Red, blue, yellow etc. are not just colors. These are emotions, feelings, memories, reflections, associations. They play a very important role of sings or symbols. Seeing a color or thinking about color produces a certain reactions in our mind....
Those are the first words that I read in the ColorAssociations.pdf. The document describes a study on associations that are perceived from colors written (in English) by Olga Dmitrieva. The study unfortunatelly covers only associations for red color. But any way this information could be useful when a photographer wants to convey a certain message in a photograph and uses red color for it.

More studies on colors you can find here.

Even before I got my 1D Mark II, I spent some tim browsing the internet and looking for related information. It was good decision, because I found one important aspect of the battery that I didn't know before. As every car has it break-in period, it seems NiMH batteries have similar period or rather specific techniques how to get the most of the battery pack. There is an article and forum thread that describe this aspect and steps that you have to do when get a new NiMH battery:

• D1X Tip: breaking in the EN-4 battery
• 1D Mark II - Initial battery conditioning?

Using those tips my 1D Mark II can get over 1200 shots from a single charge of the battery. Isn't it great? :)

There are several great posts on Rob Galbrath forum that explain the meaning of Custom Functions and what combination of settings best suitable for various modes of operation for Canon EOS 1 cameras (including 1D Mark II). Here are the few but most interesting threads:

• MarkII Custom Function Settings
• CFn. 4-1 and CFn. 18-2
• Focus tracking using Cfn4-1 and 18-2

One more link to related article: Instantly Switching Autofocus Modes

Just to let you know what equipment I have and use. I am a Canon guy and I am trying to stick to Canon stuff, even when there are similar characteristics for compatible products (like Sigma or Tamron lens).

So here is the list:

Bodies:

• 1D Mark II (my new and very expensive toy, see review)
• EOS 10D (old and trusted, but not as smart as the one above)

Lens:

• 16-35L f2.8 (great fast lens - good choice for dark churches during weddings)
• 70-200L IS f2.8 (sometimes your shaky hand has to reach for candid expressions)
• 50 f1.4 (unfortunatelly lost/stolen, but first on the shopping list)

Stuff:

• Tamrac 758 backpack with compartment for laptop (see website)
• Tripod "Gitzo Explorer 2227" (lightweight, robust and very "flexible", see review)
• Two flashes "Speedlite 550EX (see reviews)
• B+W Polarizer 58mm
• Sekonic L358 Flash Master Light Meter
• RiteBracket for flash (see website)
• Delkin Devices 32-Bit Hi Speed Card Reader
• Hitachi/IBM 4Gb Microdrive
• And some other things not worth mentioning

So here begings the new thread of my life - thoughts and knowledege exchange, which related to photography.
Generally I will try to post some of the links to websites that I find interesting or findings about composition and lighting techniques for various aspects of photography. I hope there will be some time to post and content about my thoughts as well. We will see :)