@causeisaidso
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October 12, 2011 at 7:59 pm in reply to: Updates from the Anals of Shitwork (warning: heavy graphics) #41598
CauseISaidSo
ParticipantDamn, dude, flickr’s really paying off for you publicity-wise! Congrats again!
October 12, 2011 at 7:54 pm in reply to: Updates from the Anals of Shitwork (warning: heavy graphics) #41597ParticipantAll lovely shots, orionid. The archive is a cool building. Love the powerlines, I’d definitely use that or similar tonight.
Regarding the doe, I don’t hunt myself, but all of my hunting buddies say the does are better meat, less gamier than the bucks. I’m sure you already knew that, though.
ParticipantI don’t think you should shoot a Police Officer.
Well, to be fair, if you’re going to shoot a bank, that’ll be a likely follow-up.
And I move that we crown Kes the forum’s poet laureate.
ParticipantNiiice, olavf. #4’s probably my favorite; the wings are almost invisible except for the veins.
ParticipantI agree that they’re crap, ennui. I think some people just like things specifically because the majority doesn’t – art hipsters, if you will.
Take the “artist” who did all the splatter paintings (Jackson Pollock, is it? I’m not really an art guy.). If he can con others into believing it’s valuable art and make money off it, then more power to him. I think art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and like they say about pornography, while I can’t define art, I know it when I see it and IMO that ain’t it.
But if the pretentious hipster crowd thinks it is and wants to throw their money at him, eh, what do I care, it’s not like they were gonna throw it at me instead.
ParticipantI don’t know about that entirely, ennui. I think it’ll just allow the photogs who are artists to concentrate more on the art and less on the technical side. A photo can be perfectly lit and focused and still be just a snapshot if it doesn’t convey any emotion or tell a story (I should know, I take a lot of snapshots :)).
ParticipantFirst, welcome to the forums! The gang here is pretty friendly and helpful, so I think you’ve come to the right place.
In the first shot of the white bird, you want the bird to be properly exposed so you’ll want to meter on it, and since it’s a relatively small target, setting your metering mode to spot instead of average or center-weighted average will help. I’m a Canon guy, but I’d imagine the icons are similar: Spot looks like a single dot in the center * while average looks like a circle & dot (*). You can also always go to full manual and set both shutter speed and aperature based on the meter, review the histogram to see which areas are blown out (my Canon flashes them in red), and then adjust accordingly.
In Mallards-Medium, the specs are f/5, 1/1000s @ 180mm and it looks like the focus is just slightly off. I’d guess this is due to the relatively shallow DOF and the ducks shifting slightly along the focal plane from when you first focused (I’m assuming you’re using autofocus). It wouldn’t take too much of a horizontal shift to get slightly out of focus at f/5 and 180mm. You can freeze action pretty well at 1/500, which would allow you to step down the aperature a full stop. I generally shoot in Av mode so that I have explicit control over that and choose how much focus wiggle room I want. I then meter to see what the camera’s going to choose for the shutter speed and then adjust the ISO so that the shutter speed is appropriate for the scene.
Woodland-Heron-Medium looks to me like the shrubbery just behind the heron is in focus, so it may just be a matter of the focal point being slightly shifted while setting autofocus. The heron would be a pretty small target to focus on at 300mm and if it wasn’t spot on, the shrubbbery would be the target. f/5.6 is still relatively shallow, so a smaller aperature (larger f/stop) here would help, too. And many lenses have issues at their extreme limits, so that could factor into it as well.
Taking-Flight-Medium illustrates the DOF of f/5.6 at 300mm. It looks to me like the duck’s tail is in focus and the rest of the body starts to blur slightly as you move away from the camera, so all you need is more DOF.
Take all of that with the caveat that I’m nowhere near the most technically experienced around here.
Participantwell, I’ve felt like I’ve been in a slump lately, and still do, but the total votes graph speaks otherwise.
Yeah, you’re still in the top 3 in a lot of categories and some of any “decline” is likely due to rav really stepping up his game. Considering that you’ve had a wedding, a move, and a job change within the periods in question, I’d say you’re doing great!
ParticipantLove it! I like that some of our departed Farktographers still compete in the overall category giving us a true milestone to work against. The only thing that concerns me is the 1.5 entries average. I don’t actually think this applies to any user right now but I could forsee someone becoming a regular but only entering one photo each week. Don’t know that I would change your statistics but something to keep in mind/watch for.
Thanks! I know it’s a bit of an eyesore to look at a big wall of text, but hopefully it’ll keep all the stats afficionados satisfied until I can get it looking pretty on the site.
Regarding the 1.5 entry average, your point is exactly what I was trying to discourage. Think about how much thinner the contests would be if everyone only entered one entry. And consider how much better your stats would be if you only picked the one perfect shot for each contest.
The goal of the entry minimum is to encourage full(er) participation and make it a little fairer stats-wise for those who do. Also, note that someone who only posts one per contest is still eligible for Overall stats once they’ve hit the 50-entry mark; it’s just the quarterlies & yearlies they’re disqualified for.
So, now that I’ve listed my reasons behind it, let me open it up for discussion – how does everyone feel about it? It’s all of y’all’s site, too, so if there’s a general consensus against it, I’ll remove the limit.
ParticipantCongrats aspidites on the resounding firsts in both individual and combined.
Rather than clutter up each contest thread with stats, I’ve started a new topic under the BiblioStats section called Weekly Reports. Until I can get these reports on the website, this post will get updated each week and contains not only the SQ top tens that I usually post (found under the Quarterly sections of Most Total Votes and Most Total NVC), but also every report previously available on FSM except for Greatest Entries Evar/Recently and Greatest Contests Evar/Recently.
ParticipantNote: This list is no longer updated. Current statistics may now be found on the BiblioStats Contestants/Reports menu.
Statistics for April 22, 2012
Best Average Place
========= QUARTER ========= =========== YEAR ========== ========= OVERALL =========
Rank Username Avg Username Avg Username Avg
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1 Ranger Joe 17.90 U-Man 20.24 U-Man 18.72
2 U-Man 18.50 ravnostic 31.40 chakalakasp 27.53
3 ravnostic 27.90 Ranger Joe 31.97 neonstz 30.66
4 BecauseISaidSo 31.08 BecauseISaidSo 35.29 aspidites 31.67
5 sleeping 32.13 orionid 36.10 soosh 34.37
6 orionid 32.28 kestrana 39.14 bobroberts 34.90
7 Farktographer 32.96 Ennuipoet 43.03 Flavivirus 35.49
8 Linguine 33.56 sleeping 47.22 Elsinore 36.95
9 Zero Exponent 34.00 fluffybunny 48.30 Ranger Joe 37.24
10 fluffybunny 34.56 Linguine 50.07 veruca 37.89
Best Average NP========= QUARTER ========= =========== YEAR ========== ========= OVERALL =========
Rank Username Avg Username Avg Username Avg
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1 U-Man 18.62 U-Man 16.33 U-Man 13.71
2 Ranger Joe 21.29 ravnostic 26.00 chakalakasp 14.14
3 ravnostic 27.87 BecauseISaidSo 26.90 aspidites 18.85
4 BecauseISaidSo 28.34 Ranger Joe 27.31 neonstz 19.71
5 orionid 32.19 orionid 29.26 bobroberts 21.59
6 sleeping 33.68 kestrana 32.55 Flavivirus 23.21
7 Farktographer 35.30 sleeping 38.09 soosh 24.50
8 Linguine 37.05 Ennuipoet 38.50 schnee 24.50
9 kestrana 37.82 olavf 38.70 CaptainJim 24.66
10 Zero Exponent 38.79 SilverStag 39.12 Lord Ezekiel 26.09
Most Wins========= QUARTER ======== ========== YEAR ========== ========= OVERALL ========
Rank Username Wins Username Wins Username Wins
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1 U-Man 5 U-Man 14 U-Man 57
2 Ranger Joe 2 ravnostic 6 soosh 18
3 BecauseISaidSo 1 aspidites 5 orionid 16
4 Elsinore 1 Ranger Joe 5 Ranger Joe 16
5 fluffybunny 1 BecauseISaidSo 4 Elsinore 14
6 kestrana 1 orionid 4 SilverStag 10
7 orionid 1 kestrana 3 Lord Ezekiel 9
8 TheOtherOne79 1 fluffybunny 2 millera9 9
9 oddmind 2 kestrana 8
10 bucky_bacon 1 ravnostic 8
11 Elsinore 1 schnee 8
12 gambitsgirl 1
13 I'm No Big Deal 1
14 kashari 1
15 plamadude30k 1
16 Pope Larry II 1
17 SilverStag 1
18 TheOtherOne79 1
Most Top Tens========= QUARTER ======== ========== YEAR ========== ========= OVERALL ========
Rank Username TTs Username TTs Username TTs
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1 U-Man 13 U-Man 68 U-Man 343
2 Ranger Joe 10 ravnostic 47 Elsinore 170
3 ravnostic 10 Ranger Joe 35 soosh 135
4 orionid 9 orionid 31 orionid 129
5 fluffybunny 7 aspidites 24 sleeping 112
6 Yugoboy 7 kestrana 24 Ranger Joe 102
7 BecauseISaidSo 6 BecauseISaidSo 23 SilverStag 96
8 lokisbong 6 kashari 18 swampa2 94
9 Farktographer 5 Ennuipoet 15 ravnostic 69
10 sleeping 5 sleeping 15 markie_farkie 65
Best Average Top Tens per Contest========== QUARTER ========= =========== YEAR =========== ========== OVERALL =========
Rank Username Avg Username Avg Username Avg
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1 U-Man 1.300 U-Man 1.388 U-Man 1.383
2 Ranger Joe 1.250 ravnostic 0.959 chakalakasp 1.229
3 ravnostic 1.000 Ranger Joe 0.814 aspidites 1.143
4 orionid 0.900 orionid 0.646 neonstz 0.879
5 fluffybunny 0.778 BecauseISaidSo 0.590 soosh 0.776
6 BecauseISaidSo 0.750 fluffybunny 0.500 orionid 0.709
7 Yugoboy 0.636 kestrana 0.480 ravnostic 0.639
8 lokisbong 0.600 oddmind 0.324 Ranger Joe 0.630
9 Farktographer 0.556 sleeping 0.319 CaptainJim 0.608
10 Zero Exponent 0.500 SilverStag 0.316 Lord Ezekiel 0.571
Best Average Votes per Entry========== QUARTER ========= =========== YEAR =========== ========== OVERALL =========
Rank Username Avg Username Avg Username Avg
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1 U-Man 21.67 U-Man 25.01 U-Man 26.09
2 Ranger Joe 19.90 ravnostic 20.30 chakalakasp 25.38
3 ravnostic 16.63 Ranger Joe 19.55 aspidites 24.07
4 BecauseISaidSo 15.21 orionid 18.41 neonstz 22.44
5 orionid 14.34 BecauseISaidSo 18.23 Flavivirus 21.23
6 sleeping 13.77 kestrana 16.97 soosh 19.70
7 fluffybunny 13.59 olavf 15.62 bobroberts 18.58
8 Farktographer 13.56 SilverStag 15.40 Ranger Joe 18.41
9 Linguine 13.44 Ennuipoet 15.08 schnee 18.39
10 Zero Exponent 13.38 oddmind 14.95 orionid 18.27
Best Average NVC per Entry========== QUARTER ========= =========== YEAR =========== ========== OVERALL =========
Rank Username Avg Username Avg Username Avg
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1 U-Man 19.81 U-Man 16.59 chakalakasp 17.88
2 Ranger Joe 19.62 fluffybunny 13.64 U-Man 17.37
3 fluffybunny 18.01 ravnostic 13.51 neonstz 14.37
4 ravnostic 16.62 Ranger Joe 12.72 Lord Ezekiel 14.16
5 orionid 16.24 orionid 12.27 aspidites 13.68
6 BecauseISaidSo 14.63 BecauseISaidSo 11.64 fluffybunny 13.64
7 Linguine 14.05 kestrana 11.19 bobroberts 13.56
8 Farktographer 13.82 Linguine 10.00 Flavivirus 13.50
9 sleeping 13.50 sleeping 9.80 CaptainJim 13.15
10 Elsinore 13.44 Elsinore 9.66 soosh 12.70
Most Total Votes========== QUARTER ========= =========== YEAR =========== ========== OVERALL =========
Rank Username Votes Username Votes Username Votes
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1 U-Man 650 U-Man 3,701 U-Man 18,208
2 ravnostic 499 ravnostic 3,004 Elsinore 14,573
3 Linguine 430 orionid 2,633 sleeping 11,429
4 Ennuipoet 424 kestrana 2,512 soosh 9,966
5 orionid 416 Ranger Joe 2,327 orionid 9,812
6 sleeping 413 Ennuipoet 2,322 SilverStag 9,435
7 kestrana 406 BecauseISaidSo 2,151 Mopsy 8,945
8 Elsinore 398 Mopsy 2,051 swampa2 8,361
9 Ranger Joe 398 Elsinore 1,980 Ranger Joe 7,955
10 Yugoboy 382 sleeping 1,912 I'm No Big Deal 7,457
Most Total NVC=========== QUARTER =========== ============= YEAR ============ =========== OVERALL ===========
Rank Username Total NVC Username Total NVC Username Total NVC
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1 U-Man 594.29 U-Man 2,454.91 U-Man 12,122.71
2 ravnostic 498.72 ravnostic 1,998.86 Elsinore 10,604.73
3 fluffybunny 486.22 orionid 1,754.87 sleeping 7,764.76
4 orionid 470.87 kestrana 1,655.39 orionid 6,525.85
5 Linguine 449.65 Ranger Joe 1,514.17 soosh 6,427.79
6 Elsinore 443.38 Ennuipoet 1,469.94 Mopsy 6,082.48
7 kestrana 436.03 Mopsy 1,448.65 SilverStag 5,804.01
8 Mopsy 418.41 Elsinore 1,410.14 swampa2 5,799.19
9 sleeping 404.85 BecauseISaidSo 1,374.02 Ranger Joe 5,048.68
10 Yugoboy 399.88 I'm No Big Deal 1,268.22 I'm No Big Deal 4,898.73
ParticipantIt’s been quite a while since I’ve worked with SNA, but from what I recall, without explicitly encrypting the messages (which is possible using either protocol), I think most of SNA’s security came from obscurity. I remember reading raw data dumps of SNA conversations and if you knew what you were looking for, it was all there to be seen. Of course, this was back in the days before the internet had pipes big enough to support all the store-to-corp data transfer, so everyone had dedicated lines which are pretty much secure in and of themselves.
SNA was/is likely more robust/fault-tolerant than TCP, though. And I can’t imagine doing 24/7/365 support work for that long of a period. Glad to hear you got out of it alive.
ParticipantI’ve always been a PC guy for the most part, but over the years I’ve had to interface to the types of systems you reference. Fortunately, most of the retail world has moved/is moving away from the big iron and into server farms, so no more dealing with arcane communication protocols like SNA and worrying about tying into CICS transactions on the mainframe. Good luck with your fix tonight, hope it all goes smoothly.
ParticipantNo offense taken, rav, I know where you’re coming from. But yeah, I’ve got all kinds of grand ideas that I wanna implement, and you’re right that I’ve already got the data for most of it. Charts out the wazoo. Comparitive stats of every kind, both from a contest and contestant view. The ability to popup the original image from the thumbs.
The problem as you state it is the “as life permits” restriction. I’ve gotta get “feel like working on it” to align with “free time to do so” (the latter being much more of the issue than the former) and unfortunately that’s been a rare occurrence for most of this year. When regular work keeps me at the desk for 10 hours a day, I get flack from the family if I turn around after dinner and head back down to “play”. Heck, I’ve been phoning it in for the contests for most of the recent past; can’t remember when I last had the opportunity to actually shoot specifically for a contest. Probably Alphabet.
Anyway, don’t take that as whining or seeking pity, I enjoy working on the site, I just wish I had more time to do it. I can’t give an ETA on specfic features, but I am close to having a real index/search for usernames, which will be followed shortly by the same for contests (along with a tag cloud). After that will come contestant comparitive stats (like the SQ top tens) and then contest comparitive stats and then contestant and contest history stats/charts.
ParticipantI’ve been up all night working on a production issue in our code.
Been there, done that, know how much that sucks. Nothing like debugging under the gun. 🙁
The fellow software dev in me is curious as to what kind of stuff you work on, if you’re willing/able to say without divulging too much. As for me, while I’ve done lots of side work in various areas, my primary industry for the last 20+ years was/is retail, mostly POS.
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