lonestranger
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Posts posted by lonestranger
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3 minutes ago, Charlie Spencer said:
As Grandpa would have said, I'm rougher than a corn cob.
Corn cobs and out houses, those were rough times.
Hopefully you only know of the stories about them and don't have any first hand experience in measuring a corn cob's roughness.
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Caption this.
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What I would suggest, @dragon49, is putting your camera in Scene mode on the top dial and then bring up the Menu and scroll down and select the Bird Watching mode. That's the setting I use on my Nikon P900 and it's probably better suited for bird photography than the sports mode you're currently using.
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5 minutes ago, Charlie Spencer said:
Hi again. Would a few of you go to this checklist? I attached five photos of the turnstone but they don't show up in a Macaulay search. For that matter, do the turnstones show on the checklist at all? The entry was flagged for count, and that may what's going on.
I see photos of five Ruddy Turnstones and one House Sparrow.
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12 hours ago, dragon49 said:
I have such a hard time getting my camera to focus on small birds,
I'm not sure how your camera is set up and you may have already done this but using a single, centered, focal point instead of multi focal points helps to ensure that you're autofocus isn't going lock on to something in the background/foreground. Perched birds usually need a single centered focal point but it helps to use multiple focal points for birds in flight. You may already know all that but it still might be helpful info for others having focus issues.
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On 11/24/2021 at 6:54 PM, Kevin said:
There's nothing on this sign that tells me where those guys with the funny looking sticks were getting all those fish.
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As for rating photos, I think EVERYONE should rate photos on how good or bad they think the photo is based on the guidelines ebird has set. I do not think ANYONE should rate a photo based on how good or bad other people think the photo is. Over or under rating a photo based on it's current rating in order to manipulate that rating just doesn't sit well with me. I think a photo should be rated for the photo, not the rating, and the suggested guidelines should be applied the same to ALL photos.
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12 hours ago, IKLland said:
Ok, that’s fine. But, do you agree that sharpness is one of the most important things to rating? If yes,
Sharpness is best evaluated by zooming in to 100 percent, and if it’s still pretty clear p, it’s sharp. That might not work for this image, but I think in future, you should zoom in.
Do you look at works of art with a magnifying glass? While I agree that sharpness is needed for a good image, pixel peeping is equivalent to using a magnifying glass to look at a painting that is usually viewed from feet away, not inches. Yeah it will show you if it's TACK SHARP, or tack sharp, or SHARP, or sharp, etc, etc, but it will also exaggerate the flaws making something that's not really visible, like subtle noise, look magnified to unacceptable levels. TACK SHARP focus is not needed to have a nice sharp photo, if it was I would have given up on photography years ago, maybe I should have. ? I too check the sharpness of MY photos when I sort them for editing but I don't go around zooming in on every photo I view to pixel peep other people's work, unless of course there's a big commotion on here about how a photo on ebird is under or over rated. ?
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3 hours ago, Clip said:
Thank you! Needs to move up one more spot. The immature that is.
It might be easier to ask @Kevin to change the text to match the way the images are currently organized. If you typed out new text then all Kevin would have to do is cut and paste the text into place. Just trying to keep things simple but it may prove to be more complicated than that.
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48 minutes ago, Clip said:
But boy folks get up in arms if you have the audacity to point out that ebird reviewers don't walk on water.
From what I have read in this thread, it feels like you expect too much from your reviewer...especially if you're expecting them to walk on water. ? The "Job" standards that you're expecting might just be a little different than the reviewer's standards for his or her "Hobby". Just saying.
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1 hour ago, Charlie Spencer said:
With that in mind, is there anything about the second picture anyone would have done differently if they'd edited it manually?
I think you did just fine. The crop works for me, although other crops might work just as well if the bird was slightly higher in the frame. The colours look okay to me, although moving a few sliders this way or that way might give it a bit more punch. It might benefit from a little bit of sharpening but whatbird degrades image quality so don't expect your photos to look as good on here as they do in your photo editor.
I used the word "might" because I am very much like you and don't really know what a photo needs just by looking at it. Yeah I can tell when a photo is over/under exposed or when the focus is off, but when it comes to making a photo look better, it's trial and error for me. I usually try the auto adjust feature first and see if it makes the photo better or worse and then play with the sliders a bit to see if the new adjustments look better or worse. While others may have a more rigid workflow and know what they are aiming for right from the start, my editing steps are usually based on trying this or that adjustment and seeing if I think it is better than it was. Quite often I don't notice a difference so I reset the slider back to zero and try a different slider.
The only real way to know what, and how much, to edit a photo is to start editing and ask yourself if you like the results. Over time you'll get to know how the adjustments affect your photos, but you'll still need to play around with the sliders and decide if you like the results. Admittedly, it's not easy to make that decision at times but you'll eventually come to the conclusion that you can't improve the photo anymore, and that's when you save it or revert back to the original depending on your decision. Photo editing is subjective, some people may like or dislike your edits, they are not the ones you need to please though, please yourself with your photos and edit them, or not, to your liking.
If you want to avoid some post editing, you may want to play around with your camera's built in picture settings and/or the contrast and saturation type adjustments. A one time adjustment or two in the camera can add some punch to your photos and save some editing time later. Just saying that the JPGs that the camera produces can be tweaked (edited) before the photo is actually taken.
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16 minutes ago, Clip said:
Maybe you can answer another question for-I see like in your posts gray text with peoples life list...How do you do that?
Click on your name in the top right of the window. Click on Account Settings. Click on Signatures from the options on the left. Add/Edit your signature. Click save.
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14 minutes ago, Aaron said:
Thanks! It’s fun having them perch so close to the window.
Ha thanks, that’s what I was trying to say. Can you tell I don’t know what I’m talking about? ? I just learned 3 days ago that I could move the focal point on my camera… it rocked my world honestly.
The more you know about your camera, the more you can do with it. As annoying as it is, reading, and re-reading the manual now and then isn't a bad idea. Manuals might be overwhelming when you first get your camera, but if read them again after using the camera for a while, a lot more stuff sinks in and makes sense.
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24 minutes ago, Aaron said:
Having fun with trying to get close ups the last few days. Should probably use a larger aperture next time.
You'd get more depth of field using a smaller aperture (larger F/#).
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5 hours ago, Clip said:
Not sure what these are. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Photo taken May 2015, I think in Jefferson County, Colorado. Cool and creepy all at once.
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2 hours ago, Kevin said:
Here is what I see.
I see it the same as Kevin does. Here's my rough outline of how I think the three cats are arranged.
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9 hours ago, smskelton said:
IF you look carefully, I think there are four bobcats in this picture.
I only see three, care to explain where you think the 4th bobcat is.
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14 hours ago, Kevin said:
"Not birding"? What?
Can you explain that to me?
I think it means the same as sleeping. ?
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9 hours ago, MacMe said:
Lets do this one this time. Sorry for the lower quality...cell phone
I tried to tell you that this was the wrong parking lot but you wouldn't listen to me, as usual.
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On 10/30/2021 at 4:51 PM, xpoetmarcr said:
OK, caption this one -
One small step for man, one giant leap for duckling.
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Hopefully you only know of the stories about them and don't have any first hand experience in measuring a corn cob's roughness. 
Can you explain that to me?
Different woodpecker than a bit ago (I think)
in Help Me Identify a North American Bird
Posted
When shooting through a screen, @Nancy, you might have better luck with your focusing by getting your camera as close to the screen as possible. If you get close enough the camera shouldn't even detect it's there when focusing. The quality might not be any better, but it might prevent the camera from trying to focus on the screen.