My humble 5.5g

[c est ma]

Thanks, guys! I love goats! They are such sweet, innocent, friendly, curious, playful, talkative creatures. The big wether (Chester) used to like to jump in our laps and curl up when he was a tiny kid. The black wether (Ozzie) is SO placid--he's totally Zen, unless he catches sight of a syringe, in which case he shrieks bloody murder. The doe, Sadie, is dainty and high strung. We got this crew when they were just a few weeks old and bottle-fed them for quite a while.

 

Unfortunately, most of my goat pics, and all the kid pics, were taken with my film slr. Here are a few I took with the digi:

 

 

 

 

 

 

--Diane

[SPS20]

I like the darker one with the big floppy ears. Kind of reminds me of a basset hound.

[klarion]

The doggies, I love the doggies.

Pictures too......

[Nick's Reef]

Great pic of your gobies!

[varanus37]

Oh yeah, you're right. Clicked on that goby once I was at the other site. Much larger and very, very detailed. Really nice.

 

Goats are awesome! I'm a huge goat fan.

 

Check out the tank thread. Put up bunches of new pics. Nothing like yours but I'm trying to keep up, LOL.

 

Bill

[Krayon]

I like the darker one with the big floppy ears. Kind of reminds me of a basset hound.

 

+1

[c est ma]

The doggies, I love the doggies.

Pictures too......

 

Just finished stuffing the stockings and wanted to add a quick note with better pics of the pups. They were both "pound puppies."

 

This is Phoebe, 8, a neurotic but sincere Border Collie cross:

 

 

 

And this is Louis, 5, a pit mix so sweet we call him "the bulldog of happiness."

 

 

 

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukuh, Joyous Kwaanza, Rocking Ramadan, Super Solstice, or whatever fits, to everyone!

 

--Diane

[Weetabix7]

I used to have a sweet but neurotic Border Collie mix pound rescue.

Got her on the day she was supposed to be put to sleep.

She was a cool dog, got me through some really hard times.

 

Love the pics as always Diane.

Merry Christmas, hope you have a great one!

Now I've gotta go raid stockings with the kiddies before my little boy explodes!

[c est ma]

I used to have a sweet but neurotic Border Collie mix pound rescue.

Got her on the day she was supposed to be put to sleep.

She was a cool dog, got me through some really hard times.

 

Dogs will definitely do that!

 

Love the pics as always Diane.

Merry Christmas, hope you have a great one!

Now I've gotta go raid stockings with the kiddies before my little boy explodes!

 

Thank you, Lisa. You too--and I sure miss having little kids around for Christmas...happily my big kids still enjoy stockings...but it's just not the same.

 

--Diane

[c est ma]

A woman I'm corresponding with about ophiuroids asked in her last letter if I had any pics of my brittle stars' mouths. I had a few, none too good though...Well, happily ( ) our power was out for about 3 hours Saturday. I covered my tank with a blanket while waiting to see if more desperate measures would be necessary. When the power came on and I uncovered the tank and turned the hood back on I found several brittles on the glass. I rushed to get my cam and got a few shots that aren't too bad. Figured I might as well post them here.

 

Interestingly, my stars have 6 legs, and correspondingly have a 6-pointed star-shaped mouth. In the following, I was shooting through my loupe and the stars were hightailing it for cover.

 

This guy was under the Xenia on the side and in my haste I didn't realize that my exposure setting was a little low for this location:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one was on the front wall where it was a little brighter. The first two of these shots happened to catch some little ostracods as well:

 

 

 

 

Lastly, a short (~40 sec.) video of the same star tooling along. I highly recommend it--it's a bit choppy (shot thru the loupe again!)--but it's fascinating to watch the tube feet in action and the pattern of leg movement:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1182410651717311941

 

--Diane

[c est ma]

And just because I'm so anal...you can sure see a lot more detail if you click on these thumbnails, then click once or twice on the ImageShack image:

 

 

 

A better look at one of the ostracods:

 

 

--Diane

[jkreefer]

do you have a FTS of your 5.5g?

[pwoller]

Looks good!

[klarion]

Merry Christmas Diane,

Your posts are always very informative and interesting. I learned a lot from your threads.

Thanks.

Boris

[yardboy]

Thanks so much Diane!

I am anticipating more knowledge on starfish than I have now, when my book comes in. Maybe then I can hold up my end of an intelligent conversation with you about them! They are fascinating creatures.

[spanko]

As always, great stuff Diane. You always have so much info along with the pics. What type of loupe are you using and can you post a pic of it?

[klarion]

I saw a bunch of different Xenias at an LFS today. I'm definitely getting one eventually. How fast do they multiply/spread?

[dshnarw]

 

 

THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE! even down to the paneling!

[c est ma]

do you have a FTS of your 5.5g?

 

Well, there are a few scattered throughout this thread...to save you some time, there are some on the very first page, but not the most recent ones...

 

 

As always, great stuff Diane. You always have so much info along with the pics. What type of loupe are you using and can you post a pic of it?

 

Well, I decided to get a better pic than the one I usually post, and in the process I noticed it is in fact a 16X, not a 12X, loupe.

 

Anyway, here it is:

 

 

I think I bought it from Ward's Scientific, or some place similar. As you can see, it's pretty small. I don't think you could use it with a standard sized SLR lens (but, I guess, who would want to?), but my little Coolpix lens is about the same diameter. Still, it's a bit of a trick to keep the two lined up, esp. when trying to track something fast moving as in the brittle star vid!

 

 

I saw a bunch of different Xenias at an LFS today. I'm definitely getting one eventually. How fast do they multiply/spread?

 

Well, I only have experience with the one species, which I think I've had at least 3 times (I know I've had Xenia 3 different times and I think they were all the same sp.). For me it grows super rapidly and the reason I've had it 3 times is because I took it back to the lfs the first 2 times when it got out of hand! It will certainly overwhelm a 5.5g in a hurry. But I do love the look and the pulsing...So I was delighted to have it start growing on the glass where it's easier to corral. That said, I just recently removed a piece that had gotten too big for the LR (it's sitting in the back of my tank...anybody close want it?) and I was able to remove it easily and neatly...so maybe I've just gotten better (or braver) at slicing it off.

 

I'll try to find a series of dated pics to post to show the latest growth rate.

 

If you read through the Xenia posts in the coral forum you will find it tends to be an all-or-nothing sort of coral for most reefers--i.e., it either grows rampantly or melts. Conventional wisdom has it that it prefers somewhat nutrient-rich tanks...(my tank supports that theory!).

 

--Diane

[c est ma]

 

THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE MY GRANDMOTHER'S HOUSE! even down to the paneling!

 

That's very scary!

 

-Diane

[fries852]

hey Diane.

 

Merry Christmas to you. Love your goats!! Your dogs are precious. So lucky that you rescued them!! They must love the farm life. Great pics of the starfish.

 

I got a magnifying glass for xmas, I will have to try for better closeups.

 

Take care

 

Andrea

[c est ma]

Andrea, thank you so much, and Merry Christmas to you and yours as well! I am so glad to have you following my little thread.

 

My husband mows a path around the old field, which surrounds three sides of the yard, and the dogs get to go for pretty long walks without leaving the property--and without leashes! I often think they got pretty lucky, but Phoebe, the border X, still cowers if you look at her sternly. Their past sticks with them. Happily, we got them young enough to teach them to get along with all our other critters. Here they are watching my son share some crackers with his cockatiel:

 

 

Note that Dweezil (the bird, not my son ) pays no attention to them.

 

I think they have a good life. I wish I could do the kind of rescue work you do, though! I salute you.

 

--Diane

 

***********************

New Subject

 

 

Okay, anyone else here use IrfanView for resizing pics? Obviously that last one came thru pretty crappily. I switched to irfan when I was unhappy with the huge compression of my other program, and usually it's much better, but with some pics it does the above. Is it mostly when there are straight lines and similar subjects?

 

Test:

 

W/ Irfan:

 

 

W/ old program:

 

 

W/ irfan:

 

 

W/ old program:

 

 

It's obvious to me that Irfan is best in the second set of images, worst in the first. Am I gonna have to test every set of pics to see which works best?! Or am I doing something wrong with irfan, which has zillions of options, of which I know about 2...?

 

--Diane

 

Edit: OK, it's NOT so obvious once the pics go thru the N-R mod. But it's REALLY obvious before that. Bummer.

[Ben314z]

...Lastly, a short (~40 sec.) video of the same star tooling along. I highly recommend it--it's a bit choppy (shot thru the loupe again!)--but it's fascinating to watch the tube feet in action and the pattern of leg movement:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1182410651717311941

 

--Diane

 

 

Hehe you have tortise porn on your account http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4789318143682151124 Vladi seemed to be enjoying himself hehehe... Sorry. Immaturity over back to your thread.

 

EDIT: I have never used IRFAN before, but there is a FREE open source photo editor thats pretty powerful and would give you more options and flexibility called The Gimp. lol There is even a version that is tweaked to look and act like Photoshop. This program has saved my neck when I am away from home and need to download something to edit some pics or tweak a project. Check it out here: http://gimpshopdotnet.blogspot.com/ You might like it better than IRFAN, 'specially if you have worked with Photoshop before.

[c est ma]

Ben,

 

Vladi enjoys himself immensely and if my camera recorded sound you would hear little high pitched squeaks now and then. Male giant tortoises roar when they mate. Also, tortoise mating can go on for a very long time. I can't understand why everyone's not a biologist!

 

The result of one of their matings, as a newborn:

 

 

With Dad & Mom (Boris, Vladimir, and Anastasia, l to r):

 

 

That was 3 years ago. Boris is almost as big as his Dad, now.

 

Thanks for the photo program tip. I'm afraid I haven't ever used photoshop or anything similar. I fully intend to learn--"someday." Don't know if what I need to do now is try yet another program or just buckle down and learn how to use what I have...What I'd really like to know is how the pros adjust their pics so that they go thru the N-R photo mod looking as crisp as the original shot! Bother!

 

But thanks!

 

--Diane

[Ben314z]

There's a really good chance it has to do with the compression settings of your JPEGs when you save them and also the type of algorithm used when you are resizing your photos. When I resize them I often use the "Bicubic Sharper" algorithm in PS and then save it at a compression value of ~10 in PS.

 

Your photo editing style might also be effecting the clarity of your images. Do you save the photo multiple times as you are editing it? Each time you do that the software recompresses the image just a little bit and you lose a little data if you are still working in JPEG format. If you can avoid multiple saves that will help out. I like working in PSS until I am ready to render my final result.

 

Another option for you if IRFAN does not have a "work-in-proogress" format like PSS is the first thing you can do when you DL the image from your camera is save it as a TIFF. You can set that format to be pretty lossless. (even better if your camera shoots in RAW hehe) That might be more trouble than it's worth for an image roughly 800x600 lol

 

Anyway, once I have all that done, my images seem to come out pretty decent when they end up here on the threads. Best of luck. Either way we all still enjoy your photos.

 

Ben