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Photo Competition - South Africa

the pooks

By the pooks
in South Africa

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GEO936

+GEO936

Posted
Posted

 

Photo taken in the river at NABM cache with mik n druk:

DSCN2461.JPG

 

Stunning photo, can't believe you took it with a little, simple "mik 'n druk"....amazing to get such a clear shot! These guys never seem to sit still for a photo, let alone such a clear, crisp one as yours! Well Done!

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GEO936

+GEO936

Posted
Posted

Been really hectic and haven't had much time to look for decent pics, and I've been stuggling to get our logs entered and pics attached!!! I'm not sure if it is just me or our connection or GS. I've just tried again and no luck. Bombs out every time.

 

So I'll enter the competition next month!

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GlobalRat

+GlobalRat

Posted
Posted

Some notes on the reviewing process. The appreciation of photography and art in general is very subjective, and consequently everyone’s views will be somewhat different. I therefore quite like the format of rolling judges each month as it will prevent bias to any particular style of photography.

There have been great submissions this month and I’ve tried to judge them weighted on their visual appeal and not being too harsh on the technical aspects. This should be fun and cachers of all photographic ability should benefit out of the “competition”.

It’s pretty hard to judge on a photo being geocaching related, or at least taken on a geocaching trip, but I’ve kept the idea in mind. I think that in future months, if this theme is to remain, a prerequisite should be that the photo is uploaded in the cache log/description and hyperlinked to the forum thread, see Wazat’s submissions.

 

Enough waffle, and on to the judging:-

 

Wazat - Battlefields

Brings back fond memories for me. Before the days of Ultra Cities these used to be our picnic spots on the yearly pilgrimage to banana-land. A classic silhouette shot of the war graves. Subject is perhaps a bit too central, rule of thirds would have strengthened the composition. Bonus points for having it loaded on a cache page and linked to here :cool:

 

Henzz - Newlands

Kudo’s for a classic caching dilemma :laughing: Been lost in that same forest looking for a cache with a bouncing GPSr. Challenging lighting conditions means that some of the detail has been lost in the trees. Try this shot again by getting lower down or closer to some of the trees to include the tree trunks which will provide leading lines and strengthen the composition.

 

Henzz – Confused dashboard

;) with more than one GPSr you’re never sure of your position ;) Classic geocaching scene

 

Henzz – Ghost House

Now this is one classic geocaching pic. You missed the opportunity to use the torch to full effect though. If you have a camera with a Bulb function, try a longer exposure time after having found somewhere stable to place the camera and use the torch to light up the scene and the cacher instead of the flash. Should get some lovely ghostly effects and scare off a few muggles as well :P

 

Wazzat – Rail road

Good strong silhouette. Love the doom and gloom of the sky with the smattering of colour on the horizon.

 

Wazzat – Mini Golden gate

Well seen and not a bad result with the old camera phone.

 

Trevor – Da Mountain

Always a pleasing landmark and great to see a photo from a slightly different viewpoint. Not the best time of the day for photography and the light is a bit harsh as can be seen on the rock face and the cable car housing on top. Good attempt at trying to frame with the trees, but the top right should be cropped out.

 

Waynes World – Maintenance

An impressive set of lightning strikes. There’s plenty to like in this image. Interesting fluidity in the cloud formations, impressive lighting strikes, and the lighting has created an interesting colour cast on the foreground. Personally don’t like the foliage on the right of the frame though. The light just to the right of the strike is a bit distracting. The exposure is perhaps a tad too long, but still a wonderful capture.

 

CapeDoc – Dragonfly

Great macro CapeDoc. It’s amazing what wonderful macro’s digital compacts can produce. Well framed and a good DOF (Depth of Field) to separate the background from the subject. Lighting perhaps not ideal, but guessing this was taken in some harsh sunlight. The focal point seems to be on the dragonflies’ back rather than the eye’s which is I think it was intended to be. The shallow DOF has softened the wings a tad, compacts often don’t provide control over the aperture which can make getting this right somewhat tricky. Still a great image, these critters are never easy to capture.

 

Boris – Hluhluwe sunrise

Good sunrise image. Good use of the rule of thirds. Those clouds look good enough to eat.

 

dakardrix – Star Crater

Another classic geocaching image. I do have to wonder why you walked ALL that way down with your helmet on though – waiting for another meteorite B)

 

BruceTP – Microfest

I like these travelling type pics. Lighting was challenging with the deep shade and the bright sky. Result is that the detail in the shadow and the bike is unfortunately lost. Watch the powerlines on the right of the frame as well. Metering on the shade will help recover the details, however the sky will still be blown. Lookup up on HDR as used in Skyjuggler’s image to overcome these challenging shoots.

 

Waynes World – RC Plane

A fantastic capture of the RC airplane. Chose the right ISO to freeze the airplane, and the colours are nice and bright. The image has been taken at just the right moment. The reflection adds to the overall feel of this image. Plane is well positioned in the frame and the only nit would have to be the cut off reflection. Great image!

 

Skyjuggler – Elephant HDR

I’m not a great fan of HDR as it more often than not creates very unrealistic effects and is overused. It requires subtle usage to enhance an image. However, in this case, the conversion to B+W and the use of the technique to enhance the skin texture of the elephant have produced a very pleasing result. There are some artefacts in attempts to remove the background (left ear and trunk) and perhaps a tad oversharpened. A pity the right ear is chopped off. Agree though, it does look cool and it’s worth exploring and playing with this further.

 

Happy Hunters – Grasshopper

A Koppie Foam Grasshopper (Rooibaadjie). It stores heart poisons and can be fatal to dogs if eaten. Well spotted. The image is unfortunately a little soft, watch out for focussing and camera shake.

 

Esitoli – Magical moment

A magical moment indeed. The Finepix has done a sterling job of capturing the moment. Bright colours, a great silhouette combining an interesting landscape with the joy of the children enjoying the moment. Great composition!

 

And the winner is...... It’s a tough one. There are great entries and many would be winners in separate categories. However there are too few images to create categories. The image I have chosen as the winner is not only photographically great but to me it also portrays the joy of geocaching. Honourable mentions to Waynes World’s pair of images as well as to Skyjuggler’s image. Esitoli wins the prize of being Judge for the next round with their ‘Magical Moment’. WELL DONE!

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the pooks

+the pooks

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Posted (edited)

Thanks Globalrat for the insightful comments and congratulations Esitoli! This is such fun. Bring some pics out of the depths of the geocaching logs here to the forums for all to see and appreciate. The bar has been set quite high though!

 

Edited to add: Really appreciate the effort Globalrat took in commenting on each of the photos.

Edited by the pooks
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CapeDoc

+CapeDoc

Posted
Posted (edited)

Enough waffle, and on to the judging:

 

Thanks so much for the detailed review of each photo. I think you went above and beyond! I certainly don't expect future judges to be as comprehensive in their crits, but the effort is most appreciated!

 

Great Pic Esitoli...

Ditto, thought the photo was wonderful!

 

Looking forward to the new submissions!

 

Here's one I took of Van Hunk's Cigar Lounge. (Devil's Peak)

Photo was added to cache page.

Called it

THE DEVIL MAKES HIMSELF AT HOME:

 

The cache survived with some damage. It highlights what you have to think of when placing a cache!

 

Edit: Thanks Globalrat for the linking info (see his post below). This post edited to create link to cache page. The photo is part of a "series" of photos of Devil's Peak. Others can be seen on the cache page.

 

89fc7f45-a3de-4ec1-b2ed-f48cf0200d64.jpg

Edited by CapeDoc
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GlobalRat

+GlobalRat

Posted
Posted

Following up on the thought that it should be a prerequisite that the photo be linked to a cache page or cache log, here's the method for those interested and who aren't sure on how to do it.

 

Once you have uploaded your image to the cache page or in your cache log get the URL's

1. If you want to get the URL to the cache page, just display the cache and copy the URL from your browser

2. If you want to get the URL to your log, display the cache page and find your log. At the bottom of your log you will find a hyperlink View/Edit Logs/Images. Right click and copy shortcut Log/Cache URL

3. Similarly you will find hyperlinks to the images in your log, Right click and Copy Shortcut Image URL

 

Insert the code into your forum post as follows:-

[url=http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=a9830c84-6fac-4805-bc63-6a515873a85b][img=http://img.geocaching.com/cache/log/a8bff273-5876-44df-9414-eb5d052ada4f.jpg][/url]

 

The first URL is the Log/Cache URL and the second Image URL

 

The above results in the following, which I'll throw in as my mik en druk entry titled Villiers Sunset :P

 

Clicking on the image will take you to the log in this case.

 

a8bff273-5876-44df-9414-eb5d052ada4f.jpg

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tomtwogates

+tomtwogates

Posted
Posted

probably a stupid question - how do you size the picture here - I played around with getting a picture into the test portion of the getting started forum and each time it came out rather small - does it relate to the original size of the picture you uploaded to your log?

 

I generally try to reduce the size of my original pictures which is something like 4048 x 3040 to 1000 x 751 before uploading - should I not do this?

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the pooks

+the pooks

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Posted (edited)

probably a stupid question - how do you size the picture here - I played around with getting a picture into the test portion of the getting started forum and each time it came out rather small - does it relate to the original size of the picture you uploaded to your log?

 

I generally try to reduce the size of my original pictures which is something like 4048 x 3040 to 1000 x 751 before uploading - should I not do this?

 

I use a rather crude method of resizing (Windows XP): On picture file: right click> send to > mail recipient: this sequence invokes an automatic built in resizing - I normally use smallest=640X480. Then when the email window pops up go "save attachments" > save the pictures to a folder. Delete the email. Quick and dirty way to resize any number of photos. After this you still need to load the photo to a cache log/web album so that it is floating somewhere on the ether for you to reference via a web address in the forum posting. I generally have pictures in a folder "yyyymmdd description" and the resized pics in a folder "yyyymmdd description small"

Edited by the pooks
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the pooks

+the pooks

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I've just been enjoying looking at the entries in your Photo competition. :)

 

(I'm wondering whether I'll recognise some of the locations of photos from the pooks when/if they submit any of their holiday pics here in a few weeks time :laughing: )

 

MrsB

 

What an absolute bummer : Going to the airport tomorrow (Monday) morning with ever decreasing hopes of getting in a plane due to the Iceland volcano dust. Cornwall, Cornwall where art thou...

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tomtwogates

+tomtwogates

Posted
Posted

probably a stupid question - how do you size the picture here - I played around with getting a picture into the test portion of the getting started forum and each time it came out rather small - does it relate to the original size of the picture you uploaded to your log?

 

I generally try to reduce the size of my original pictures which is something like 4048 x 3040 to 1000 x 751 before uploading - should I not do this?

 

I use a rather crude method of resizing (Windows XP): On picture file: right click> send to > mail recipient: this sequence invokes an automatic built in resizing - I normally use smallest=640X480. Then when the email window pops up go "save attachments" > save the pictures to a folder. Delete the email. Quick and dirty way to resize any number of photos. After this you still need to load the photo to a cache log/web album so that it is floating somewhere on the ether for you to reference via a web address in the forum posting. I generally have pictures in a folder "yyyymmdd description" and the resized pics in a folder "yyyymmdd description small"

 

I don't have a problem getting a smaller picture - I generally post the smaller picture with my logs, but when I see the size of picture posted here in this topic I wonder how they get it so large? Do they post large pictures with their logs?

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MnCo

MnCo

Posted
Posted

probably a stupid question - how do you size the picture here - I played around with getting a picture into the test portion of the getting started forum and each time it came out rather small - does it relate to the original size of the picture you uploaded to your log?

 

I generally try to reduce the size of my original pictures which is something like 4048 x 3040 to 1000 x 751 before uploading - should I not do this?

 

I use a rather crude method of resizing (Windows XP): On picture file: right click> send to > mail recipient: this sequence invokes an automatic built in resizing - I normally use smallest=640X480. Then when the email window pops up go "save attachments" > save the pictures to a folder. Delete the email. Quick and dirty way to resize any number of photos. After this you still need to load the photo to a cache log/web album so that it is floating somewhere on the ether for you to reference via a web address in the forum posting. I generally have pictures in a folder "yyyymmdd description" and the resized pics in a folder "yyyymmdd description small"

 

If I may offer a suggestion here, download and install IrfanView [http://www.irfanview.com] (don't forget the plugins). it's one of the most versatile little image programs and will open just about any image type known to man (and a few others) and incorporates basic, easy to use, editing features.

 

I've been using this for years, and while I use somewhat more sophisticated graphics apps for a lot of my work, this is both my default viewer and the first thing I use if I just want to quickly resize/edit something for uploading or emailing. It also has a batch feature, which is useful if you need to resize a number of photos. Simply load them all into the list, set the size and any other attributes such as sharpness and then process the whole lot in one go.

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Esitoli

+Esitoli

Posted
Posted

Thanks Globalrat for the excellent reviews of last month’s competition. The standard has been set. :D

 

I agree that it was quite a tough call, particularly with reference to capedocs and waynes world submissions. The vibrancy and detail of these pics is truly outstanding (hint hint).

 

I’m looking forward to judging this month’s photos even though it means I’m out of the race for this month. Keep the comments coming.

 

I want to add if we want to keep this geocaching related; we can also add pics of TB’s and not just physical cache locations, the prerequisite being that they need to be logged.

 

Only a few more days to go to the end of the month, let’s get the entries rolling in. :D

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DamhuisClan

+DamhuisClan

Posted
Posted
probably a stupid question - how do you size the picture here - I played around with getting a picture into the test portion of the getting started forum and each time it came out rather small - does it relate to the original size of the picture you uploaded to your log?

 

I generally try to reduce the size of my original pictures which is something like 4048 x 3040 to 1000 x 751 before uploading - should I not do this?

There is this nice little program called : "Resize Picture".

When installed you can right click on any picture, and then the menu which comes up has the option to resize any picture into some pre-set sizes, and an option to create your own size.

The program can be downloaded here, and works on Windows 7, and is completely free:

phototoysclone

 

P.S. I got a link to this app originally from Rod&Joan (for Windows XP). Been using it for 2 years now, and cant live without it. And installed this clone on Windows 7, which works exacly the same as the original XP power toy.

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GlobalRat

+GlobalRat

Posted
Posted

probably a stupid question - how do you size the picture here - I played around with getting a picture into the test portion of the getting started forum and each time it came out rather small - does it relate to the original size of the picture you uploaded to your log?

 

I generally try to reduce the size of my original pictures which is something like 4048 x 3040 to 1000 x 751 before uploading - should I not do this?

 

Images loaded on cache logs are restricted in size and have to be resized. You could of course load an image onto any URL and reference it here. As mentioned above, I personally feel that images should be referenced to a log or cache to "enforce" the geocaching theme.

 

As for software, Gimp is probably one of the more powerful opensource products having many functions that are available in products such as Photoshop. Another alternative is Picasa

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CapeDoc

+CapeDoc

Posted
Posted

I've just been enjoying looking at the entries in your Photo competition. ;)

 

(I'm wondering whether I'll recognise some of the locations of photos from the pooks when/if they submit any of their holiday pics here in a few weeks time ;) )

 

MrsB

Sorry Mrs B

Against the local rules. No Photos outside South Africa.

(The earths geological forces are also interfering with Mr Pook's attempt to visit exotic places!)

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The Could Not Zee's

+The Could Not Zee's

Posted
Posted

I would have posted some of my pics but decided that it would be unfair on the rest of the caching community. I would win and other people would feel disheartened. So I decided not publish….. And besides, my wife dropped the memory stick in the washing machine……..e… the cat …….. ;) ... ;)

 

Actually I am not good at telling lies so let me rather tell the truth. I saw the pics posted and all I can say is wow. I can hardly believe they were taken by (can I use the term?) average people (non professionals). I don’t have anything that I would even remotely consider posting on the same forum. Maybe this is why you are not flooded with pics? Are you guys sure that these pics were not taken by professionals and then doctored with photoshop or some such? I have been thinking of buying a GPS but maybe I should rather spend the money on a CAMERA, ….and maybe a photographer.

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Hesamati

+Hesamati

Posted
Posted

<p>My first ever forum contribution and now I want to upload a photo...? :) Let's see what comes out the other side... ddcbf4c1-5030-492c-86d6-2f173d10d042.jpg Technically it is not such a great shot, but I like the idea it represents - new growth after a fire, call it "Green Promise". Was taken in 2009 in the Kogelberg behind Kleinmond close to an archived cache Tall Story.</p>

<br>

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the pooks

+the pooks

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Posted

Thanks for that Hesamati. Maybe you can go a little bigger, seeing as though this is a photo thread, so we want to see the photo - 640 wide or even 800. I have been using 640 - any thoughts out there on what would be an optimum size for photo's on this thread?

 

Here's a link to Hesamati's log for Tall Story

 

I use "Insert Link" in Firefox. IE must have something similar. And yes, yes, I know one can add a link to the photo itself, so that you can just click on the photo to get to the log/cache. It's a preference thing, I up to now like to to see the obvious font change that indicates a link.

 

Where's everybody!?

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Hesamati

+Hesamati

Posted
Posted

see this is my problem - how do I get this to the required size?

Tom I'll share my wealth of experience with you... :) You must just open the photo itself and use that address. Like...

6509c147-e17d-4822-ad07-1fc80c29be69.jpg

Assuming of course you uploaded a large enough image in the first place. Seems like the image is down sized in the "log's address".

I see earlier in the thread someone suggested using Photobucket but when I tried that it gave me an error message (something about a dynamic link...). Any solution for that?

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CapeDoc

+CapeDoc

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have to try this as well

Nice pic Tom

(I would have given it a title "Great White" or the like, to help us dof ones out there, or created the link to you actual log, rather than the web page. Read GR's post to see how to make the actual picture clickable.)

Like this:

(if you click on the picture you will be taken to your log)

6509c147-e17d-4822-ad07-1fc80c29be69.jpg

 

(Putting it simply:

- 1) copy the URL of the pic > go back to the forum page and in your reply to the topic click the "Insert Image" icon. image.gifPaste the URL into the pop up box.

- 2) go to the log, or cache page, copy the URL > go back to your reply and highlight all the resulting code from 1) > click the Insert link icon hyperlink.gifand paste the log or cache page Url into the pop up box.)

Edited by CapeDoc
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tomtwogates

+tomtwogates

Posted
Posted

Jeez you guys are all so sharp - must be an age thing - I thought I did copy the URL of the picture as in CapeDoc's step 1 and also step 2 and all I got was a small picture and the link to the cache page!!

 

Also did just as Hesamati suggested and got a smaller picture! Grrrr

 

Will go back to GR's instructions and see if it comes out any different!

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the pooks

+the pooks

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Posted (edited)

Nudge nudge; wink, wink....

 

And I was thinking all the time it is Wazat that is our next judge, but looking back I see

 

Post #57 "Esitoli wins the prize of being Judge for the next round with their ‘Magical Moment’. WELL DONE!"

 

Extensions granted - we are all otherwise occupied with this game that involves a round ball...

 

PM sent

Edited by the pooks
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