at smaller conferences, I sometimes do the photography as well as the words. Delegates are told, at the start of the conference, that if any of them do not wish to be photographed, filmed whatever, then they need to absent themselves from any photo opp – and tell conference staff that they do not wish their image to appear anywhere. Now given that most conferences are pretty much fully filmed, that's all it takes with a bunch of adults – why schools etc cannot do the same is beyond me. Although it has complexities in terms of sports and plays etc, such an approach has to be better than the blanket nonsense and concomitant paranoia that currently goes with it.

If that happened, then the idiocy of the "questioning adults" would seem several factors more blameworthy than a caption. Why would such dolts be in charge of children? Are there any teachers in the house? What's the protocol if some adult you don't know unexpectedly turns up and says he needs to pick up little Johnny Doe?



So, in previous recorded photographic history, how many children have been abducted as a result of a captioned photograph? But yes, if a parent doesn't want their child captioned, that's not an unreasonable request, there could be many reasons, not just irrational fears of abduction. Simple privacy is one.

shot of my brother's new puppy

came up a bit noisy, room was pretty gloomy and obviously can't use flash, ISO ramped right up!