owenimages

<p>Thanks so much for the replies! Some really good info. I found this video from the Wild Photo Adventures website where they are in the Everglades:</p>

<p>http://exposureroom.com/members/douggardner/788a8baef40d4ecf875b5781a9115fb9/</p>

<p>They are using Native 12' or 14.5' Kayaks. They are flat, about 30 inches wide and the one guy in the video even has his equipment set up on a tripod in front of him. He is using a 500mm lens with 1.4x teleconverter. Really cool.</p>

<p>If you look at the Native Ultimate 14.5, it can be configured as a Tandem or Single...for single just take one seat out and put the other seat in the middle.<br>

http://nativewatercraft.com/boat_overview.cfm</p>

<p>I will continue to look into small flat boats in addition to the kayaks. Two small anchors sounds like a good idea. The carbon fiber paddles sounds good, the long pole sounds good. From the video above, using a kayak is certainly possible! I only have an interest in nice calm weather days...nice flat water due to the carrying of my photography equipment.</p>

<p>Thanks again for the info. Any others have stories/tips to share?</p>

<p>Hi everyone! Just to get this out of the way...I did a search on the word KAYAK within the Nature forums and went through the first 15 pages of posts and did not find what I was looking for...just in case there are any crazy FORUM POLICE out there. Some forums are crazy with them. So, if I missed the particular thread that addresses what I am looking for...I apologize in advance.</p>

<p>Okay, so I am looking to get a kayak for nature photography on mostly quiet water ways here in Florida. Canals, lakes, ponds, streams, quiet rivers and some coastal areas when the weather is nice...no big ocean stuff with waves.</p>

<p>I have decided to most likely purchase my kayak off of Craig's List where you can find lightly used stuff with all of the accessories at big discounts over buying brand new from a retail shop.</p>

<p>I obviously want good stability and am not looking for a race boat here. What features should I specifically look for when considering the zillion different kayaks out there? I am fairly certain I would want to mirror a lot of features that are good for fishing? I think I would want a Sit-On-Top so I can move around a bit. I know there are some kayaks that you can get some pontoons with that you can toss into the water for extra stability when you are still and they will help aid you in standing up. Does anyone know much about these? I would most likely use a monopod sometimes but I imagine hand holding would be common as well. It would be nice to find a TWO-SEATER that I could use by myself but when the opportunity presented itself I could have someone along with me. A two-seat kayak will also give me more room for my stuff I imagine. I know some kayaks come outfitted for fishing specifically and even have places that will hold rods...anything out there like that for monopods? Any real life suggestions of MUST-HAVE equipment of features would be greatly appreciated.</p>

<p>Thanks for your help, suggestions, links, photos etc! :)</p>

<p>Well, I removed 106 photos (21%). This should help the quality of the galleries a little. I think I got rid of most of the average stuff while still keeping my favorites. There is balance in there somewhere.</p>

<p>As I get better photos, I will be able to eliminate more. All in due time. Now I should turn my attention to some of the other suggestions....</p>

<p>Thanks Martin.</p>

<p>After a quick glance, I can probably thin the herd pretty easily...rough numbers here:<br>

Remove 36 from Sports<br>

Remove 14 from Scenic<br>

Remove 30 from Celebs<br>

Remove 4 from Misc<br>

Remove 26 from Nature<br>

Total I could quickly and easily remove = 110 = 22% of all of the photos on the site.</p>

<p>I imagine that will be a quick first go of it...I will likely find more to toss....maybe I could push it to 30% with some careful study.</p>

<p>My utterly defensive answers only came after receiving personal attacks, which were uncalled for, while asking for a review of a simple website. I only explained the reasoning behind the full screen launch...I want to show larger images and not everyone is rich like Joseph and his 30" screen. I really do not think my defense was over the top, heck I even agreed that it may not be the best practice and removed that feature....I did not think it would piss so many people off.</p>

<p>Then to read a moderator post about my "HUNDREDS" of mediocre images...when he was supposed to be reviewing the website build, in my opinion, I think that is uncalled for especially coming from a mod. A more tactful statement might be to say Less is More, you might want to think about only posting your strongest images....rather than insinuating I have nothing good to look at. Has he looked at his portfolio lately? Geez, this certainly teaches me to consider the source of the criticism. My simple response to Mike Dixon is this....in celebration of the Full Super Moon Today, here is an 18+ Mediocre Photo directed to you to for your viewing pleasure: <a href="http://www.owenimages.com/_DSC0076.jpg">http://www.owenimages.com/_DSC0076.jpg</a></p>

<p>Even good will come from that attack, I will likely thin the herd of photos in the different categories so that the best and personal favorites are left. This should help. Even though the MOD has ZERO tact and poor communication skills I think he has a point...somewhere, burried in his statement. <br>

Wouter, I thank you for your "Constructive Critisism" however and believe you bring up many valid points that I will address in my spare time.</p>

<p>Greg</p>

<p>Wow, thank you for the positive and constructive criticism. You must have a lot of friends here. I realize not everyone is a fan of that view....so press F11 on the keyboard to get out of that mode if you do not like it. You act as though I loaded a virus on your computer and spyware and stole all of your personal information and signed you up for spam lists. Yikes!</p>

<p>Most people do not have 30" screens like you and I wanted to display images that are a little larger so by forcing the browser full screen it allows for that....especially someone that is more financially challenged than yourself using a smaller screen and maybe only a 1024x768 screen resolution.</p>

<p>I thought about the diverse function that the website could serve so I stayed away from using Photo, Photos, Photography etc....in case I ever wanted to post something a little different on my site such as a video, graphic art, sketch, digital compilations etc. You want to also try to keep it short. Another word to think about using is "Imagery"....then combine that with your name maybe. Nothing is wrong...just personal preference really.</p>

<p>Greg<br>

<a href="http://www.OwenImages.com">www.OwenImages.com</a></p>

<p>You could just not worry about someone snagging a small 72dpi jpeg off of your website. You could put a copyright watermark on all of your images. You could use a javascript to disable right-clicking on the website so to prevent the "easy" download of images.</p>

<p>By going with FLASH you prevent people with iPads and iPhones from viewing your site.</p>

<p>There is a way around everything it seems. If you have a flash website system that loads the images then a person could just go into their web browser cache within their computer to grab the photos, same if right click was disabled. At 72dpi....if you disabled all access to the images, I could still get them....it is called print screen then crop in Photo Shop. Very simple.</p>

<p>You should probably make a reasonable effort to protect your work but at the end of the day if someone wants an image that you posted online....they can get it.</p>

<p>Good luck,</p>

<p>Greg<br>

<a href="http://www.OwenImages.com">www.OwenImages.com</a></p>

<p>Never have been a fan of scrolling left to right...other than that it is clean and simple. You could use a few more photos and categories I think....then also a way to caption your photos. </p>

<p>I like your drifting(I think that's what those are) photos. I have a few auto racing photos myself.</p>

<p>Greg<br>

<a href="http://www.OwenImages.com">www.OwenImages.com</a></p>

<p>Very Nice! A lot of work went into that. As a programmer and the owner of a web design/hosting company for 7 years I can appreciate the amount of time that went into that. Nice Photos Too! You have clearly been doing this for a while. :)</p>

<p>The only thing that "bothered" me was the pixel gray and white background. I would go with just a flat GRAY color instead. What you have can be a little distracting. Personal preference is all.</p>

<p>Greg<br>

<a href="http://www.OwenImages.com">www.OwenImages.com</a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.OwenImages.com">http://www.OwenImages.com</a><br>

After "LAUNCHING" to the Home Page so that the website loads full screen, a random image out of 15 is loaded.</p>

<p>Within the galleries: Sports, Scenic, Celebs, Misc, Nature ....once you click on a photo you can just use the RIGHT and LEFT arrow keys on your keyboard to go through the images. To close an image you can click off the photo, hit ESC on your keyboard or click the little X.</p>

<p>I have not captioned the Sports, Celebs or Nature photos yet...hopefully this weekend.</p>

<p>For iPhone and iPad compatibility I need to do a browser detection and load an alternative navigation since those devices do not support FLASH.</p>

<p>Let me know what you think. Thanks for your time,</p>

<p>Greg</p>