Photograph Of The Day

[Rich Z]

Thanks, sure I play games. That's the primary reason I built it. As for EVGA, I'm surprised to hear you say that. I've been buying their graphics cards for many years, and never had an issue, starting with the 8800GT.

I just wait about 2 months after a new series is released to be sure there are no bugs, and then I buy. I skipped the 680 cards because this pair of 580s are still slicing through every new game I buy, with all the eye candy cranked to max., and frame rates are still around 65 to 80fps even with the latest games.

I had every intention of buying a pair of 780s when they're released, but now I'm not so sure. I'll be getting Sniper2:Ghost Warrior in January, and then Crysis3 is being released in Q1 '13 as well. Both are based on the Cryengine3. If they run fine with all the graphic variables max'd out then I'll skip the 780s, at least for a while, or perhaps even until the 880 cards are released. Of course if Crysis3 gives me any problems what-so-ever, then the 580s are getting shipped to my grandson, and I'll buy a pair of 780s.

I admit it, I am obsessed, I cannot play any game unless I'm seeing the graphics at they're best, and smooth at 60fps or higher.

Yeah man! Although I haven't cranked any games up lately, I do enjoy a good first person shooter. I've got a shelf here in the den just chock full of games I haven't even touched yet. Actually I think I like the eye candy much more than the game play, so yeah, I want the graphics goodies cranked up to MAX as well. So far the single GTX 580 I have has held up just fine with all the games I have tried.

One major reason I stuck with the 500 series was because the last time I checked, the 600 series wasn't working with the rendering accelerator coding of my video software (Sony Vegas Pro). And actually the 580 seems to have some problems anyway since it will hang up if I play with the time scale of the video in any fashion. The rendering just hangs up when it gets to the altered time scale section, so I have to disable the graphics card for any videos I use that function in.

The biggest issue I have had with EVGA has been their drivers. Seemed like every fix they made in a new version broke something else. So with this 580, I am NOT upgrading the video drivers unless something breaks because of a Windows "upgrade".

Ah well, supposed to be rainy here for the next three days so maybe I'll crank up a game instead of going out to the garage and fussing with the blue car. I've got Battlefield 3 sitting here right at my elbow....

 

[Hameister]

BF3 is a super game, I really enjoyed it. I also liked Medal of Honor: Warfighter very much, but it was kinda short. I went through it in about 5 hours of total gaming time. Games like BF3, C2, and others usually give me about 8 to 9 hours of playtime.

Sorry to hear you have so much trouble with EVGA drivers. Obviously you're having issues with software that I don't use. I switched from ATI cards a long time ago because of their lousy drivers, and it's very rare that I have any problems with Nvidia.

 

[Rich Z]

Have you played Just Cause 2 yet? It's a third person shooter, and at first I didn't think I would like it, but I found it quite fun to play and quite absorbing. Driving some of the faster cars on those mountainous roads can be quite fun, and the crashes and launches off of cliffs quite intriguing.

I'm waiting for some of the newest games to come down in price. My rule of thumb is to never pay more than $20 for a game. I've learned that I really don't have to have anything "hot off the presses", as the game will still be new to me even if I play it a couple of years after it is released. Plus they normally get a lot of the bugs worked out of the code by then.

Well, tried to crank up Battlefield 3, but they have an update, so I have to wait for that to finish first.

Hope you got a new game for Christmas. :hehehe:

 

[Hameister]

I got JC2 a while back. It came packaged with the GTX 580. I tried several times, but never got more than a 1/2 hour into it. Just didn't like it.

Like you, I generally wait for a Steam sale for under $20.00. Occasionally I'll hit a holiday sale and grab a game for $7.99, that's really good. I picked up Left 4 Dead 2 that way, and a number of others.

However, when I know for sure that a game is going to be fantastic, I will buy it when it's first released. I don't mind spending the extra money, when I feel a game is really worth it. I paid full fare for BF3, Crysis2, MoH:W, COD:BO2. Only four out of many games.

Sniper:Ghost Warrior, was a game I picked up on sale super cheap. I think I paid around $9. The game was a year or so old, and got very mixed reviews. I turns out the reviewers were wrong, and most people thought it was very good. It ended up selling very well, at greatly reduced prices. Everyone I know is looking forward to the next iteration which is due to be released next month. I will also pay full price for Crysis 3, because I'm sure it will be awesome.

To answer your Xmas question, yes I did. My son pre-paid for S2:GW, which is on pre-sale at Amazon for $29.99. Nice price by today's standards.

Meanwhile, I'm biting my nails waiting for my 'vette to go into production.

 

[Hameister]

Man, talk about taking a thread off topic. :rofl1:

I guess all the posts since #18, should be on a gaming forum, ha!

Here's another from my collection. An Eastern Lubber Nymph that I was lucky enough to snap!

 

[Rich Z]

Yeah, forgot this is supposed to be about photographs.....

 

[Rich Z]

This is an odd looking mantis I found around here a while back....

 

[Hameister]

Great spider shots, what camera are you using?

Where did you snap the Diamond Back?

 

[Rich Z]

Great spider shots, what camera are you using?

Where did you snap the Diamond Back?

I'm using a Fuji FinePix S3 Pro body with a Nikkor 105mm Micro lens for the close up stuff.

The diamond backs have been found in our yard. Usually we just see small ones,

but on occasion a rather big one comes cruising through.

 

[Hameister]

Some where off of Wakulla Arran I presume. Wow, not for me.

I can deal with gators, but want no part of rattlers, especially in my back yard, so close to the house!!!

I don't know how you stand it? What do your wife/kids think about living with rattle snakes?

That Fuji FinePix S3, and lens combo works very well for you. Especially for only 6MP, resolution.

Here's another of mine, an African Crowned Crane...

 

[85vette]

This is an odd looking mantis I found around here a while back....

I've seen these, mostly on Oak trees. The camo pattern seems to work especially well with the oak.

 

[Rich Z]

Some where off of Wakulla Arran I presume. Wow, not for me.

I can deal with gators, but want no part of rattlers, especially in my back yard, so close to the house!!!

I don't know how you stand it? What do your wife/kids think about living with rattle snakes?

That Fuji FinePix S3, and lens combo works very well for you. Especially for only 6MP, resolution.

Here's another of mine, an African Crowned Crane...

Rattlesnakes are found all throughout Florida. This is their natural range. Actually my wife usually finds most of the rattlers. She is OK with them. Doesn't want to step on one, but she understands this is their home. We've had to relocate a few of them that sometimes would prefer being someplace that would place them or someone else coming here in danger, but beyond that we just take pictures and leave them be. BTW, some of these really were not "close" to the house. We live on 50 acres, so there is room for the wildlife. Except squirrels, of course. They took to messing with my bamboo, so they crossed the line. :nonod:

We've also seen several coral snakes here, as well as the occasional pygmy rattler and sometimes a cottonmouth along the stream bank on our property. I would much rather have them around than fire ants any day of the week.

Camera resolution reaches a point of diminishing returns when being used for online viewing. Most screens will only display just so large of an image, so you really aren't getting any more benefit out of more resolution past a practical point. For instance the screen I am using right now is 1920x1200 pixels. It can NEVER display any greater resolution than that. If you try to, well, all you get is an image that is larger than the physical screen, so you have to scroll horizontally or vertically to see it all. In effect, getting a 1920x1200 WINDOW of the image you are trying to view. I normally cut down all the images to no more than 800 pixels wide when prepping them for online view. So I take the 4256x2848 pixel images the camera creates and scale them down to 800x535 pixels. Honestly, would I have lost any resolution on the viewing screen if I had used a camera that could only take 800x535 pixel images natively?

The ONLY real benefit I have found for larger resolution cameras is that it gives you the benefit of being able to crop your images in such a way that you can somewhat emulate the abilities of a macro or micro lens without loss of detail. In effect, in my example above, I could crop out a 800x535 window from that original 4256x2848 image with no loss of detail when viewed on the screen.

So take the resolution specs of digital cameras with a grain of salt, understanding what it really means to you in practical terms.

 

[Hameister]

Rattlesnakes are found all throughout Florida. This is their natural range. Actually my wife usually finds most of the rattlers. She is OK with them. Doesn't want to step on one, but she understands this is their home. We've had to relocate a few of them that sometimes would prefer being someplace that would place them or someone else coming here in danger, but beyond that we just take pictures and leave them be. BTW, some of these really were not "close" to the house. We live on 50 acres, so there is room for the wildlife. Except squirrels, of course. They took to messing with my bamboo, so they crossed the line. :nonod:

We've also seen several coral snakes here, as well as the occasional pygmy rattler and sometimes a cottonmouth along the stream bank on our property. I would much rather have them around than fire ants any day of the week.

Camera resolution reaches a point of diminishing returns when being used for online viewing. Most screens will only display just so large of an image, so you really aren't getting any more benefit out of more resolution past a practical point. For instance the screen I am using right now is 1920x1200 pixels. It can NEVER display any greater resolution than that. If you try to, well, all you get is an image that is larger than the physical screen, so you have to scroll horizontally or vertically to see it all. In effect, getting a 1920x1200 WINDOW of the image you are trying to view. I normally cut down all the images to no more than 800 pixels wide when prepping them for online view. So I take the 4256x2848 pixel images the camera creates and scale them down to 800x535 pixels. Honestly, would I have lost any resolution on the viewing screen if I had used a camera that could only take 800x535 pixel images natively?

The ONLY real benefit I have found for larger resolution cameras is that it gives you the benefit of being able to crop your images in such a way that you can somewhat emulate the abilities of a macro or micro lens without loss of detail. In effect, in my example above, I could crop out a 800x535 window from that original 4256x2848 image with no loss of detail when viewed on the screen.

So take the resolution specs of digital cameras with a grain of salt, understanding what it really means to you in practical terms.

Yes, and no...

Yes, because all that you say is true, and I usually recommend to folks that approx. 6.2MP with a decent lens, will provide a nicely detailed 8"x10" print. If they don't need to print anything larger, then 6.2 MP is sufficient.

No, because for someone like me who takes a lot of photos of small objects, like insects, flowers, a bird in flight over head, etc., that may be 20', 30', or 100' feet away, I need all the pixels I can muster. My camera is 16.2MP, and sometimes even that isn't enough. I do a lot of cropping, sometimes retaining only 25% of the original photo. That's where high resolution really pays off.

My first digital camera was 1.3mp, I couldn't crop out anything. My next was 10.1mp, and there was a huge improvement. Now with 16.2mp, I can crop out almost anything, and still have very nice resolution. I expect my next camera will be around 23mp, and my guess is that I won't need anymore after that.

Oh, P.S. -- I'm glad I live in a populated area. Been here for 17 years, and have not seen a single snake so far...PERFECT!!!

 

[Rich Z]

I expect my next camera will be around 23mp, and my guess is that I won't need anymore after that.

:lmao: Famous last words...........

 

[navy2kcoupe]

"Sniper 2 - Ghost Mantis" ????
Looks like a camo version of the big green bug!
Andy :wavey:

This is an odd looking mantis I found around here a while back....

 

[Hameister]

Another photo from my collection...

I think this is a really nice snap, because I was actually about 30' from this Macaw, in deep shade. I needed a lot of lens, and a slow flash.

 

[Rich Z]

I guess this apple tree thinks it is spring time already....