blacknstormy wrote:Andrew - you could be right - I might have to have a go at callibrating the old lappy again

That might help, but it is probably easier to calibrate your white balance for the lightsphere so that the WB is correct out of the camera. I never did this until around 4 months ago and since I have done it, I never have to worry about WB for macro work.
For my D70, I used the Sunny, Cloudy, etc. settings with the fine tuning of +3,+2,+1 etc. to get as close as possible to the right values. I did this by taking photos of a Kodak Gray card with all the different options and then using Gray Point option in CaptureNX to determine which one was closest to being correct. For my setups I have determined the following:
SB-24: Cloudy -1
SB-800: Cloudy -2
SB-24 with softbox: Sunny
SB-800 with softbox: Sunny +3
For my D300, I found it easier do just use Preset Manual as there are 4 slots to store different presets. Again I used my Kodak Gray card.
So now, I don't even have to worry about WB.
blacknstormy wrote:thanks Dargan & Liz - common names are an absolute shocker, but sometimes they can be pretty amusing

One of the guys in my lab at the moment is trying to come up with common names for a few hundred snails - looks like one of them is going to be called the 'dark knight' - we were pushing for the 'dark lord', but it got vetoed
LOL
I like common names that are literal translations of the scientific name. e.g.
Litoria peronii - Peron's tree frog;
Litoria latopalmata - Broad-palmed tree frog.