My Starter Collection And Sculpters

[John Papastathis]

Hi folks,

I just bought a Nikon D40 and thought I would share the 1st shots of my starter collection and also some paleo-sculptures I've done based on my trilos. A shot of my fluorescents is included. (Hope the last items are'nt out of place). Anyway, please let me know what you think and any hint on shooting fossils would be appreciated as I am just getting used to the whole digital thing after a lifetime of 35mm. Guess I'm just a fossil myself in that respect.

Also, I will be posting some shots in the ID section so any help there would be great too.

Thanks,

John

[Gatorman]

What background did you use? The pics turned out great

[Guest Cris]

Yeah, great pics. I love those fish!

[John Papastathis]

Black cloth backdrop in late afternoon sunlight which is my favorite way to shoot these type subjects. I am having trouble with uploading more. It keeps telling me I have'nt sellected a file when I have. Any hints ? Iwill keep trying. Thanks,

John

[Gatorman]

Try deleting your cookies and temporary internet files. What type of cloth is it? Where can I buy some?

[Harry Pristis]

Hi folks,

I just bought a Nikon D40 and thought I would share the 1st shots of my starter collection and also some paleo-sculptures I've done based on my trilos. A shot of my fluorescents is included. (Hope the last items are'nt out of place). Anyway, please let me know what you think and any hint on shooting fossils would be appreciated as I am just getting used to the whole digital thing after a lifetime of 35mm. Guess I'm just a fossil myself in that respect.

Also, I will be posting some shots in the ID section so any help there would be great too.

Thanks,

John

Welcome to the forum, John!

I sure wish I could see more than the thumbnails of your images, but I cannot fully open your very large images.

A portion of the image does open, but not the full image. Nor can I simply scroll left or right, up or down, to see the image -- the image is just too large for my 17-inch monitor.

When I make a SHQ or HQ image with my six megapixel camera, the resulting image is as large as 39 inches wide by 29 inches high. I have to reduce the image size with my editing software to even work with it conveniently.

You can produce excellent photos with the Standard Quality (SQ) setting on your camera. (See some of Worthy's or Mike Owens' recent posts.) If you are going to post images that are not edited, that is, images directly from your camera, SQ is the camera setting you should be using.

I'd like to see your pix. I hope you can post some images that are accessible to everyone on the forum.

Check out the "Photographing Fossils" thread in the FOSSIL MEDIA sub-forum for some ideas on making images of fossils.

--------Harry Pristis

[John Papastathis]

Just plain cloth from a fabric store. I would'nt use anything shiny as that might create glare. Thanks for the hints. Will try deleting cookies etc., and reducing file size. Thanks again.

[Guest Nicholas]

Excellent fossils, I like your idea for a background too.

[ShadyW]

Welcome to the forum, John!

I sure wish I could see more than the thumbnails of your images, but I cannot fully open your very large images.

A portion of the image does open, but not the full image. Nor can I simply scroll left or right, up or down, to see the image -- the image is just too large for my 17-inch monitor.

When I make a SHQ or HQ image with my six megapixel camera, the resulting image is as large as 39 inches wide by 29 inches high. I have to reduce the image size with my editing software to even work with it conveniently.

You can produce excellent photos with the Standard Quality (SQ) setting on your camera. (See some of Worthy's or Mike Owens' recent posts.) If you are going to post images that are not edited, that is, images directly from your camera, SQ is the camera setting you should be using.

I'd like to see your pix. I hope you can post some images that are accessible to everyone on the forum.

Check out the "Photographing Fossils" thread in the FOSSIL MEDIA sub-forum for some ideas on making images of fossils.

--------Harry Pristis

Harry, you do know that the problem is with your computer, right? I know you post this stock response to almost everyone who posts large images, but perhaps it would be better if you found out how to fix your computer.

I've opened the images in this thread (and others you've said you can't open) on five different computers without any problems. Four PCs and one Mac. I've used Internet Explorer and Firefox on the PCs, and Safari and Firefox on the Mac.

On all five computers, the images open in a separate pop-up window. In Internet Explorer, the image initially opens huge (too big for the screen, like you seem to always see) and then scales down to fit the screen once the image is fully loaded. In Firefox, the image loads in a scaled-down size to fit the screen, and the scaling is displayed in the window title-bar. In Safari the image is scaled to fit the screen, but there's no indication that it's been scaled.

Something's not set up right on your machine, but I can't think for the life of me what it could be. The last time we discussed this you said you'd tried Firefox and it didn't work either - that's very odd indeed, since Firefox is configured to scale large images by default.

Personally I love the high-res images that so many people post, and I think you're fighting a losing battle telling people to either edit them down or shoot at lower resolution.

Good luck with fixing your computer!

[PaleoRon]

I have been able to view posted pics on three different machines and I haven't had a problem on any of them. I haven't seen anyone else post that they were having problems viewing pics. Might be time to seek professional help.

[Harry Pristis]

Harry, you do know that the problem is with your computer, right? I know you post this stock response to almost everyone who posts large images, but perhaps it would be better if you found out how to fix your computer.

I've opened the images in this thread (and others you've said you can't open) on five different computers without any problems. Four PCs and one Mac. I've used Internet Explorer and Firefox on the PCs, and Safari and Firefox on the Mac.

On all five computers, the images open in a separate pop-up window. In Internet Explorer, the image initially opens huge (too big for the screen, like you seem to always see) and then scales down to fit the screen once the image is fully loaded. In Firefox, the image loads in a scaled-down size to fit the screen, and the scaling is displayed in the window title-bar. In Safari the image is scaled to fit the screen, but there's no indication that it's been scaled.

Something's not set up right on your machine, but I can't think for the life of me what it could be. The last time we discussed this you said you'd tried Firefox and it didn't work either - that's very odd indeed, since Firefox is configured to scale large images by default.

Personally I love the high-res images that so many people post, and I think you're fighting a losing battle telling people to either edit them down or shoot at lower resolution.

Good luck with fixing your computer!

For some reason, Shady, the scaling function does not operate on my 'puter. I am using Firefox currently, but it works just the same as Internet Explorer in that regard.

I'm really happy for you that you are enjoying the high-rez images. Me, I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

I just tried opening John's fluorescent mineral image and waiting for the auto-scaling -- nada ! I can see about half of the image horizontally (I run out of scroll bar) and the whole image if I scroll down. If you can think of something constructive to suggest, I am eager to experiment.

I post that message to alert new subscribers that not everyone can view mega-images, nor will everyone with a dial-up Internet connection bother to wait while a mega-image loads. My assumption is that someone posting an image here wants the most feedback he or she can get, and I want new subscribers to thrive here. And you want . . . . . everyone's computer to operate like yours, I guess.

PaleoRon's images are an apt example. I don't open PaleoRon's images, and often don't open his posts, because his images are consistently a problem to view. I open posts and respond sometimes when I can view the attached images. It's just the way things are . . . a natural sorting-out process. I'd be surprised if I were the only one on the forum engaging in this sort of discrimination.

Unless you have something helpful to offer, I suggest you skip over this alert which I send to new subscribers just as I'll continue to skip over mega-images posted here. See how easy that was!

--------Harry Pristis

[Rain1950]

Very nice.

I still pack my old Canon AE-1; so I guess I'm still a fossil. Ido have 2 digitals, but sometimes getting the effects on 35mm works better

[John Papastathis]

Very nice.

I still pack my old Canon AE-1; so I guess I'm still a fossil. Ido have 2 digitals, but sometimes getting the effects on 35mm works better

Takes awhile. I shoot a lot in PA when I visit my folks who retired to the Pocanos. My Dad keeps asking me when do we need to pull over so I can buy more film! Like to chat more with you on the pros and cons of film vs digital.

John

[ShadyW]

For some reason, Shady, the scaling function does not operate on my 'puter. I am using Firefox currently, but it works just the same as Internet Explorer in that regard.

I'm really happy for you that you are enjoying the high-rez images. Me, I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

I just tried opening John's fluorescent mineral image and waiting for the auto-scaling -- nada ! I can see about half of the image horizontally (I run out of scroll bar) and the whole image if I scroll down. If you can think of something constructive to suggest, I am eager to experiment.

I post that message to alert new subscribers that not everyone can view mega-images, nor will everyone with a dial-up Internet connection bother to wait while a mega-image loads. My assumption is that someone posting an image here wants the most feedback he or she can get, and I want new subscribers to thrive here. And you want . . . . . everyone's computer to operate like yours, I guess.

PaleoRon's images are an apt example. I don't open PaleoRon's images, and often don't open his posts, because his images are consistently a problem to view. I open posts and respond sometimes when I can view the attached images. It's just the way things are . . . a natural sorting-out process. I'd be surprised if I were the only one on the forum engaging in this sort of discrimination.

Unless you have something helpful to offer, I suggest you skip over this alert which I send to new subscribers just as I'll continue to skip over mega-images posted here. See how easy that was!

--------Harry Pristis

Wow! I certainly didn't mean to cause offense with my post. Sorry that I upset you.

[Harry Pristis]

Wow! I certainly didn't mean to cause offense with my post. Sorry that I upset you.

Golly, Shady, did I sound upset? I should use more emoticons.

[kauffy]

For some reason, Shady, the scaling function does not operate on my 'puter. I am using Firefox currently, but it works just the same as Internet Explorer in that regard.

I'm really happy for you that you are enjoying the high-rez images. Me, I'm doing the best I can with what I have.

I just tried opening John's fluorescent mineral image and waiting for the auto-scaling -- nada ! I can see about half of the image horizontally (I run out of scroll bar) and the whole image if I scroll down. If you can think of something constructive to suggest, I am eager to experiment.

I post that message to alert new subscribers that not everyone can view mega-images, nor will everyone with a dial-up Internet connection bother to wait while a mega-image loads. My assumption is that someone posting an image here wants the most feedback he or she can get, and I want new subscribers to thrive here. And you want . . . . . everyone's computer to operate like yours, I guess.

PaleoRon's images are an apt example. I don't open PaleoRon's images, and often don't open his posts, because his images are consistently a problem to view. I open posts and respond sometimes when I can view the attached images. It's just the way things are . . . a natural sorting-out process. I'd be surprised if I were the only one on the forum engaging in this sort of discrimination.

Unless you have something helpful to offer, I suggest you skip over this alert which I send to new subscribers just as I'll continue to skip over mega-images posted here. See how easy that was!

--------Harry Pristis

I agree with you Harry, i think that the photos should be accesable to everyone on the forum...its pretty simple to change the size of your pictures using microsoft office picture manager.... i showed Paleoron how to do this and change his settings so that his pictures open with MOPM. and can be easily changed to smaller sizes....its also not that hard to change you camera settings either, just get that manual out and give it a read!

I will post a thread with a step by step guide to change the size of your images on a PC, this may help some people.

Making your pictures smaller, although it may take that little bit extra, will reduce the amount of time it takes for an image to upload onto the forum or other websites eg. photobucket.

By then way John, your pics are great! nice contrast, clear, sharp...everthing a fossil pic needs! that fish concrestion is beautiful!

[Guest N.AL.hunter]

Harry, as for the picture size problems, try this... Make sure screen size is set at 1280 by 740 (are approximately that size) and make sure your font size setting is not large. You can find these settings under display settings. Hope this helps. If it doesn't blame my wife as she is telling me what to type.

[Harry Pristis]

Harry, as for the picture size problems, try this... Make sure screen size is set at 1280 by 740 (are approximately that size) and make sure your font size setting is not large. You can find these settings under display settings. Hope this helps. If it doesn't blame my wife as she is telling me what to type.

Thanks for the suggestions, NALh! I've been through all the screen size options (currently set at 1024x768) from smaller to larger. None was effective in sizing a mega-image to screen-size. My font size is the default setting.

I don't blame anyone for these problems. I am merely disappointed that Anson has been so unresponsive.

I suspect that the same image-resize software that governs image size in the albums could be applied to images in forum posts.

---------Harry Pristis

[Gatorman]

I'm sorry Harry I do not know how to do what your wanting done, and I cannot afford to have the board modified in such a way the forum already resizes images once when it makes the thumbnails, I inquired about having a lightbox as they call it installed so that when you clicked on the image it would pop up over the page at a predetermined size and then could be clicked on again to go to regular full view as it is now but the price I was quoted was $200 and that is way beyond what I can afford.

[Harry Pristis]

I'm sorry Harry I do not know how to do what your wanting done, and I cannot afford to have the board modified in such a way the forum already resizes images once when it makes the thumbnails, I inquired about having a lightbox as they call it installed so that when you clicked on the image it would pop up over the page at a predetermined size and then could be clicked on again to go to regular full view as it is now but the price I was quoted was $200 and that is way beyond what I can afford.

I'm glad you explained that, Anson. I didn't realize you had given the problem any attention.

So, things are as they are. The problem has been aired. Participants here will do whatever seems reasonable. Perhaps some technological fix will appear in the future.

In the meantime, I will continue to alert new subscribers to the problems since there are no other Q&A or guidelines for posting images here.

-------Harry Pristis

[Gatorman]

No problem Harry if I come across a solution, I will fix it but for now it has to remain the same. There is one thing I can try and that is to increase the size of the thumbnails to about 600 pixels which may make them large enough for you to see the detail you need but in turn it would make the pages load slower, I believe anyway.