Atmospheric internal hand held shots, hand held shots of birds with long lenses high ISO has it's place. Just hope the next thing is better dynamic range and handling of contrast.

Completely agree with that.

I also agree with that - what are the limits though? I think we are almost there - autofocus needs discernible edges to operate as do our eyes if on manual focus. The darker the scene the more the colour turns to grey. As for birding - I don't know enough to comment but I'd have thought that bright sunlight was the ideal and as someone once said in "the old days" :) "No sun - no pic" :D

Yup, you're absolutely correct, Andy, bright sunlight is the ideal, but I'd be very grateful if you could tell me how to move a bird into the sunlight when it wants to sit in the shade. Also, it would be useful if you could explain how to stop a bird moving and flitting around.

That's easy Mike - superglue on the perches then wait for the sun to come round and light them or if they are moving - superglue with worms/grubs in to bring them to the perch:D

Brilliant Andy, you would not even have to wait for the sun to come round but just move the perch complete with bird where you wanted. Choose your background at leisure too! ;)