troutnut

<p>Hi Dave,<br /> <br /> I'm a bit late to the party since this topic is a couple months old, but I just found it from a search engine, and I can identify your mystery bugs definitively as mayfly nymphs of the family Baetidae. There's quite a bit of variation within that family, but check out <a href="http://www.troutnut.com/specimen/761">this Baetid mayfly nymph</a> on my website and you'll see the similarity.<br /> Jason Neuswanger<br /> Troutnut.com</p>

<p>Edit: Wow, I hadn't check the second page, and I see Bob already posted a link to my site! Thanks for the compliment, Bob. Here's a more specific link to the relevant page: <a href="http://www.troutnut.com/hatch/90/Mayfly-Baetidae-Blue-Winged-Olives">Mayfly family Baetidae (pictures of all stages and emergence information)</a>. I think the adult mayfly (a female in the dun or sub-imago stage) is probably a Baetid, as well, maybe the same species as the nymphs, but would need a more detailed photo to say for sure. The common name for most Baetids is "blue-winged olive." I don't think it's a sulphur, although the body color looks similar in this picture. <a href="http://www.troutnut.com/hatch/28/Mayfly-Ephemerella-Hendricksons-Sulphurs-PMDs">Sulphurs in the genus Ephemerella</a> have a little different look, particularly in the wing profiles.</p>

Don't fret about "fine art" photographers too much.

 

Good photography is something just about anyone can look at and be moved. It's about showing things from a perspective that's not just original, but also striking.

 

Sometimes fine art photographers hit that mark, but I see really impressive photos more often in the galleries here at photo.net or on pbase than I see in links to famous fine art photographers. They seem to get caught up in trying to impress other photographers or art historians with some avant garde composition, while forgetting about the emotional effect a good photo should have.

I'm using PHP to write a new content management system for my website,

which includes thousands of images. I need to automatically generate

thumbnails in at least three sizes from the original image. I know

the basic way to do it with PHP and I've got it working. My question

is, are there any better ways to do it to produce higher-quality

photos? Would I be better off writing a custom resizing function

based on an algorithm I can find somewhere? I see so much detail

about various ways to resize images for the best quality resampling in

Photoshop... so surely there's a way to do better than PHP's default

algorithm.

I made a really big order partially through B&H and partially through OneCall.com recently.

 

B&H was a pain in the butt -- kind of a "we're a big company and you're not, so you must have time to wait for 20 minutes on hold" treatment. I had difficulty ordering because the per-day spending cap on my check card was below my order amount and my card kept getting declined.

 

I ended up having to order in parts on back-to-back days. OneCall support called ME when they realized there was a problem, and I called them back a couple times throughout the correspondence, and always had an easy time reaching not only a real person, but asking for the person I originally talked to and getting patched through in a jiffy. They said my situation's really common and were easily prepared to deal with it.

 

B&H, by comparison, kept sending me back and forth between different confused people in different departments who spoke only half understandable English... they weren't helpful at all and I finally just canceled that order and placed it in increments on later days myself. I was really annoyed with their customer service.

 

That said, all my stuff arrived in perfect condition. So it coulda been a lot worse. It's just that in the little billing confusion fiasco B&H could have done waaaaaaaaaay better.

I'm rewriting my site with an incredibly fancy PHP engine this summer.

I've got a couple thousand photos on it and will be adding thousands

more. People are often interested in buying prints of them, but I

don't want to have to go to a photo site, upload my photo there, come

back to my site and enter in the photo site url for it, etc. That

could get old very, very fast.

 

What I want is an affiliate photo selling program that lets me send my

users to it with links I can automatically generate to include the URL

of the file on my site. Then the photo site will load the photo for

the customer from my URL. That way, there's no manual uploading:

photos on my site can automatically be on sale through their site.

 

It would be pretty easy for them to do technically. I'm hoping

someone's thought of it but I haven't found any. Anyone know a good spot?

Just another reason that email spammers should be punished by death.

I've got the Canon MT-24EX Twin Light Macro Flash. I've had one day

to test it out so far (busy with classes) and I'm thrilled with the

performance, but it also eats through AAs like a whale through

plankton. I would really like to power it with some kind of AC

adapter or something but this doesn't seem possible... I guess I'll

just have to find the best rechargeable batteries I can?

 

Does anyone know the best solution to power this thing?

Thanks.

 

I'm definitely sticking with the Bogen 3275 head for now, because I need the kind of subtle single-axis control it gives. So I've gotta figure out which focusing rail will work best with it.

 

Range isn't a huge issue with me, because I'm shooting in studio and can adjust the placement of my subject for coarse focusing. So the focusing rail on the tripod head will be for fine adjustments.

 

I'm using the 20D with the MP-E 65mm or the EF 100mm f/2.8 USM macro lenses and the MT-24EX flash. My main priority is on smooth, fine adjustments without slippage while holding that setup vertically to take pictures straight down from above the subjects.

I need to get a really solid macro focusing rail with very smooth

movement that doesn't slip even when holding the camera point down,

moving it up and down for vertical shooting. I haven't been able to

find any reviews that compare the two, so which is better -- the

offering from Kirk or RRS?

 

I'll be using it on a Bogen 3275 geared head on a Gitzo G2220 tripod

for macro shots up to 5X magnification at all kinds of weird angles.

Heh, you guys are really missing the point.

 

There's nothing "great" about producing something any child (or, dare I say, monkey) could create at random. Nor is it in any way difficult. The greatness of this kind of work is completely imagined in the minds of art buffs and historians who get so caught up in silly trends that they forget about making things that are good-looking or emotionally powerful. Instead they focus on the "greatness" as defined by some goofball standards they picked up in art history class.

 

And even they can't recognize that kind of greatness when they're forced to distinguish it from a pile of work by the "greats" and a pile of random works by children and animals. It doesn't exist; it's in their head. If they don't know that they're "supposed" to think it's great, they don't know whether or not it's great. That's not judgement.

 

All of these avant garde trends are basically ways for people with no artistic talent to make it big if they get in with the right crowd. Someone may not be able to paint, draw, or take a photo worth a darn, but if he makes the right connections he can draw a circle and sell it for more than someone doing real work (artistic or otherwise) makes in a year.

 

It's all just nonsense. That's the point.

This relates to the debate here about the difference between "artsy"

photographers like Friedlander and those who choose instead to take

photos worth looking at.<br><br>

 

Here's the link: <a

href="http://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=563146&page=1">Commentary

by John Stossel: You Call That Art?</a><br><br>

 

It's not specific to photography, but art in general. They did an

experiment, mixing the works of famous abstract artists with things

painted by 4-year-olds, elephants, etc, and asking various groups of

people to identify the "real" art vs the kiddy art.<br><br>

 

It turns out that the kiddy art actually did better with the general

public than the works of the masters. Artists also could not tell

them all apart. Even an art historian, presumably familiar with the

styles of these famous artists, mistook one of the paintings by small

children for the work of a master.<br><br>

 

Here's a quote from the story: <i>One artist, Victor Acevedo,

described one of the children's pieces as "a competent execution of

abstract expressionism which was first made famous by de Kooning and

Jackson Pollock and others. So it's emulating that style and it's a

school of art."</i><br><br>

 

At least one artist was more grounded. Says the article: <i>An

artist who calls himself Flash Light told me, "The function of art is

to make rich people feel more important."</i><br><br>

 

This really parallels the conflicting opinions about photography that

I've seen on this site.

A zoo maybe?

 

Wild ruffed grouse are always very skittish. It's not just hunting pressure in your location; it's the nature of that species.

 

You'll have to either be really, really, really sneaky and lucky, or find grouse that are conditioned to be around people.

 

Spruce grouse are a great alternative... those things are dumb as rocks.

No, it is not the duty of the photographer to challenge the viewer, to say something with his photographs. It is perfectly okay to just try to capture and share beauty. Furthermore, it's not easy to do that well in many cases. It's okay to try to say something, too. But to suggest that it's mandatory is absurd.

 

Your professor sounds like a stuck-up pseudo-intellectual who's insecure about the fact that he can't make it in difficult parts of academia like hard science or mathematics so he has to pretend his own field is more profound and complicated than it really is. That's a shame, because making pretty, emotion-evoking photos is a respectable art and extremely difficult to master on its own. It doesn't need to be embellished with extra requirements like having a message.

 

Photos by Ansel Adams make people feel something and smile. Photos by Friedlander don't. Ansel Adams photos can be appreciated by anyone; photos by Friedlander and company are complete garbage to anyone except pretentious art history buffs who (a) are aware that they're photos by someone it's hip to like and (b) will find a reason to like absolutely anything if the trends tell them they're supposed to.

 

It sounds like you're on the right track. Don't let the avant garde artsy ninnies pull you away from it.

<i>"that means focusing on creating works that please the eyes and communicate a mood"<br><br>

 

Or asking an interesting question; or communicating an interesting idea; or being witty; or denouncing an injustice; or informing the viewer of something they may not have known before, etc., etc.</i><br><br>

 

All of those things: asking questions, communicating ideas, being witty, and so on, are better done with words than pictures if they are the only goal. The reason to use pictures instead of words is to capture some emotion you're trying to communicate along with your message.

I think it's completely up to the photographer. There's something to be said for forcing yourself to stick with what nature gives you and the challenge of making the best of it. There are also challenges and pleasures in artistically rearranging nature to make for the best photographs. It's completely a personal preference thing and I think people should feel comfortable with whatever they choose in this regard, provided they don't lie about how they did it.

 

Personally, I do lots of modification. There's really no other way, given my purposes. I photograph hundreds upon hundreds of insect specimens to try to document species relevant to fly fishing for identification purposes. Most of what I'm interested in lives underwater, and I need to have, for example, belly views to give fly tiers an idea of the color they need to use to imitate a particular insect. My tasks demand bringing insects into my lab/studio for semi-scientific processing.

 

And I'm perfectly okay with that... I get my thrill-of-the-hunt, at-one-with-nature kick from my fly fishing itself, and I take a more scientific and efficient approach to my insect photography. People should get their photos however they like (provided, of course, that they don't permanently harm a population or setting).

Can someone post an example of a decent photograph that neither pleases the eyes nor conveys an emotion?

 

The other type of decent photo I didn't mention was the kind that simply documents what something looks like: here's my house, here's a spleen, here's the family at Christmas, here's poison ivy don't touch it, etc. So that's a very valid, non-artistic use for photography.

 

However, for artistic photography, I stand by my statement: I think that if an "artistic" photo isn't pretty and it doesn't convey a mood/emotion, it sucks. (Bear in mind, those are VERY broad requirements.) If you disagree, show me an exception.

It isn't about being "comprehended."

 

I'd bet money that if you took ten pretentious, avant garde photographers and gave them a series of a dozen Friedlander photos they'd never seen before to interpret, every photographer would come up with a completely different interpretation of every photo. And not in a good, deliberate way, but in a pointless, ambiguous way.

 

Also, I bet that if in those dozen Friedlanders you mixed in a few that were instead taken by a 4 year old with the same equipment, not one of the artsy stuck-ups would suspect the switch, and they wouldn't miss a beat in offering some long-winded interpretation of the deeper meaning of an out of focus shot of a happy meal.

Also, bear in mind that by getting respect (regarding scientists, anyway) I mean the respect of qualified peers in the field. "Intelligent design," for example, may have the respect of some random uneducated members of the public, but it's no more a respected scientific theory than palm reading, tarot cards, and horoscopes...

You're right Emre--I wondered if anyone would bring up the Sokal Hoax when I wrote that. That is the one exceptional case where a scientist became famous for publishing deliberately absurd ideas.

 

Of course, the ridiculous ideas he published in Social Text weren't scientific ideas he was actually trying to get accepted. They were bait in a parody to make a point about the absurd academic standards of social theorists. And that point was very real.

 

So Sokal's respect came from the very valid point he was making about intellectual standards. The ridiculous scientific statements he published were just tools in his experiment. :)

My definition of postmodernism is the field of academia for people with vocabularies larger than their brains. They know of a lot of big words; they just don't know how or why to use them.<br><br>

 

Here's something fun: <a href="http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern/">The Postmodernism Generator</a><br><br>

 

Also, you'll learn all you ever need to know about social theory if you read <a href="http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html">this paper</a> followed by <a href="http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/lingua_franca_v4/lingua_franca_v4.html">this one</a>, in order.<br><br>

 

The "Engineer deconstructs postmodernism" link above is also very instructive. <br><br>

 

I've taken a couple classes along these lines, and the whole field of postmodern thought is completely and utterly full of crap. It's for people who aren't smart enough to be scientists or talented enough to be artists, but want to make a living playing make-believe professor. They get grants and offices and everything, even desks. It's sad. My tuition would be much lower if the university would just fire all the faculty in farcical fields.

Ugh, I don't like that Friedlander stuff at all. It seems kind of like those "modern artists" who paint a square and call it art. I see that as a pretentious obsession with sophistication--people think it's genius to create something so crappy that only someone equally "refined" will see how brilliant it is.

 

Brilliant people don't concern themselves with being avant garde. They have their priorities straight. For photographers, that means focusing on creating works that please the eyes and communicate a mood. It's hard to do that really well. It takes talent. Perfecting the craft means rising above the rest in one's ability to perform it, not just wandering off into crazyland where nobody else has gone and for good reason.

 

A scientist would not get respect for promoting a deliberately idiotic hypothesis. A football player would not get respect for defying the trends and trying not to score any touchdowns. A police officer would not get respect for deliberately letting criminals go. Yet if an artist or photographer decides to such a ridiculously bad job, there's always a little crowd of people anxious to say "wow... it's great!" and play like they're the only ones who get it.

 

I've attached an image (public domain) that an art professor told me is a profound study in decay. I disagree, and I dare say he made that up on the spot because it sounded good. Anyone care to explain what's so sophisticated about this stupid picture of a spoon?<div></div>

Regular reflections from objects are probably just something you'll have to have... and they can look good. But I think you want to cut down on the reflection from your lighting.

 

I found a neat trick I'm planning to try for macro photography, and it might work for you too... it's using polarization, but they key is not just to use a polarizing filter, but to use the filter AND put polarizing film over your light source. (Otherwise, the filter won't have much effect unless you're in natural sunlight.)

 

See this article I found the idea in:

 

http://www.naturescapes.net/042004/wh0404.htm

I'm looking for a 77mm circular polarizer to put on a wide angle

lens for a Canon 20D (a DSLR with a 1.6x crop factor). The lens

will be the EF-S 10-22mm I think.

 

I see B+W (and Heliopan) generally referred to as being above all

the others. But everyone seems to think Singh-Ray has high quality

in everything else--I just haven't seen much mention of their

circular polarizer compared to the German glass filters.

 

How does it stack up? Which would you recommend?

Heh, don't sweat the ticks. I don't know anyone who has lyme disease and I live Wisconsin a couple hours southeast of Duluth. It's very beautiful country, well worth any photographer's time.

Thanks for all the great advice, guys. I'm very amazed by people are on this site; I've been involved in several dozen online communities for all kinds of topics and this seems to be the best I've run across in terms of helpfulness and expertise. Nice. :)

 

I'm pretty sure I'm going with the MP-E 65mm, the Canon 100mm USM macro, and the MT-24EX flash.