Dart Den

Stu&Shaz Wrote:C'mon Chuck tell all the new camera is? Dinosaurs,you guys always do things bigger :lol: naturally at this stage we had invented a wheel ,but hadn't realised one could make transport from it.

lol! Well, y'all had to get ready to run out the Romans once they got there; worrying about transport could wait for the Jeremy Clarksons to arrive :-)

Stu&Shaz Wrote:Chuck tell me more on lenses and what you'll eventually want to get(or have already) to shoot the , erm smaller frogs with, cool plants though all the same

It's a Sony NEX-5R, just with the kit 18-55mm lens so far. I'd been all set to go micro four-thirds (probably an Olympus E-PL5), but changed up at the last minute and went with the Sony instead on a "Black Friday" deal. I decided that I wasn't interested in shooting much more auto than aperture priority, and with the focus peaking on the Sony, that opens up all sorts of cheap-but-great legacy manual lenses to make up for the sparse selection of native lenses. That plus the larger sensor swung me over to the Sony.

About the only native lenses that interest me so far are the 19mm & 30mm Sigma primes. I want a good macro lens, but I'm not even sure where to begin looking yet. I just dug my 30 year old X-700 Minolta out of the closet; I may get an MD adapter, and rob the fast 50mm off it and try it with some extension tubes to begin with.

First thing I need to do is remember how to use a real camera again -- this is the first camera more complex than a point-and-shoot I've owned since the X-700, and I'm even older and rustier than it is :-)

Intermedius

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awesome Chuck. One day, I'll get a colony of Intermedius going. Love the coppery-ness of them.

You Sir, have assembled a very nice frog room already. Congrats.

Philsuma Wrote:awesome Chuck. One day, I'll get a colony of Intermedius going. Love the coppery-ness of them.

You Sir, have assembled a very nice frog room already. Congrats.

Thanks Phil! Lots left to do, but it's coming together. None of which would have been possible without a lot of help from the great froggers locally, and the great froggers on here, of course.

Couple more random snaps...

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Very nice Chuck! Impressive collection and pictures!

Thanks Jim! It's coming along...

First time this has bloomed for me. Wish I'd have caught it earlier, but it blended in so well at my usual viewing angle I missed it until just about time for the lights to go out tonight.

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Another pic of the pilea, this time with an old 50mm lens, shot wide open. Think I could get to like shooting with old lenses.

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(ignore the slight reflection off the front glass :-))

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Nice Chuck! Are you experimenting with the old 50mm again?

That's actually the kit zoom, at 55mm, manual focus... It's not as fast as the 50, but the image stabilization helps make up for the slower shutter speed. I need more length (that's a small crop), but I'm kind of torn between a fast legacy lens, or a slower native lens that still gives me IS . If I was a bit faster (or the frogs were a bit slower) I could use a tripod to make up the difference, but at the moment I have to shoot handheld to get most anything at all.

Thanks for the earlier info Chuck,apologies for another slow reply.

interesting thoughts about lenses,my problems are really centred around making tiny frogs bigger without cropping,ie probable choices of macro lens,and thoughts here are being directed towards a 100mm,non IS 2.8f(for my canon).Beyond that i'm equally bewidered, and almost in the same position as yourself,not remembering much about how my old slr works.

which ever way one looks at it Chuck your taking some great pics,ha but we always want better don't we

some really stunning frogs mate
regards

Stu

Thanks Stu!

That's pretty much where I am too -- need more frog, less frame :mrgreen:

At the moment I'm kind of leaning in the same direction -- I'm thinking an old manual prime like the Tamron 90mm f2.5 macro for my next try.

I can see I'm about to be as camera-poor as I am frog-poor :-)

Stu&Shaz Wrote:Thanks for the earlier info Chuck,apologies for another slow reply.

interesting thoughts about lenses,my problems are really centred around making tiny frogs bigger without cropping,ie probable choices of macro lens,and thoughts here are being directed towards a 100mm,non IS 2.8f(for my canon).Beyond that i'm equally bewidered, and almost in the same position as yourself,not remembering much about how my old slr works.

which ever way one looks at it Chuck your taking some great pics,ha but we always want better don't we

some really stunning frogs mate
regards

Stu

Camera poor frog poor,ha ha tell me about it Chuck,words I couldn't have put better,myself. In a fit of angst i grabbed an ebay,possible bargain tonight: a shot in the dark,so wish me luck,if you start to see big little frogs :roll: you'll know i got lucky,if you don't,damn I'm feeding the tads growth hormones,not the tincs naturally. hock:
regards

Stu

Yeah, best to skip the growth hormones on the tincs, or next thing you know you'll have to be out buying wide angles too :-)

Good luck with the ebay lens -- let us know how it goes!

Chuck Lawson Wrote:Yeah, best to skip the growth hormones on the tincs, or next thing you know you'll have to be out buying wide angles too :-)

Good luck with the ebay lens -- let us know how it goes!

Tis a valid point,which made me smile Chuck, almost more worrying would be feeding them and what size cultures Shaz would need .
mainly i just wanted to say thanks for the wishes
best

Stu

Stu&Shaz Wrote:

Chuck Lawson Wrote:Tis a valid point,which made me smile Chuck, almost more worrying would be feeding them and what size cultures Shaz would need .

I think beyond a certain point it becomes a matter of setting them loose on the local livestock on moonless nights :mrgreen:

Chuck Lawson Wrote:

Stu&Shaz Wrote:

Chuck Lawson Wrote:Tis a valid point,which made me smile Chuck, almost more worrying would be feeding them and what size cultures Shaz would need .

I think beyond a certain point it becomes a matter of setting them loose on the local livestock on moonless nights :mrgreen:

ha your funny mate,thanks for rolling with it. 8)

Chuck a while back we were talking about moss,and the epiweb moss mix I'm using,progress is very slow here,you might remember i have a trial running with plain ecoearth(a cocofibre we get here in a solid brick form and the same with this dry moss mix that is available under the above trade name.Progress is slow because it is too cold and light levels are poor,up here in blighty,but i'm seeing some progress,Mate have a try at this,even with just plain co cofibre set in a propagator good light and constantly wet,the propagator providing the humidity,what I'm seeing points to you being able to achieve something in months,which might take me a year plus,I'd love to know how you get on,i'll make a concerted effort to get some pics,eventhough progress has all but stopped
be lucky mate

Stu

Stu&Shaz Wrote:Chuck a while back we were talking about moss,and the epiweb moss mix I'm using,progress is very slow here,you might remember i have a trial running with plain ecoearth(a cocofibre we get here in a solid brick form and the same with this dry moss mix that is available under the above trade name.Progress is slow because it is too cold and light levels are poor,up here in blighty,but i'm seeing some progress,Mate have a try at this,even with just plain co cofibre set in a propagator good light and constantly wet,the propagator providing the humidity,what I'm seeing points to you being able to achieve something in months,which might take me a year plus,I'd love to know how you get on,i'll make a concerted effort to get some pics,eventhough progress has all but stopped

Interesting! Thanks Stu! At the moment, pretty much all of my "good lighting" that isn't taken up by vivs is taken up by either plants getting staged to go to vivs, or some "vendor sheet moss" that I'm trying variously to keep greened up, or bring back to green (I've got the moss in shoebox size clear plastic boxes on damp sphagnum, and mist it every few days). As soon as I get back to building again, and clear some of the mess out, I'm anxious to give the coco trick a try.

Hmmm... Maybe I should go do some triage on my "moss recovery" boxes and toss out one or two of the more hopeless candidates and set them up with coco fiber instead. I've got a couple that the sphagnum is coming back to green in faster than the sheet moss is :-)