jeffevans

<p>Agree with Jack. That is not cherry. Cherry has a very tight, closed grain. This wood is open grained. Look closeley - the surface is not totally smooth like Frank's cherry example. Rather, it you can see the open ends of the tubular vessels that once carried sap through the tree, which appear as dark spots and shadows.<br>

It is a tropical hardwood. It could be mahogany, or it could be any of a number of other tropical hardwoods. The common name Mahogany is now applied to a large group of unrelated tropical hardwood timber species from around the world. It could also be padauk, an African hardwood with an orange color like paprika, that is popular with woodworkers and luthiers. Beautiful stuff.<br>

Your mirror is oak or ash (probably oak).</p>

<p>Thanks Jim, I think that's what I'll do for now. It just seems like a pain. I'll get LR2 soon enought...</p>

<p>cheers,<br>

jeff</p>

<p>Just got mine in the mail today. I don't have a lens with me at work to try it out yet, so I'm stuck here pretending to take photos.<br /> This will be of interest to you all:<br /> <a href="http://www.photographybay.com/2008/12/08/canon-5d-mark-ii-black-dots-fixed/">Canon 5D Mark II Black Dots Fixed</a><br>

Since i haven't used the camera yet, I have no idea if this works. Check it out.<br>

jeff</p>

I think you'll see here where they found their inspiration:

<a href="

Photo A Day</a>

I understand what you mean Lex. I don't actually use any of those sites; I just liked their cleaner look. It does limit what you can present your audience with at a glance though. The trick then is to maintain the content of PN but at the same time make the page easy to read.

After staring at the front page some more, I am starting to hone in on what really bothers me about it: It's not uniform. Here are some specifics. They are intended to be constructive criticisms, and I hope they will be taken as such. I know that a lot of work has gone into this revamp:

The boxes or frames are different sizes and not aligned with each other, so it looks messy and unplanned. I'd make them the same size (at least within a given row so that the "discover", "discuss" and 'featured photographer" boxes are the same size) and add some white space in the ones that have less text. Some of the boxes have one column of information, others have two. Some boxes are further split into top and bottom sections like the "discover" box with its "share your photos" subheader. I can't scan down a column because the columns are all broken up. Then the featured photographer is over-featured. I think steal some of the white space back from the featured photographer box and put it somewhere else. Also, I'd left-justify the featured photog. and featured member thumbnails so they line up with the text above them rather than centering them. Generally, there is too much partitioning , nad this makes it difficult to read.

Again, i hope these comments will be received as constructive and not as insults to your efforts.

Cheers,

Jeff

I must agree with Jane and respectfully disagree with Mikael. I just typed in "photo sharing" on Google and looked through the front pages of the first 5 or 6 that came up. The new PN page has more "stuff" on it that is less organized (visually) than anything else I saw. Look at the SmugMug front page. It is understated, simple, uncluttered, and intuitive. Granted they do different things than PN, but as a new user I would not be enticed by the new look here. It demands that I work too hard to learn how to use the site.

Flashing ads are a deal breaker for me. They make me want to have a seizure. When I see them, I almost always leave the page that produced them.

Hi all,

I'm sorry to be a downer, but i find the new layout to be *way* too busy for my

simple brain to take in. The new format is (a) trying to display too much

content in a limited amount of real estate and (b) a bit chaotic in having

multiple boxes or frames with different fonts that are not aligned with each

other and run off the bottom of the screen. The amount of stuff up on the front

page makes me feel like I'm being screamed at - everything is shouting for

attention, and it comes across as noise. As it is now, I'm not inclined to look

at anything on the home page because they all run together visually. A simpler

design with fewer elements and a cleaner look would be better. Think

"understated" - it has a much stronger visual appeal. <br><br>Also, I think you

should consider limiting the vertical size of the layout The "Learn" and "News"

boxes dribble off the bottom of my screen, and I hate having to scroll down to

find what I'm looking for. The daily photo sampling section is also difficult to

navigate. Fewer sample photos that area bit smaller would be preferable, and

without the scrolling thing.<br><br> On a positive note, I really like the new

drop down menus. They are a big step up from the old style and work well.

Cheers,

Jeff

I traded my ring light for the MT-24 EX after a week. The twin light casts more interesting shadows (for my purposes) and is more versitile because the flash heads can be moved or mounted remotely (e.g. to backlight the subject). I used the twin flash in this <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?topic_id=1481&msg_id=00KUJM&photo_id=5767423&photo_sel_index=0">Eyelash Viper</a>

photo with the two flash heads taped to the ends of two broomsticks. Together with an assistant we were able to move the flashes around and try out different combinations of light and shadow without getting bitten!

What you lose with the twin flash that the ring gives you is a nice, soft, diffuse light, but I find that it looks somewhat unnatural for macro nature photography and visually flattens the subject. Just my opinion.

Jeff