• Posted 12/19/2024.
    =====================

    I am still waiting on my developer to finish up on the Classifieds Control Panel so I can use it to encourage members into becoming paying members. Google Adsense has become a real burden on the viewing of this site, but honestly it is the ONLY source of income now that keeps it afloat. I tried offering disabling the ads being viewed by paying members, but apparently that is not enough incentive. Quite frankly, Google Adsense has dropped down to where it barely brings in enough daily to match even a single paid member per day. But it still gets the bills paid. But at what cost?

    So even without the classifieds control panel being complete, I believe I am going to have to disable those Google ads completely and likely disable some options here that have been free since going to the new platform. Like classified ad bumping, member name changes, and anything else I can use to encourage this site to be supported by the members instead of the Google Adsense ads.

    But there is risk involved. I will not pay out of pocket for very long during this last ditch experimental effort. If I find that the membership does not want to support this site with memberships, then I cannot support your being able to post your classified ads here for free. No, I am not intending to start charging for your posting ads here. I will just shut the site down and that will be it. I will be done with FaunaClassifieds. I certainly don't need this, and can live the rest of my life just fine without it. If I see that no one else really wants it to survive neither, then so be it. It goes away and you all can just go elsewhere to advertise your animals and merchandise.

    Not sure when this will take place, and I don't intend to give any further warning concerning the disabling of the Google Adsense. Just as there probably won't be any warning if I decide to close down this site. You will just come here and there will be some sort of message that the site is gone, and you have a nice day.

    I have been trying to make a go of this site for a very long time. And quite frankly, I am just tired of trying. I had hoped that enough people would be willing to help me help you all have a free outlet to offer your stuff for sale. But every year I see less and less people coming to this site, much less supporting it financially. That is fine. I tried. I retired the SerpenCo business about 14 years ago, so retiring out of this business completely is not that big if a step for me, nor will it be especially painful to do. When I was in Thailand, I did not check in here for three weeks. I didn't miss it even a little bit. So if you all want it to remain, it will be in your hands. I really don't care either way.

    =====================
    Some people have indicated that finding the method to contribute is rather difficult. And I have to admit, that it is not all that obvious. So to help, here is a thread to help as a quide. How to become a contributing member of FaunaClassifieds.

    And for the record, I will be shutting down the Google Adsense ads on January 1, 2025.
  • Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

digital camera question

K

kenster

New member
Joined
Sep 27, 2002
Messages
212
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Age
50
Location
Michigan
I was wondering what type of cameras seem to work out the best for everyone. I have been looking at a SONY CD500, does anyone have one of these? If so how do you like it? I would imagine that being able to burn the pic's to a CD or CD/RW would make it so much easier than getting a big memory card and always trying to remember your USB cord. Rich, what do you use? your pic's are always very sharp and very clear, plus you seem to have excelent close ups! Anyway I just wanted to know if there was a "common" camera. And rants and raves about all the others...


thanks
 
I thought about getting one that burned to CD as well, BUT then I thought about not being able to toss the crappy ones, and having to REBURN a CD later of all the 'good' pics.

I have an Olympus C-4000, and really like it. I have it mainly to take pics of my son, since I don't have any family nearby, that way they can watch him grow.

Charles Escoffery, a boa guy has a Nikon Coolpix, 2500 or 4500, not sure of which, and has a LOT of neat toys for his (light, magnifier and so on) that lets him take some AMAZING shots of his animals. Go to the boa forum on KS and do a search for CE.

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=101698,101698

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=101649,101649

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=97394,97394

Those are just a few of his more recent posts.

The one other feature I like about my camera is I can take short videos with it, 30 second low quality clips, but it gives family a chance to see my son, who's now 6 months, in action...

Here's a pic of my boa, just to show you a pic from this camera.

Hope I've helped some!
 

Attachments

  • p1070111.jpg
    p1070111.jpg
    68.7 KB · Views: 215
I'm running the Kodak DX4900 w/ their set of add on lens for close ups.

panther-7.jpg


I also have a 128 MB memory card for it. When on the road you can take pics all day and have a hard time filling the card up.
 
Oh my thought that was Godzilla for a second there;) Very nice detail and great close up. I'll have to go chek out the price range for that camera and see what the difference is between them...

Thanks guys....
 
Dang it Dan! You've got this thread scrolling off the end of my desk with that big photo you posted!

BTW, this thread will probably eventually get moved to the photography forum.

Anyway, to answer your question, I use a Fuji Finepix S1 Pro camera body with my Nikon lenses for my photo work. The lens I use the most is the 105mm micro lens. The max size of the images produced are 3040x2016x16million colors. Each photo is a TIF file that is 17.60 megabytes. The camera has a 1 gig micro hard drive in it that can hold up to 58 of those images.

And wouldn't you know it? Fuji has recently come out with the S2 model...... Rats.... Higher resolution and more bells and whistles... I may have to put up another special sale on some corn snakes.... :D

Anyway, the glass makes a lot of difference in the photos. Nikon lenses are world renown, but a bit on the pricey side. I already had a bunch of them for my 35mm N90S that I had accumulated over the years, but it wasn't until rather recently that an almost affordable digital camera body became available that I could use those lenses with. The only reason I got my Fuji when I did was because someone just happened to put a barely used one up on Ebay with an excellent price on it about 5 minutes before I found it. I hit the "Buy It Now" button without even thinking about it much!

Anyway, one term you will need to become very familiar with for closeup work is "depth of field". A thorough understanding of this term and how to apply it correctly will make all the difference in the world in how your photos turn out for you. Of course, I am not really sure how many models of digital cameras emulate this if they have a fixed aperture lens on them.

Hey, I converted an image to regular JPG and it is ONLY 3 megabytes in size ... :dgrin:

crimson002.jpg
 
Mr Kettle....

LMAO. Like you have room to talk, at least mine was a picture of a lizard. What a waste, all the bandwidth for a snake :D
 
LOL!! Photo fight!!!
 
Rich, sorry I missed the photo section. That is a great close up. Although I just searched that camera and it is a bit out of my price range though. The camera I am looking at has a macro setting of 1.6" I would imagine that would give me nice close ups. Although I am sure it will take time to get things to look as good as I would like them to be. That Sony I am looking at has a Zeiss lens, Rich you being the gun guru, I know you have heard of Zeiss scopes and binoculars! You guys have been big helps and keep those pics coming!


Now if I could only find someone who has the camera I am looking at....hmmmm
 
1.6 inches I assume is the working distance from the lens?

That makes it pretty impractical to use a camera mounted flash unit. The target would probably be in the shadow of the camera lens. And for closeups, you do NEED to use flash. Don't forget to look up and understand about depth of field. Generally the closer you get to the subject, the narrower the depth of field will be. The way you compensate for that is by using the smallest aperture your lens has available. The smaller the aperture, the wider the depth of field. The drawback to this is that the smaller the aperture, the less light that gets in, so consequently exposure times go up. That can introduce blurred images. The way to compensate for this problem is MORE LIGHT, and lots of it!

I've attached a pic of my Fuji S1 camera and the flash bracket I use. Having the flashes arranged in this manner allows me to put the flashes directly on the subject, no matter how close I get to it. Having that much light available at my beck and call also allows me to use the smallest aperture the camera lens has to offer.

In many instances, I will also have a third flash mounted directly above the subject that fires when the other two fire. In most of the photos where I utilize my blue backdrop, you will be able to see three separate shadows made by those flashes. The problem with using a single flash is that you can have very stark shadows that detract from the image.

It's a lot to learn, for sure and there is NO substitute for experience.

Good luck!
 

Attachments

  • fuji_s1.jpg
    fuji_s1.jpg
    176 KB · Views: 172
Yeah I would asume that 1.6" would be as close you could get to your "target" and still focus. I went over and looked at the specs and got this info on the apeture.
• Aperture Range: f2.0 – 8.0 13-step
Is that good, decent? I know nothing about taking pic's. As I am sure you have noticed on the cornsnake site
;)

But whats the worse that could happen, i get it and burn through a bunch of CD's before I figure out how to make things look good...Looks like about $25 for 10 156MB CD's and who said learning was free??
 
I'm not a knowledgable photographer by any means, I don't understand all the technical aspects of it. I can take a decent picture for someone like me though.
I use a Nikon 950 myself. It's probably a fairly dated piece of equipment now, I've had it for 2 or 3 years. It's a good camera though.
It uses a flash card to store the pictures on. For my style of picture taking, I much prefer an erasable flash card to a cd. I routinely take 2-4 pictures of each subject, then keep the best one. I take the extras as insurance really so I don't have to go back and take any more. You will get out of focus pics, it's just a fact of taking pictures of living things that are not interested in posing.
The way you describe the camera you are looking at is it uses a write once CD. If this is true, I would waste alot of them over time taking the extra pictures that I wind up deleting.

My Nikon can focus at less than one inch distance from the subject. I've done it just to see how it works, and there's one thing to remember. The view finder and the opening to the lens are not the same. When you move that close to the subject, if you frame it in the viewfinder, it won't even be in the picture at all. It's a neat feature, but a little hard to use unless you're depending on the digital screen to center the image.
This picture was taken at very close range.

hisser_nymph03.jpg


Those are newborn Hissing roaches.
The majority of the pictures on my website were taken with the Nikon.
This one was taken through glass

snapper.jpg


And my favorite subjects are hatching snakes, they sit still nicely :)

jcp_hatch.jpg
 
Clay's right; don't discount Nikon Digitals

I'm not a professional or even really good photographer, my pictures will attest to that, but I have taken thousands of digital pictures in at least three different cameras. I first had a Kodak DC280 and now own both a Nikon Coolpix 995 and Sony DSC-U20. I won't go into the Sony, because it is not a good camera for someone who owns only one; it's very small and convenient to carry; takes semi-decent pics, but has very few features.

The Nikon on the other hand has more features than I can use, can take some of the best pictures you can find, including sub 1" macros, and has one of the coolest forms I've ever seen in a camera.

As a previous poster mentioned, Nikon optics are world renowned for their quality, and that even shows in their digital cameras. As Rich mentioned, light is always an issue, even more so with digital cams, due to thier digital sensors, but you can put a flash bracket on these Nikons as well as many other digital cameras.

As for your disks, you're much better off with something non-permanent like Compact Flash (most common), SD, XD, or other reusable card. You'll want to take so many pictures and so many of them won't be 'keepers' that you'll waste lots of space on each CD. Plus, you have to carry around that CD(s), which while not cumbersome, you could use the space better for some sort of filters, extra battery, or mini-tripod, etc.

Here's a few pics I've taken over the past couple years with my Nikon. There have been one or two newer versions of the split-body Coolpix's like mine released since it came out, and you should be able to find one less than $500 on Ebay or other store.

raindrops.jpg

baaft01.jpg

shirohebi2.jpg

hctf2.jpg

hemipene.jpg

eyewash.jpg

DSCN2074.jpg

DSCN1050.jpg

squirrel.jpg


Just a few of the pictures I have taken. I think my favorite is the one of Mt. Fuji. It is unedited; just like I downloaded it from the camera.


DP Review is an excellent source of information on cameras with reviews, comparison photos and forums where you can get recommendations from people just like us as well as professional photographers. Good luck.
 
Obligatory lizard photo for Daniel...

hambone.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top