Wide thread for putting pictures in
- Thread starter Tea
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Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
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- Jan 26, 2002
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Tea, Mercutio will be angry about this.
Always link externally (and warn!) about large images.
Always link externally (and warn!) about large images.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
This thread, until PW's post, was nothing but two blank posts from Tea.
It doesn't bother me. If I really wanted to see, I could always fish the URL out of page source.
It doesn't bother me. If I really wanted to see, I could always fish the URL out of page source.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
It might be worth taking a look at next time you are at the office, Merc. The pelicans are rather special. I can't claim any especial skill for that one though. It was one of those scenes where a six-year-old with his first Kodak Instamatic would have known the obvious way to shoot it, and still not have changed his mind when he was a prize-winning professional photographer. Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time.
Prof.Wizard
Wannabe Storage Freak
- Joined
- Jan 26, 2002
- Messages
- 1,460
Mwahahaahah!Mercutio said:
I don't blame you... having 56K gives two blank posts. Having 2048K gives two blank posts as well, but for only 4-5 seconds. 8)
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
That's actually 2x 14.4, which isn't quite the same thing as 28.8 (a bit like having two 1GHz CPUs in SMP isn't 2GHz).
Actually, my mozilla image permissions are such that I don't load images from outside the site I'm currently viewing. That gets rid of the overwhelming majority of advertising, but also most inline images here.
Actually, my mozilla image permissions are such that I don't load images from outside the site I'm currently viewing. That gets rid of the overwhelming majority of advertising, but also most inline images here.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Nice pictures Tea. I like the opposing pelicans, it almost looks like a mirror. The Marsupials are nice too, especially the detail in her fur. The little Joey peeking out is cute. Are those Red Kangaroos?
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
From the image name, no.Buck said:
Code:
http://www.redhill.net.au/sf/Western-Grey-Kangaroo-with-joey.jpg
Bartender
Storage is cool
Sorry Coug, Buck can't read very well. Especially after seeing the thread Steve posted with the Peltier cooled Guinness.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
Besides, red kangaroos are much bigger and it shows. Their legs are longer and their muscles are horse-like. No soft meat on them. Overall, they look kind of slimmer.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
They don't look very gray to me! They're all Macropodidae anyway.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
The woodland shot would be especially nice without all those icky birds.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Ahh, now there lies a story, Buck. She is indeed a Western Grey. Western Greys are very common, there are several millions of them at any particular time, the population going up and down with the seasons. But they are not grey - more like brown The name "Western Grey" came about because, originally, they were thought to be just a colour morph of one of the two largest and best known roos: the Red and the Grey.
Here is a Red Kangaroo:
Big Red is usually found in the more arid territory. Not true desert as a rule, at least not much, but through that vast swathe of territory which is neither true desert nor truly fertile.
And here is the type of grey kangaroo that you normally find in the parts of the country where it rains enough to have actual woodlands and forests. Originally called the Grey Kangaroo, its name has been changed (for reasons that wlil become obvious as I tell my tale) it is now the Eastern Grey Kangaroo:
As you can see, it really is grey. These are the ones that I see in the wild quite often, perhaps once a week or so. They are quite common around Ballarat (or at least around those fast-shrinking areas where we still retain something approaching a natural environment), and common right through the south-eastern corner of the continent which is, as you know, the only place aside from the south-western corner of Western Australia where the climate is half decent.
Here is a Red Kangaroo:
Big Red is usually found in the more arid territory. Not true desert as a rule, at least not much, but through that vast swathe of territory which is neither true desert nor truly fertile.
And here is the type of grey kangaroo that you normally find in the parts of the country where it rains enough to have actual woodlands and forests. Originally called the Grey Kangaroo, its name has been changed (for reasons that wlil become obvious as I tell my tale) it is now the Eastern Grey Kangaroo:
As you can see, it really is grey. These are the ones that I see in the wild quite often, perhaps once a week or so. They are quite common around Ballarat (or at least around those fast-shrinking areas where we still retain something approaching a natural environment), and common right through the south-eastern corner of the continent which is, as you know, the only place aside from the south-western corner of Western Australia where the climate is half decent.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
So you guys have Kangaroos like we have deer, or something?
I guess that means Pradeep spends a whole season wearing safety orange and playing with 'roo piss, huh?
I guess that means Pradeep spends a whole season wearing safety orange and playing with 'roo piss, huh?
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
So, how did the Western Grey Kangaroo get its name? It was the centre of a great deal of rather comical taxonomic confusion for almost 200 years. It was first noted by European settlers when the great Australian explorer Matthew Flinders landed on Kangaroo Island (just off the coast of South Australia) in 1802. Flinders shot several for food but assumed that they were ordinary "Grey Kangaroos", which were well-known from the Sydney area.
In 1803 French explorers (who were sniffing around the place on the theory that if the British - with whom they were at war - thought the place was interesting, they ought to have a look themselves) captured several specimens on Kangaroo Island and shipped them home to Paris, where they lived in the zoological gardens for some years. Eventually, researchers at the Paris Museum of Natural History recognised that these animals were indeed different and formally described the species as Macropus fuliginosus in 1817. Unfortunately, for reasons that remain unclear but doubtless have to do with the usual French muddle, the species was described as native to Tasmania!
There the matter rested for over 100 years, and it was not until 1917 that researchers realised that the "Forester Kangaroo", common in Tasmania, was in fact Macropus giganteus, the same Grey Kangaroo that was, and still is, widespread in the more fertile south-eastern part of the mainland. By 1971, it was understood that the Kangaroo Island species was the same as the kangaroos of southern Western Australia, and that this population exended through much of the eastern part of the continent as well. For a time, three subspecies were described, two on the mainland and one on Kangaroo Island. Finally, by the early 1990s, the current understanding energed: i.e., that there were indeed two seperate but related species, one (now called the Eastern Grey) from the fertile territory stretching between north Queensland and Victoria (i.e., all the east coast and a few hundred miles inland, plus around the corner to cover Victoria), and that the Tasmanian Forrester Kangaroo was in fact the same species.
The other, now called the Western Grey because although it is mostly brown it is closely related to the Eastern Grey, covers Western Australia, most of South Australia, and all up the Murray-Darling basin as far as southern inland Queensland.
In 1803 French explorers (who were sniffing around the place on the theory that if the British - with whom they were at war - thought the place was interesting, they ought to have a look themselves) captured several specimens on Kangaroo Island and shipped them home to Paris, where they lived in the zoological gardens for some years. Eventually, researchers at the Paris Museum of Natural History recognised that these animals were indeed different and formally described the species as Macropus fuliginosus in 1817. Unfortunately, for reasons that remain unclear but doubtless have to do with the usual French muddle, the species was described as native to Tasmania!
There the matter rested for over 100 years, and it was not until 1917 that researchers realised that the "Forester Kangaroo", common in Tasmania, was in fact Macropus giganteus, the same Grey Kangaroo that was, and still is, widespread in the more fertile south-eastern part of the mainland. By 1971, it was understood that the Kangaroo Island species was the same as the kangaroos of southern Western Australia, and that this population exended through much of the eastern part of the continent as well. For a time, three subspecies were described, two on the mainland and one on Kangaroo Island. Finally, by the early 1990s, the current understanding energed: i.e., that there were indeed two seperate but related species, one (now called the Eastern Grey) from the fertile territory stretching between north Queensland and Victoria (i.e., all the east coast and a few hundred miles inland, plus around the corner to cover Victoria), and that the Tasmanian Forrester Kangaroo was in fact the same species.
The other, now called the Western Grey because although it is mostly brown it is closely related to the Eastern Grey, covers Western Australia, most of South Australia, and all up the Murray-Darling basin as far as southern inland Queensland.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
In a word, Mercutio, yes.
It turns out that there are two subspecies of the Western Grey, not three. There is Macropus fuliginosus fuliginosus of Kangaroo Island - that's the one in the picture - and Macropus fuliginosus melanops (not pictured but looking much the same), which has a range of different forms that intergrade clinallly from west to east. (Forms that gradually intergrade into one another from one place to another ("clinal variation") are, by definition, not seperate species or subspecies. This is why it is incorrect to say that there are seperate human races - "subspecies" and "race" are exact synonyms, and human variation is clearly clinal.)
The two species are seperate over much of their range but both are common in the Murray-Darling Basin area. They never interbreed in the wild, although it has proved possible to produce hybrids between Eastern Grey females and Western Grey males in captivity. (Never the other way around.)
Now, about this particular Western Grey. She is from the Kangaroo Island subspecies which, as island-living species almost always are, is a little smaller than the mainland variety.
There is a fauna park about 10 minutes walk from my place - to my shame, I've lived here 20 years and never been there before even though I drive past it every week. The week before last I drove 800k to visit a much bigger one on the other side of the state and take pictures. Last week I thought why not take a look at the little local one? At this particular park they brought in roos from Kangaroo Island, where there have never been any natural predators and these little fellows are so placid and friendly it's amazing. This little cutie, about half grown, was delightful.
There are maybe 50 or 100 of them and they are allowed to just wander around anywhere they like, so you can walk up to them, touch them, let them feed out of your hand. But unlike most animals that will eat out of your hand (swans in particular), they don't seem to get aggro or push and shove, they just quietly wander up to you and maybe gently put their paws on your chest, looking a little wistful.
BTW, the joeys don't always poke their heads out like the one in the top picture. Quite often they dissappear inside completely, and they don't seem to care in the slightest which way up they are. I have some more shots where instead of the cute little hed poking out there are feet!
It turns out that there are two subspecies of the Western Grey, not three. There is Macropus fuliginosus fuliginosus of Kangaroo Island - that's the one in the picture - and Macropus fuliginosus melanops (not pictured but looking much the same), which has a range of different forms that intergrade clinallly from west to east. (Forms that gradually intergrade into one another from one place to another ("clinal variation") are, by definition, not seperate species or subspecies. This is why it is incorrect to say that there are seperate human races - "subspecies" and "race" are exact synonyms, and human variation is clearly clinal.)
The two species are seperate over much of their range but both are common in the Murray-Darling Basin area. They never interbreed in the wild, although it has proved possible to produce hybrids between Eastern Grey females and Western Grey males in captivity. (Never the other way around.)
Now, about this particular Western Grey. She is from the Kangaroo Island subspecies which, as island-living species almost always are, is a little smaller than the mainland variety.
There is a fauna park about 10 minutes walk from my place - to my shame, I've lived here 20 years and never been there before even though I drive past it every week. The week before last I drove 800k to visit a much bigger one on the other side of the state and take pictures. Last week I thought why not take a look at the little local one? At this particular park they brought in roos from Kangaroo Island, where there have never been any natural predators and these little fellows are so placid and friendly it's amazing. This little cutie, about half grown, was delightful.
There are maybe 50 or 100 of them and they are allowed to just wander around anywhere they like, so you can walk up to them, touch them, let them feed out of your hand. But unlike most animals that will eat out of your hand (swans in particular), they don't seem to get aggro or push and shove, they just quietly wander up to you and maybe gently put their paws on your chest, looking a little wistful.
BTW, the joeys don't always poke their heads out like the one in the top picture. Quite often they dissappear inside completely, and they don't seem to care in the slightest which way up they are. I have some more shots where instead of the cute little hed poking out there are feet!
time
Storage? I am Storage!
Tannin's kangaroos must be more docile than the ones I've seen in nature parks! Perhaps it's the warmer climate, but they certainly didn't seem averse to pushing and shoving, and while watching them I was all too aware of the keepers' warnings about personal safety.
But it really depends on the breed. Most are incredibly docile animals - unlike koalas, who given half a chance would gleefully eviscerate the tourists that dribble over them.
A big male red kangaroo is physically intimidating, something I don't think Tea's shot conveys.
The shoulders and upper arms alone put most humans to shame, and they have that quiet aura of confidence that comes with the knowledge that they could disembowel you in an instant if push came to shove. It's more surprising that such a powerful animal (6ft and 200lb) is normally so placid.
But it really depends on the breed. Most are incredibly docile animals - unlike koalas, who given half a chance would gleefully eviscerate the tourists that dribble over them.
A big male red kangaroo is physically intimidating, something I don't think Tea's shot conveys.
The shoulders and upper arms alone put most humans to shame, and they have that quiet aura of confidence that comes with the knowledge that they could disembowel you in an instant if push came to shove. It's more surprising that such a powerful animal (6ft and 200lb) is normally so placid.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
I understand it's because they are the Kangaro Island subspecies, Time. Apparently, never having had any natural predators, they are unusually placid. I certainly wouldn't care to get too close to a Big Red! Not unless I was up a tree and he wasn't.
Also, I visited in the early afternoon, when they had probably been getting little tit-bits all day and were not especially hungry. Doubtless that helps. But the staff seemed perfectly happly to have little children wandering around, and they have been in operation over 20 years and won lots of tourisim awards and things, so you would imagine that they know what they are doing - you can imagine what a law suit would do for the place.
Speaking of big ones, as we were, here is a little one: a Quokka, from WA. These are one of the smallest Macropods - as always, Buck is 100% correct, they are all Macropodiae. There are just over 50 of them: three roos, three walleroos, 6 tree kangaroos (which are quite large) and lots of various asorted wallabies and potaroos and things.
Have you ever seen an ordinary domestic cat that's been fed rather more than is good for him? About that size. Quokka, by the way, are quite good at climbing up into small trees and shrubs if they think there is some tucker in it. Or so I have read. As Buck will tell you (Buck being a Latin scholar of note) they all have very big feet. Err ... macropods, I mean.
Also, I visited in the early afternoon, when they had probably been getting little tit-bits all day and were not especially hungry. Doubtless that helps. But the staff seemed perfectly happly to have little children wandering around, and they have been in operation over 20 years and won lots of tourisim awards and things, so you would imagine that they know what they are doing - you can imagine what a law suit would do for the place.
Speaking of big ones, as we were, here is a little one: a Quokka, from WA. These are one of the smallest Macropods - as always, Buck is 100% correct, they are all Macropodiae. There are just over 50 of them: three roos, three walleroos, 6 tree kangaroos (which are quite large) and lots of various asorted wallabies and potaroos and things.
Have you ever seen an ordinary domestic cat that's been fed rather more than is good for him? About that size. Quokka, by the way, are quite good at climbing up into small trees and shrubs if they think there is some tucker in it. Or so I have read. As Buck will tell you (Buck being a Latin scholar of note) they all have very big feet. Err ... macropods, I mean.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Thank you for the information Tea. It seems that it took Europeans a long time before their knowledge of Kangaroos was noteworthy. Before Europeans began poking their nose around Australia, what level of knowledge did those indigenous to Australia have regarding Kangaroos?
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
A very good question, Buck. The short answer, I should imgine, is a lot! Not in terms of Western concepts like "genus" and "species", obviously, but although we will never really know the details, the knowledge of the Aboriginal people of their land was extraordinary.
They have been here for a seriously long time. The current best guess is 53,000 years, although some people think it is nearly twice as long as that - in my view, on some rather questionable evidence. So let's call it a nice round 50,000 years. Compare that to the first human settlement of the Americas about 13,000 years ago, and remember that Europe wasn't settled until perhaps 10,000 years ago. Remember also that the nature of the Australian landscape is very different and (because of low soil fertility and low, very unreliable, rainfall) quite a bit more difficult to understand and make a living from.
So, yes, they knew a great deal. But what they knew, I don't know, not in any detail. But I can give you one example: a species of hopping mouse (wonderful little creatres, unrelated but very similar to the jerboas of Asia or the kangaroo rats of the western USA) that was "known" to be extinct by 1900, which the Aboriginal people of the red centre knew perfetly well was still alive as late as the 1950s. All our clever biologists with their telephoto lenses and their radios and their jet aircraft didn't have a clue. The Aboriginal people could have told them, but they were too stupid to ask. And so we moved the Aboriginal people off the land. Not because we wanted the land, it was useless red sandy desert and no-one could possibly live there (so we said, cheerfully ignoring he fact that some people had been living there perfectly happily for 50,000 years), this was "for their own good". So now their descendants live in fibro-cement shanty towns, fighting and drinking more than is good for them because there is nothing else to do, and we can see how much "good" it has done them, or us. And because they don't live off the country anymore and set alight to parts of it to make fresh green grass grow in little patches here and there for creatures to eat and people to hunt, the little hopping mice had nothing to eat either, and now they really are extinct.
What did the Aborginal people know about kangaroos? I don't know, but "lots" is probably a pretty good answer.
They have been here for a seriously long time. The current best guess is 53,000 years, although some people think it is nearly twice as long as that - in my view, on some rather questionable evidence. So let's call it a nice round 50,000 years. Compare that to the first human settlement of the Americas about 13,000 years ago, and remember that Europe wasn't settled until perhaps 10,000 years ago. Remember also that the nature of the Australian landscape is very different and (because of low soil fertility and low, very unreliable, rainfall) quite a bit more difficult to understand and make a living from.
So, yes, they knew a great deal. But what they knew, I don't know, not in any detail. But I can give you one example: a species of hopping mouse (wonderful little creatres, unrelated but very similar to the jerboas of Asia or the kangaroo rats of the western USA) that was "known" to be extinct by 1900, which the Aboriginal people of the red centre knew perfetly well was still alive as late as the 1950s. All our clever biologists with their telephoto lenses and their radios and their jet aircraft didn't have a clue. The Aboriginal people could have told them, but they were too stupid to ask. And so we moved the Aboriginal people off the land. Not because we wanted the land, it was useless red sandy desert and no-one could possibly live there (so we said, cheerfully ignoring he fact that some people had been living there perfectly happily for 50,000 years), this was "for their own good". So now their descendants live in fibro-cement shanty towns, fighting and drinking more than is good for them because there is nothing else to do, and we can see how much "good" it has done them, or us. And because they don't live off the country anymore and set alight to parts of it to make fresh green grass grow in little patches here and there for creatures to eat and people to hunt, the little hopping mice had nothing to eat either, and now they really are extinct.
What did the Aborginal people know about kangaroos? I don't know, but "lots" is probably a pretty good answer.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Tea said:
That would be my assumption too.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
It workz!
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Unfortunately, I don't workz. No brainz sometimez.
[/quote]
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Nice picture Tea. How far away were you, er . . . I mean Tannin, when taking that photograph?
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Not very far, Buck. About 20 or 30 metres. Just the same, to take the picture without the scope, I'd need to be about metres away.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
How many metres away without the scope? Oh, was your camera contraption mounted on a tri-pod? I noticed some blurriness with the picture. Those eyes are piercing.
Tea
Storage? I am Storage!
Oops! I meant to say 2 metres away to do that without the scope. Maybe a little less. What you can see, Buck, is a depth-of-field issue. (Plus a little loss from re-sizing the picture to 800 x 600.) Notice how the forground and head is pin-sharp, and the ripples in the background are not. That's the big drawback with long lenses, your depth-of-field is very restricted, especially in moderate light. In poor light, you can't take anything.
Oh, and you can't use that contraption of mine at all without a tripod. It's simply not possible to hand hold a lens of that power. You can get away with resting it on a solid object, such as a car window sill, just, but you need two hands to hold the scope semi-steady, good light for a fast shutter speed, and a third hand to press the shutter release - i.e., two people. Apart from anything else, you have only two degrees maximum field of view (0.5 degrees minimum, if you zoom in to the max), so chances are that you will get a nice blurry shot of your foot or the sky unless you use a tripod.
Oh, and you can't use that contraption of mine at all without a tripod. It's simply not possible to hand hold a lens of that power. You can get away with resting it on a solid object, such as a car window sill, just, but you need two hands to hold the scope semi-steady, good light for a fast shutter speed, and a third hand to press the shutter release - i.e., two people. Apart from anything else, you have only two degrees maximum field of view (0.5 degrees minimum, if you zoom in to the max), so chances are that you will get a nice blurry shot of your foot or the sky unless you use a tripod.
CougTek
Hairy Aussie
This duck should be in jail. His eyes have already been copyrighted by Georges Lucas for the Darth Maul character in episode I.
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
This is an interesting depth of field result. The sharpness varies in an arc pattern. In the foreground, there is an arc or triangle of good clarity. This starts in the lower left-hand corner of the image, follows a diagonal line or arc up to the breast of the duck, and then comes back down to the lower right-hand corner. Concentric arcs move away from this focal point with reduced clarity. If the sharpness varied by exact depth, then the top of the fowl’s head should be equally as sharp as its breast and neck. Perhaps this is another phenomenon that I, as an amateur photographer, do not understand. Although it should be noted that the duck’s motion would play havoc with the entire exposure process.
There could be several issues affecting the plane of focus when such a contraption is used. One is often field curvature (one of the five Seidel aberrations) and the other could be that the axis of the lens is tilted. How is the scope mounted to the body?
Dïscfärm
Learning Storage Performance
Buck said:
This is simply the depth of field that you get with a "long" (focal length) telephoto lens when you focus upon a subject that's rather close AND you have the iris wide open (maybe f/5.6 or f/8). The focal plane is quite shallow when these parameters are true.
If you stop down to something like f/32, the depth of field will be deeper, but the speed will also be dramatically slower because the image will be several "stops" (as in f-stops!) darker. You definitely rob Peter to pay Paul here.
Dïscfärm
Learning Storage Performance
Actually, I meant to say above: depth of FOCUS, not depth of field, and vice versa...
This is simply the depth of focus that you get with a "long" (focal length) telephoto lens when you focus upon a subject that's rather close AND you have the iris wide open (maybe f/5.6 or f/8). The depth of focus is quite shallow when these parameters are true.
If you stop down to something like f/32, the depth of focus will be deeper, but the speed will also be dramatically slower because the image will be several "stops" (as in f-stops!) darker. You definitely rob Peter to pay Paul here. The depth of field will remain flat since the focal length is the same (i.e. -- in the telephoto range of focal lengths).