Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Of the wife's point and shoot Canon A700. Problem is I can't remeber what I want to do when I am actualy taking pictures. Here's a few I took while cleaning (and feeding) yesterday.

My oldest male thayeri (02) from Mark Wolfnson

My favorit 06 female (I kept)

You'all have seen this guy

Here's his Mom (an 01 model)

Here's an 04 I hope to breed this year

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

They just aren't Mexicana, but they came from Mexico (at some point).

I like the stripe on this girl

How about a litle "basic black" Het Leopard Sonoran

I had my first Sonoran 35 years ago.

I could not get the incredible red this girl has to show up, this is the best of about 25 trys. Hypo het Leopard

Yes, my wife knows about the last two but is not impressed.
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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Great pictures Rick, nice and clear. i like that 04 thayeri you are hoping to breed this year, and i really like the white coloration on that striped (sinaloan?)

Adam
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4.5 THAYERI
1.2 SPLENDIDA
1.3 ALTERNA
0.0.1 HOLD BACK RUNT ALBINO CORN
0.1.1 PYXIE FROG
0.0.1 MEXICAN RED KNEE
1.0 CHILEAN ROSE HAIR

>>Great pictures Rick, nice and clear. i like that 04 thayeri you are hoping to breed this year, and i really like the white coloration on that striped (sinaloan?)
>>

Thanks Adam, I took about 50 and deleted most of the others just playing around with the settings. She is different, I got her to breed with this guy (next year) in hopes of combining his abberant pattern with her bold pattern. Yes, it is a striped Sinaloan, I like them because they are all different (like Thayeri).

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Now that's some improvement. I know they say point and shoot but that's never quite the deal LOL. Those are 100% better than your previous pics.
Now for a little critique. Try to get the snakes head in the center of picture field. That's the area that these auto focus camera's focus on. From there use you photo software to crop and so forth. Again very nice improvments.

Oh one more thing. You live in CA where the weather is nice. You might want to think about setting up a spot/studio in your yard or some open space to take photos. Natural light can't be beat.
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Vichris

Vichris Variables

I'll second the big improvement. Funny thing is when you posted that you got a new camera and spent some time reading the manual I thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to pull mine out too. I originally got the camera to document the building of the house and didn't need all the macro features. I was ready to chunk the old one and get another but I think I'm gonna keep it now.

Is I'm using up so much memory that I'm having to buy more memory for my puter. I've deleted hundreds of photos and copied a bunch to CD discs. My computer is now 4 years old and had 512mb but thats nothing now.
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Vichris

Vichris Variables

Chris,

Sorry for jumping in here, but I might be able to help. Sounds like what you need is more hard drive space for file storage and not RAM (random access memory), which is the 512mb that you mentioned. RAM is temporary data storage that your system uses while thinking through it's processes, adding more RAM will allow your system to think faster, but won't give you more storage space for files like photos, documents and such. You can buy a large capacity external plug-n-play hard drive for the same money as adding more RAM, I recently noticed a 300GB Seagate external hard drive for $100 after rebate. You simply plug these things into a USB port and you can store your stuff there just as though it were your main system drive... it will show up as another drive letter and you are good to go.
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Mike

I have a couple of 1 gig "thumb drives" and I've stored alot of pics on CD too. Most of our pictures are family gatherings and other family pics. I certainly have no shortage of snake pics too. I just want more RAM to speed up my whole system. Just the combination of pics, saved email, and other stuff has bogged down my whole system. I clean it up regularly.

My wife has 2 business computers and the kids have one too. But mine is the one that gets the most use. The new camera is no help either. LOL
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Vichris

Vichris Variables

You're welcome and I see I misunderstood. Sounds like you have a good grip on the puter over there. Double your RAM and you shouldn't bog down. My backup puter has 1 gig of RAM and it runs Photoshop and anything else, including a DVD, web browser, e-mail client etc., all while working in Photoshop without skipping a beat. Money well spent. This new main system I'm using now came with 2 gigs of RAM and it's honestly way more than I need. I'm lucky if I ever hit 40% usage but it's set up for Vista, if I go there with this system I'm sure I'll need it.

You should keep an eye out for that screaming external hard drive deal though, you'll love having it. No more stacks of CD's. I partitioned mine into three partitions, I back up the entire "c" drive on two of the puters with the first two and use the third for any miscellaneous stuff. Great peace of mind knowing everything is safe on a drive I only turn on and run when I need to and it should last a good long while sitting powered off most of the time.

Those flash drives you have are cool, I need some and they're getting mighty cheap.
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Mike

I don't have any such problems, not because I have more storage but becasue even after reading the manual and taking hundreds of pictures I've only managed to capture a handfull I wish to keep!

>>Now that's some improvement. I know they say point and shoot but that's never quite the deal LOL. Those are 100% better than your previous pics.

Thanks Chris and Tony,
These are probably the best point and shoot pics I have gotten, just by trying different settings, most were deleted though and a couple of these are only so-so.

>> Now for a little critique. Try to get the snakes head in the center of picture field. That's the area that these auto focus camera's focus on. From there use you photo software to crop and so forth. Again very nice improvments.
>>

(LOL) that’s what I always try to do, problem is, I am getting old and see for $#!^ (not very well) so what looks focused on the center often isn’t. I have also found I move when pushing the shutter, hence the focus is just a little off. I use a tripod now with the big camera (per your suggestion) big improvement. I tried the shutter timer once, if I weren’t so busy chasing the little critters around for 10 seconds (an eternity in baby snake time) I would have been rolling around laughing at myself. Now I have to read the novel on the SLR. The pic below was with the SLR on a tripod, focus is just as good, maybe better, some of it is cropping, I tend to want to get the whole snake in the photo but sometimes less is better.

>>Oh one more thing. You live in CA where the weather is nice. You might want to think about setting up a spot/studio in your yard or some open space to take photos. Natural light can't be beat.
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It was cold and cloudy all weekend, I even put on Jeans instead of shorts and I changed out of my flip-flops in the evening (LOL). It was evening when I took these so there was almost as much light inside as out. I take most of the “set-up” shots outside but not in direct sun. I have found the direct sun washes out much of the detail especially the subtle details of Thayeri coloration that is difficult to capture most of the time. I have given thought to making a “Photo Box” that is angled in such a way that it directs the snake to a main focal point. I would adorn it with an assortment of sand, gravel, rocks and sticks. Maybe this year I’ll get to it.

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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Well I've got yogurt on my monitor now because of that post. You must be about my same age. I had Lasik done about four years ago and it's great for distance. But it didn't change my need for reading glasses/bifocals. I'm right there with you I can't see up close for $%#&*^@ either. That said it's the auto focus feature that should be doing your focusing. On most cameras if you press the shutter release down half way it does the work for you. On most cameras you can see on the monitor whats going on. Mine gives me a beep and a little green light to tell me the focus is good also.

Just keep playing with it. You are definetly on the right track and your pics are the proof. And you're right pics in direct sunlight are usually washed out. But even then you can play with your F-Stops to improve that too.

These two pics were taken minutes apart you can see in the first pic that the sunlight is splitting the frame. I can't remember my settings but I did reduce my f-stop. The 2nd pic was taken in the shade but ambient light. The color is true in the 2nd pic. You can see the 1st pic is somewhat washed out. I still have alot to learn about my new camera too.

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Vichris

Vichris Variables

Nice looking snakes there Rick. Mark had some really nice thayeri.

Shannon

Thanks Shannon,

Mark's Thayeri are what got me sucked back into breeding them in 2001. I liked that he had a very mixed breeding group from all sorts of people. I drove the 8 hours (one way) to Tucson just to hand pic a few in 2002. I didn't see him this year so don't know what his Thayeri look like now.
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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Well,
I know that last year (actually 05) in Anahiem he was selling most if not all his adults.He was getting out of the business if I remember right.
Not 100% sure though.

Shannon

I do not remember seeing Mark there; he had a great mix, I wonder who bought him out?
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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles

Rick, those pic's are fantastic. I know I really need to break the book out now and read mine.
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Michelle

My problem is (well one of them) I already forgot what I read.
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Rick
Never Enough
Reptiles