[ravnostic]

I’ve always been obsessed with the constellation Orion and felt a weird sort of connection to it. Since the Orionid meteor shower (or any other whatever-id) means “From Orion,” I ran with it. It’s been my most consistently used name out of dozens since middle school in the early 90’s.

Orion has actually been my favorite constellation since I was a kid. Our Mom was ill, and for awhile it was just my Dad and sister and me. He got a telescope one year (think it was a 4″ scope or something), and he started pointing out constellations and planets to us. Orion was always one of the easiest for me to pick out, so it became my favorite. Years later when Zeke and I were leaving California in the dead of winter, Orion would rise in front of us as we drove eastward, and it was like seeing an old friend guiding the way. Years after that when my father passed, I got the 10″ scope he replaced the 4″ scope with. I managed to find the nebula while Orion was setting one night at the end of May of that year, low in the sky and partially obscured by light pollution. But I found that wispy cloud, and it was like being a kid all over again discovering something new with Dad.

/sorry for the mushiness.

+11ty to mushiness, I’ll add some squishiness besides:

When I was 11 (summer, 1980), my uncle gave my family his 60mm telescope, branded by Sears, circa 1960-something (Sears still sold quality stuff at the time).

That scope was my introduction to astronomy, and while the moon and the planets were easy, Orion’s Nebula was pretty much the only deep-sky object I could pick out. (Just try to find the Ring Nebula without GPS controls–it ain’t easy–and I never could).

I have a picture of the nebula (I’ll find it and scan it, if anyone would like) taken with a camera I had from then ’til I got my DSLR, just held up to the lens; it’s poor, it’s blurry, it’s weak–but it’s my first deep-sky photo, and despite it’s flaws, it’s loved for the memories just the same.

Thus began my passion for astronomy, which eventually (as in almost 30 years) lead to my purchase of my Celestron CPC 1100 GPS telescope, my Canon xTi (at the time it was high-ish quality), the adapter mount marrying the two, and my catching a photo that got the 5th place win from the contest “Squares” in some online contest called ‘Farktography’.

http://www.fark.com/comments/5276905?tt=voteresults&startid=60195699

While not my first entry in the contest, that ‘win’ caused me to think that maybe I could learn to take a good photo not by chance, but by design.

This forum community has/is continually taught/teaching me how to do more bettar each week.

Sometime in the 1960’s, a butterfly beat it’s wings over a lens crafting manufacturer in, perhaps, Japan, who was producing 60mm lenses for a company called ‘Sears & Roebuck’… 😉

//edit: Oh, and you can actually see 8 moons; I’d have to dig through the archives for the annotated picture, but there’s one just to the left of the ring, very dim.

[ravnostic]

It’s so much a part of my on-line identity, that I’d probably respond if someone called me Yugoboy off-line in the real world.

I thought it was as “you go, boy!” 😆

Because I’ve met so many people in person who knew me only as ‘ravnostic’, I am often called ‘rav’ (rhyming with ‘have’) and respond to it as second nature. I’m contemplating petitioning G+ for the use of the name.

//one hot (straight) guy whom I swooned over online incessantly (hey–he encouraged me) calls me ‘Ravvy baby’. Such a tease…but a really good sport, and even nicer in person.

[ravnostic]

I know my aunt buys matte & backing boards for pretty cheap when in bulk–the trick is they only come cheap if they’re all the same color–but 10 of black and 10 of white would be a good starter set.

If I were printing the images, rather than sending a file, I’d certainly want to charge more–the costs would be greater, of course. Or, if I rented a booth at one of the fair-type venues–their is cost to that, too. As it were–both these people are folks I’ve known for a few years at least (they followed my blog back in the day), and I didn’t want to sound like I wanted to rake them over the coals or that I thought my pics were worth a gazillion dollars.

But it’s good to know what the pros are doing. I think I need a little more street-cred (maybe win a contest, get published in Az Highways, something I could put on a ‘resume’, so to speak.

I got ‘shared’ on G+ last night and had 7 new followers this morning–mayhaps if that leads to more viewers, and I’m approached by a complete stranger, I’ll certainly charge a bit more, I believe. At the moment, though–I don’t want to go through the hassle of actually printing them and sending them. I’d have to investigate the associated costs first.

I’d really like to explore the idea of getting some images printed. The Rainbow Fest is in October (it’s kind of like a gay pride, only with local artisans instead of companies looking to hire, and local entertainers instead of has-been 80’s pop star performers–much more down to earth.) Perhaps I’ll use some of my ESPP shares I’ll get in Sept. to print some things up and give it a go.

I’d just hate to get stuck with a bunch of images nobody wants to buy. Kind of a risky venture for someone who’s only recently getting comfortable with the very idea that just maybe some people really like his pictures and would hang them on a wall (other than family, of course–but they’re biased).

[ravnostic]

Well it finally happened with my entries for 15 minutes–I had two people approach me asking for high-quality copies for printing purposes (one for the waterfall shot, another for the sunrise–might not have been a high vote-getter, but someone liked it). 😀

I thought about it, and came up with a pricing strategy that might not be phenomenally rewarding financially, but it worked, and a made $40 from the two, and I didn’t have to leave my desktop to do it (okay, I went to the post office for one, but that’s across the street).

I offered two pricing strategies, 10 cents/sq inch @ 600 DPI, or 5 cents @ 300. If you think about it, the 10 cents is 4x better a deal, but they opted for the 5 cent option.

As they wanted 18×24’s, 18×24*.05=$21.60 each.

A few more of those and I’ll have paid me back for the PhotoZoom software that lets me bump up the files to that kind of resolution/size (the TIFF @ 600dpi at 18×24 would be about 150Mb–a bit much to send by email.)

Wal-mart has mailer 10 pks for under 10 bucks (already a few left over from an unrelated shipping need), and first class postage was $1.77; I just charged $3.95 for shipping. One I didn’t even need to ship–they had internet service strong enough to download it in a few seconds (boy, am I jealous–took me a few minutes to upload.)

Maybe one day I’ll be good enough to charge more, maybe I should be now, even. But it was a start, and ‘5 cents a square inch’ seemed to appeal to them from the marketing viewpoint.

Thoughts?

[ravnostic]

And Kes was mine before Star Trek: Voyager absconded with it.

LOL at that. I’d nearly forgotten that character; now you’ve reminded me.

But should I watch the reruns, I’ll still be reminded of you when I see her. 😉

[ravnostic]

The nutshell: RAV (me) met STC (he) back in 1994, while working at AT&T. They were intro’ing the first personalized calling cards, and RAV snatched RAVNSTC because it was easy to remember. The relationship, when it ended, ended badly (as in DOA). RAV changed the card to RAVNOSTC, and started using it when he went online in 1996 (his Yahoo is still that.) After a bit of counseling (‘ended badly’ meant very badly, but this is just the nutshell version), he ‘refound’ himself, and resolving to never lose his identity in a relationship again, added an I–right in the middle of STC–as a reminder. RAVNOSTIC.

The long version made a good blog, once.

[ravnostic]

Yugo if you saw my early voting record, you’d cringe. (Well, I do, at least.)

Just 18 months ago, I was floundering around taking the same picture 20 different ways at 20 different settings just hoping to get just one that I thought was decent.

Post processing helped that a lot (see this forum query: http://farktography.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=2140.

Then I kinda got the hang of approximating the shutter speed and bracketing.

Then aperture set in–depth of field, learning to ‘see’ when it could be applied usefully.

Only a few months ago did I learn what that little slider tab in the window of my DSLR was for (lets you know when your aperture and shutter speeds are ‘proper’, or too high or low)–boy did THAT cut down on the shots I had to take to get a good one!!

I’m gradually gaining a grasp on when to ignore the same–that’s after I found out about histograms and what they’re for. Learning to use them is a work in progress for me. Each of these steps decreased the number of pictures I’ve taken of a given subject, yet makes it harder to pick the ‘best’ of the two or three I do take. I’ve wholesale-deleted a lot of my earlier stuff (1000’s of shots), if I’ve gone back to previous haunts and retaken far better.

…yet it wasn’t that long ago when I averaged some 6 votes per picture per contest.

And I’m still no match to that darned U-Man fellow. He wins everything. 😉 (I keed, Uey)

But keeding aside; ask us ‘how’ when you see something you like and don’t know how it was done, post questions in the ‘tips and tricks’ forum. Pay attention to how the top-placing shots are composed–a good starting point is the ‘rule of thirds’ (Google it).

I was in Italy some 12 years ago–I have nothing worth showing for it, except a picture of my family under a sign to a town in Sicily that bears our name (and that only for the sentimental aspect–it’s nothing spectacular). I’d love to go back–I envy your upcoming venture!! If nothing else–take lots of pictures in the first two and last two hours of daylight–the ‘golden’ hours can really add impact to most any photos. And watch out for the pickpockets–they’re everywhere. 🙁

[ravnostic]

**I think I just wet myself a little.** 😳

I love stuff like this. I could look at numbers and charts and pies all day. 😛

Do you suppose the Open Office program would work with your toyz? If so, send ’em on! rav (the at thingy) ravnostic (the dot thingy) com.

Meanwhile, I doubt there’s a significant portion of the community that would warrant adding all these toyz to the site, esp. given the work that must be involved (and keeping in mind if changes happen to fark–you might have to change things with b.stats–and the more you do with it, the more re-working you’d need to do.)

However (and there’s always a however), perhaps if you could maybe be open to the occasional requests regarding such stuff, or maybe some sort of quarterly post in the forum for us number geeks? 😀

😉

[ravnostic]

I should have mentioned what it is – it’s a caprese burger. You’ve never heard of one because I made it up 😛

Sure I’ve heard of it before–read about it on G+

😉

(looks delish!)

[ravnostic]

CISS, a comment in the “15 Minutes” thread by Zero Exponent got me thinking about this.

The “NVC” gives you a stat indicating one’s votes if the total number of votes were 1,000 in number.

What about a “NRP” (Normalized Ranking Placement) if the total number of entries were 100?

Granted, most contests have at least 100 entries, some over 200, but what if there were exactly 100 entries? I have often looked at my placement and thought ‘well, I didn’t get in the top 10 this week, but one picture did make it into the top ten-percentile.’ In a contest of 200 pictures, 20th place (10th NRP), even 40th place (20th NRP), isn’t anything to scoff at, IMO.

Just a thought. As I’ve said; I’m a numbers guy.

[ravnostic]

@Zero Exponent, I too haz dizappoint at the low overall turnout from the voters. But some themes appeal to the masses more/less than others. Take your vote kudos and run! 😀

[ravnostic]

What about specialty filters and their effects?

Using a shaped aperture should be OK, but a soft focus filter or something along those lines would’t really count.

The soft-focus effect is inherent in the lens (I’ve gallery shots that demonstrate that /less so in ‘macro’ configuration, it seems/–usually the plates reduce the softness, but introduce other interesting elements). I’ll have to take the DP out with the new body and see if I can play with the various shapes and come up with something that I’d like for the contest.

That particular shot, IIRC, came from an asterisk shaped plate. But there’s 19 other shapes, and I’ve been looking for a good excuse to go toying with them. This must be it. 8)

[ravnostic]

Congrats to (Be)CauseISaidSo this week!

Indeed!

[ravnostic]

In the theme forum thread, we talked about this, and the general concensus was along the lines of ‘things that obviously haven’t been alive anytime recently’. So, for example, a macro-style closeup of aged furniture wood or bone fossil would pass muster, but a macro dead leaf or leather (which would likely decompose in a shorter time) wouldn’t. Based on that, I don’t know that the larval shell would really fit, as it probably wouldn’t last a long time in the world before it was lost.

That being said, I’d sure like to see that picture used in a future contest sometime. 🙂

[ravnostic]

What about specialty filters and their effects? Of the last pictures I took with my original xTi, most were with the DP lens, using the cookie-press plates as faux waterhouse stops. I have a number of flower shots, with reeds/grassy things in the background, and taken at shallow DOFs for the effects–which give an almost impressionist-look (or some painting style, anyway) to the flowers themselves, and almost a canvas effect to the background reeds/grasses etc. I’m at work so I can’t post an example, but unless it’s WAY out of the ballpark for what bokeh is supposed to be, I’ll do so when I get home in the morning.

//edit: Good morning! Here’s one of the shots of which I wrote:

Your call, mods–I can always use them in another theme that calls for something more along these lines.

//not the shot I’d use, but a good demonstration of the effect. I do so love the DP lens–I’ve had some really neat photo experiences with it. 😀

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