weeks Cambrian Utah

[trilobite tim]

I found this in the upper middle weeks limestone, in Amasa or North Canyon, last month.  I have cleaned it up the best I can.  It totals 27 mm left to right.  It was in the middle'ish grey layer of the weeks, but not the very top.  It is inverted.

[caldigger]

Is there some sort of effect on your camera?  Your picture looks like a watercolor painting.

[piranha]

It's a partial thoracic tergite / spine of: Olenoides skabelundi

 

This specimen measures 4.75"

 

figure from:

 

Robison, R.A., & Babcock, L.E. (2011)
Systematics, paleobiology, and taphonomy of some exceptionally preserved trilobites from Cambrian Lagerstätten of Utah.
University of Kansas Paleontological Contributions, 5:1-47

 

PDF LINK

 

 

[trilobite tim]

Thanks for the quick id!  I believe you are right.

 

Picture is about what the fossil is, lol.  Maybe I had too much light on it, as I used both the LED built into the scope and a big desk lamp.  Also I might do better after I have practiced a little.  The camera is new.  In fact this was the first fossil I took pictures of.

[Wrangellian]

I have noticed that 'melted snow'/watercolor look to a lot of cellphone images. I am not a cellphone user but I wish I knew what caused that (a setting, or person's lack of photog. skill?) so I knew what to say to people when pointing it out. I don't get anything like that with my dig. camera even when I'm out of focus, though low light can cause multicolored graininess - so I suspect it's some sort of compression thing with the cell, or its trying to sharpen a blurry image.

[tmaier]

That watercolor effect is called "flatness" and is caused by a narrow range of brightness in the image. It is often caused by saturating the image either too bright or too dark, and that makes the range of the image very narrow. A lot of modern digital cameras try to alter the image to turn one that is too dark or too bright into a usable image, and it ends up flat like you see here.

So to get rid of this, figure out if you are shooting in too dark or too light, and fix that problem. Then you will notice more texture and detail in the photos, because you have centered the dynamic range of the camera.

You people who use GIMP or Photoshop, pull in this image and look at the color levels, and you will see they are squeezed very narrow. You can use the software to expand the range, but it will never be as good as just getting the range right to start with.

This flatness can also be made on a good photo by using the software mentioned above. Sometimes people do this accidently when manipulating digital photos.