New member & a question

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Tonia Graves
Posts: 212
Joined: December 8th, 2011, 2:40 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

New member & a question

Post by Tonia Graves »

Hello everyone, just thought I'd take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Tonia & I reside in Tucson, AZ. I'm an x-ray tech by day & in my spare time I like to wonder around the desert w/ my camera. I am not a 'herper' per se, but I do love all things considered creepy-crawly. My question is as I understand you can't upload photos directly from your PC, that you have to use a photo-sharing web site, right? Does anyone have any recomendations? One of my concerns is how secure your images are once they are on that site. Thank you in advance for reading this & maybe providing me w/ some answers!
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Jeroen Speybroeck
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Re: New member & a question

Post by Jeroen Speybroeck »

I use Picasa (Google) web albums, because it's free :D
I have to admit I don't care that much about the security of my pics, but I'm sure others will have more to say about that.
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Gyri
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Joined: June 8th, 2010, 4:18 pm
Location: Northern New England

Re: New member & a question

Post by Gyri »

Hi Tonia, I sure could have used your help earlier this week. I spent 2 days trying to find a Vet in my area willing to x-ray a rattlesnake with a HUGE prey bolus in its stomach, possibly an armadillo judging by the feel of it. I didn't get any takers close enough for me to drive the distance unfortunately :(

Most people here use flickr. Flickr allows you to keep your rights to any photo you post and if you are concerned about people redistributing full size copies you could always resize them in advance. I usually just copy the image url from things I post on facebook because I'm lazy and facebook resizes the images so they are appropriate to post on the forum
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Tonia Graves
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Joined: December 8th, 2011, 2:40 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

Re: New member & a question

Post by Tonia Graves »

Thanks for the info, I will have to check those sites out! As for the rattlesnake x-ray in my avatar, that was a fresh road-kill Tiger Rattlesnake that I snuck into my clinic. I personally would have no problem doing that as long as the boss isn't around. The problem is I have no way to print the images. (For the avatar, I had to photograph the screen & then delete the image).
RobK

Re: New member & a question

Post by RobK »

Photobucket is another one. I believe you can make those sites private and not share with the public but still use it for uploading to sites like FHF. I've heard that some of the photo sharing sites have small print that says something to the effect that they can use your photos though. Someone else might be able to chime in about that part.

Cool avatar pic! :thumb:
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Dell Despain
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Location: Montana

Re: New member & a question

Post by Dell Despain »

Good to have you on the forum. Yeah photobucket is what I use as my photo hosting site, and they do have a private setting to lock snoopers out. I use the private setting, I believe photobucket has something in there small print about them being able to use any of your photos, or something like that.
Gyri wrote:HUGE prey bolus in its stomach, possibly an armadillo judging by the feel of it.
Whoa, that must have been a huge Rattlesnake. What species, adamanteus? I'd like to have seen that.
Oh wait, you work w/ Timbers don't you?

-Dell
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reptilist
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Joined: June 8th, 2010, 9:30 am
Location: Clifton, Arizona

Re: New member & a question

Post by reptilist »

Welcome to the field herpers forum!
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Gyri
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Location: Northern New England

Re: New member & a question

Post by Gyri »

Dell Despain wrote:
Gyri wrote:HUGE prey bolus in its stomach, possibly an armadillo judging by the feel of it.
Whoa, that must have been a huge Rattlesnake. What species, adamanteus? I'd like to have seen that.
Oh wait, you work w/ Timbers don't you?

-Dell
I diversify in the winter. Yes, it was adamenteus.
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Dell Despain
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Location: Montana

Re: New member & a question

Post by Dell Despain »

Gyri wrote:I diversify in the winter. Yes, it was adamenteus.
Lucky.

Are you at liberty to share any photos of the event?

-Dell
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Gyri
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Location: Northern New England

Re: New member & a question

Post by Gyri »

I would be except my Nikon is damaged and the lighting was nowhere good enough for the trusty camera phone
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Tonia Graves
Posts: 212
Joined: December 8th, 2011, 2:40 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

Re: New member & a question

Post by Tonia Graves »

Thanks again everyone for the warm welcome & the suggestions!
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Natalie McNear
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Location: Northern coast of California

Re: New member & a question

Post by Natalie McNear »

Welcome to the site, Tonia! I recommend Flickr as well... Compared to Photobucket (where I used to keep all my photos), Flickr has much higher-quality compression, so when you post resized versions of your photos on the forum you don't have all those weird compression artifacts. Flickr keeps the images looking vibrant and crisp even when they're compressed, though I've heard from many people its user interface isn't as intuitive as Photobucket's... I didn't have much trouble when I switched over, but it did take a few days to get used to.
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Dell Despain
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Re: New member & a question

Post by Dell Despain »

Natalie McNear wrote:those weird compression artifacts.
Hmmmm? Natalie, what is a compression artifact, I guess I don't know what one looks like.

I understand that Flicker is used by more professional type photographers then photobucket, and I have to say I didn't notice a difference in photo quality good or bad from both sites. I did find Flicker a little more difficult to use, or clunky, if you will. I've always read from forum members here and others that Flickers photo quality is always better then the P. Buckets but I could never tell a difference, so I use P. Bucket.

-Dell
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Natalie McNear
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Re: New member & a question

Post by Natalie McNear »

Compression artifacts on photos are slight visual disturbances that occur when an image is made smaller (compressed). They generally manifest as splotchy softness around edges and lines in compressed photos, and can really make an otherwise high quality photo look bad. All the photo-hosting sites use various compression methods, and some are better than others... I've tried lots of websites, including ones that don't require an account and ones that do, and have found that Flickr uses the best compression by far. Barely any noticeable compression artifacts. For an example, I uploaded an image to my Photobucket account (which I haven't used in a couple years) to demonstrate:

Photobucket:
Image

Flickr:
Image

There is a huge difference between the two images, look at the texture of the wood - the Flickr version is much crisper and more vibrant (which is how the original file actually looks on my computer) because it doesn't have horrible compression artifacts. The Photobucket version looks like I misfocused or my lens was dirty. For a lot of people this won't make a difference if they're just uploading mediocre snapshots from a party or something (especially if Photobucket is more user-friendly), but to a serious photographer who wants to show his or her images properly, there's a huge difference.
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Tonia Graves
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Joined: December 8th, 2011, 2:40 pm
Location: Tucson, AZ

Re: New member & a question

Post by Tonia Graves »

So I ended up going w/ Flickr. Natalie's tree comparison helped pursuade me! Thanks everyone!
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Biker Dave
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Joined: June 10th, 2010, 7:56 pm
Location: Wittmann,AZ

Re: New member & a question

Post by Biker Dave »

Tonia

Welcome aboard! Have you been over to the NAFHA Arizona Chapter forum yet? Here is the link ...

viewforum.php?f=4

We'd like to hear from you!

Dave Weber
President
AZ Chapter
NAFHA
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