For the photo buffs who often ask about digital imaging:

I am often quite amazed at the things we can do with technology. I am a perpetual student on this subject and am always looking for ways to take better pictures. The more I learn about such toys makes each of my trips a little better. I learn the most when at home and apply it later, on a trip. Kind of like shooting and practicing with your hunting weapons. Yesterday I was experimenting with some camera equipment and was trying out a new lens.

I am shooting a Nikon D100 with the thing cranked up to maximum megapixels. It is a digital SLR. Each photo is 3008 megs wide. Yeah, down right gigantic, anyway while uploading this photo to Image Station I saw something unusual.

Here is my subject:



I am probably 4 inches away from this snake's face. It is sunning right outside my house in one of my flower beds. She is always "there" and seems fairly tame so I use her as a model often. It is a non poisonous garter snake, Thamnophis sirtalis. I have at least 30 of them on the property that I know of.

While on the computer I noticed her view of me:



Anyway, digital technology is really amazing me. This is not an enlargement, it is a crop out of the original 3008 meg photo. The detail is quite stunning. I think the snake's head was approximately 1.25 inches in length.

Hey Ann,

Great first photo.....can't see the second one because of imagestation. They are catching up with everyone and not allowing linking to images. I would start moving to Photo Bucket: PhotoBucket.com Link

Bob

Hmm, it is showing for me.

Great pics Ann!

Image station can get goofy sometimes, but if you want to see that second image (and it's worth it, thanx Ann!) right click on the banner where the image should be. Click on properties and cut and paste the address in your addy bar, or click here
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid119/p7b5c9e30dde3b7b1442a106adf8893e8/f879951c.jpg.orig.jpg

Ann- I thought I'd play with it a little in Photoshop
I selected the eye in a seperate layer and brightened it in "Curves" - then I used "Curves" to open up the overall mid-tones just a little - and then I went back into "SelectiveColors-White" on the Background layer and brought in the highlights a little - finnally I went into "UnsharpMask" in filters and sharpened it 33%

here's the before and after



BTW- another good on-line photo website for storing photos that you want to link to in a post is PictureTrail

http://www.picturetrail.com/

They specifically allow you to link to the URLaddress of an uploaded image to place in an image tag in a post.
They are the #1 offsite photo link site recommended by eBay.
I use them for all the images I use in my eBay auctions. That's how I found out about them.

Jack Krohn/Phantom Graphics
Houston, Texas

The thing I liked about Image Station is they don't slap an advertisement in your photo like Hunt 101, etc. I really hate that.

Jack,

I am still learning Photoshop and don't know how to use the layers feature yet, will get there someday.

Ann,

What I have found with Image Station is that if you take the first image that appears when you click on it and right click to get the url, it will work on here. If you open the "original" image it is larger and it will get blocked. The only difference in the url is one has .jpg for an extension and the original is .jpg.orig.j or something similar. My point being if you can live with the first and smaller image, it will not get blocked.



Something interesting, I am addding this after going to Image Station and checking out the url extension. I now can see that larger image so possibly because I am registered at Image Station, I can see it.

Ann's 2nd larger closeup of the eye opens for me? but I also am a member of ImageStation? ...still don't think that makes a difference?

PictureTrail will store an image up to 800x600 horizontal. If you load a file larger than that it will automatically re-size it back to 800x600. If the pic is vertical it's limited to 600pixels tall.
But- you can use any of the URLs from the thumbnails to the full sized files that appear on their website.

Well, let's try this one. If it does show up it is the reduced size version.



The image size as I wanted you to see it is located here:

Snake Eye

Very amazing!! Just think of all the things we miss as we zoom around in our daily lives. And, this little gem was sitting in a flower bed right outside your door.
Thank you for sharing.
Melody

Great pictures, Ann. I agree that digital technology is now quite amazing, and taking professional photos with digital equipment quite possible for even an ametuer like me.

Bill

hey Ann - I don't like snakes AT ALL but this is very cool. The digital cameras and software are pretty amazing.

Do snakes blink? He sure seems to have a lot of dust in his eye. And it looks like you were having a beautiful blue sky day there!