JP, I've seen those before. They came up on Digg via my iGoogle homepage? Just out of queeriosity how did you find them? Not that I wish to compromise a Samizdata state secret or anything...

Seriously though folks, do click the link - they're good piccies. And that is from someone who is a pretty good photographer yet has on a couple of occasions tried to get the perfect picture of the cat and ended up with naught but scratches and something out of focus.

Don't want to put too much of a damper on things, but some at least are faked. Damn good fakes, but still fakes.

I have tried to capture our new dog over the last few weekends.
Well to cut a long story short, given the woeful speed of the camera and the energy of the dog
I shot 25, of which she is in 7!
Good pics though Johnathan.
I have a friend who fwds this kind of thing all the time too!

Someone has sent me those recently - Nick? Some of them do look photoshoped.

Yeah, I think it could well have been me, Alisa. RAB, unless you pay absolute top-dollar (Lord, won't you give me give me 800 quid!) the real problem with a digicam is the refractory time between shots [descent into utter filth censored]. You just can't shoot umpty frames a second which you can with a film camera. This makes capturing action tricky. This is a shame because of course film costs money and whatever daft buggerations you put on digicams cost zero per shot. This is why I still keep my old Pentax. Though... I'm considering going digital SLR.

The perfect shot, hmph! Especially for the sports shots, they just set the camera on continuous shoot, at 4 frames per second or some such, blaze away, and pick the best one from the lot. That takes professional talent, mind; but it's not quite lightning striking, as the captions imply.

To me, the greatest "perfect moment" picture is Cartier-Bresson's picture of the man jumping over a puddle, followed by the sailor kissing the girl in Times Square on V-J Day.