Search the Community

Mount Isa photographer shares his tricks for taking photos of sand-grain sized fossils By Harriet Tatham, ABC North West Qld http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-28/how-to--photograph-a-fossil-the-size-of-a-sand-grain/8650976 Yours, Paul H.

I'll start this off with some buildings I've come across on holidays It's amazing you don't have to go far to see architecture, modern or primitive, new or old, culturally different that makes you eyes pop. Often we take for granted what's on our doorstep and I don't have any sadly but I'll change that shortly. All these images are iPhone so not the greatest of quality. I do use a film camera for black and white but prefer not to take a dslr as I use that in my profession when not using crazy sized 19th century cameras.... Whitby Abbey UK. Great fossil hunting here! Ely Cathedral UK Cold War missile silo, Bratislava. (Urbexing) Bivouac, Bratislava.

Wanted to share this image I captured on Halloween. Time Warp by Zachary Cava, on Flickr

I am wanting to get a digital microscope to image chondrichthyan teeth in the 1mm to 20mm size range. I have been using an iPhone 5s with a15x Olloclip for the larger teeth with decent results, but can't pickup fine details on the smaller teeth. Does anyone have recommendations that won't "break the bank "? Thanks, Carson

Here is some of my storage areas and my prep/ photo work station and my microfossil work station. And a display case.

I thought I would share a few cell phone photography tricks I have learned. Back when I had an iPhone and HTC One I would just zoom in the camera and then I would put my fossil in the frame and take the photo. Both phones did an admiral job taking decent up close photos. I've recently downgraded to a Moto G with a fixed focal length and found that it wouldn't take nice close up photos. Then I tried holding my loupe up to the camera lens and lo and behold I was taking close up pictures again. The photo below is a 1/2 inch Triarthrus beckii. By the way, if you forget your loupe you can use your phone camera as one. This trick also works with tablet computers as well.

I came across an article today on using a printer scanner to image shark teeth. It worked well for the labial side (relatively flat). However, the lingual side was less than satisfactory. Have any of you used this method of imaging teeth, and do any of you have tips on getting good images for the lingual side? Thanks, Carson

Parry's Lip Fern (Cheilanthes parryi) growing beside fossilized coral in Clark County, NV. This was one of my favorite photo-ops and one of the few cases where I had a specific subject in mind before actually finding it. I had seen lots of ferns and plenty of fossils at this spot, but I really wanted to show the juxtaposition of their patterns together—one living, the other as ancient remains. After a few visits, I finally found what I was looking for! -Zach

I stumbled on this web site and it looks like a great place - to both learn and participate. I am the founder and chief scientist of a software company specializing in cognitive computing and human-centered computing (http://www.scianta.com). I have been studying and collecting dinosaur fossils for over fifty years. One of my books include Beyond Humanity - Cyberevolution and Future Minds which I co-authored with Greg Paul, one of the palentologist advisors on the orginal Jurassic Park movie, a dino artist, and, in his Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, was one on the first paleontologist to depict feathered theropod dinosaurs. Because of Greg, I spend a lot of time watching and studying and photographing swarms of modern dinosaurs around me, the wonderful clad of avian theropods (opposed to the long gone late Cretaceous nonavian-theropods). I am a photographer with my work on display in galleries in Santa Monica, Baltimore, and New York (see http://www.theperiodicityoflight.squarespace.com). I also collect, culture, study, and photograph protozoa and myoxmycetes (slime molds), and small carnivorous plants called sundews. I collect tenth and eleventh century medieval manuscripts, late Roman republic coins, and nineteenth century brass microscopes. So that's mostly me in a nutshell.

When I recently got an iPhone 5, I thought that it would be great for snapshot pics. I had no idea how great a camera it has, especially when used in conjunction with the many terrific photography apps designed for it. Now I use it for all my fossil pics. Bye bye Nikon!

I'm posting in the "General" section. This post contains several vaguely related topics. I hope that this placement will give it the most exposure to folks that may be interested and/or informed by the content. Covered are: Praise, Prep, Photography and Proposal. Praise. Forum member, xonenine recently promoted a poetry contest. I was the lucky, fortunate "winner." He awarded a trove of trilobites that he had collected. Eldredgeops rana, Penn Dixie Quarry, Hamburg, NY, Mid-Devonion, Windom Shale. Two are pictured below. His effort added a fun element to the Forum and it was a pleasant diversion to participate. To my mind the best part was the interaction with other contestants. This Forum has knowledgeable members, but also there are participants who feature a great sense of humor. Without going on and on - this is a wonderful forum with a host of divers attributes to recommend it. Prep. The photo reveals the onset of prep efforts on the right hand specimen. The cranidium had just begun to be cleared. For scale the left hand critter is about 18mm at its widest point. Prep is now mostly finished on the right piece. The method/tools employed were: B&L Zoomscope, pin vise with carbide point, water, soft tooth brush, art gum eraser. Photography. The image above as taken with a Nikon D600, 50mm Nikkor 1.8 lens with a Cokin A103 magnifying lens attached. The initial image file was 9.18MB. This was cropped to 3.49MB and processed via Photoshop Elements 11. The brightness/contrast and color values were adjusted. Finally the image was re-sized to about 1MB for posting here. The point of all this was to obtain a macro image with excellent clarity. The large files produced by the D600 allow for considerable cropping (and therefore zooming in) with very acceptable sharpness. Of course large image files are more important if the image is to be printed as opposed to screen displayed. Photo info: Nikon D600 with 50mm 1.8 lens, Cokin A103; F-stop f/5.6; Exposure 1/125; ISO 100. Proposal. I would really like for posters to include the details of their photographic efforts at the end of their posts, that is, like the "Photo info" data above. I often ask a poster for additional information about their photos and most graciously provide it. I think that sharing information about equipment and technique will improve everyone's photo product. Thanks for sticking with this long, rambling post. Best, Snolly

Hi Does anyone have any practical experience of how to whitening fossils with ammonium chloride. The technique I wish to lear more about is the one where the fossilis is covered with chloride smoke. This coating should eliminates reflections, translucency and color variations, and easily removed by simply blowing on it.