My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

I've put up a page with my current photo gallery of my similis tanks and
their fry. I got some good photos with my new digital camera in macro mode
which motivated me to post the pictures. Later on, I'll make a more
detailed breeding tank style page.

Here's the URL:

http://www.shwaine.com/fish_similis.html

Enjoy.

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

Cichlidiot wrote:

I've put up a page with my current photo gallery of my similis tanks and
their fry. I got some good photos with my new digital camera in macro mode
which motivated me to post the pictures. Later on, I'll make a more
detailed breeding tank style page.

Here's the URL:

http://www.shwaine.com/fish_similis.html

Enjoy.



Hi,

I think you can improve the quality of your photos,
if you would use more creative means like framing of the fish (golden
section).

Anyway good results for first photos.

Regards

Siggi

--
Homepage http://www.naturundfoto.net
Fische http://www.aquanet.de/Privat/naturaquarium/

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids Siegfried Baesler wrote:

I think you can improve the quality of your photos,
if you would use more creative means like framing of the fish (golden
section).

Golden section is rather hard to do when framing multiple moving subjects.
It's a nice theory, but much harder practice. I've taken photo classes in
the past and found some use golden section as a crutch anyways. It's not a
required thing for framing shots and sometimes looks quite unnatural with
certain subjects. Besides, these are all crops of much larger photographs
to make them small enough to put on a webpage. If I really wanted to, at
the expense of file size, I could recrop to have the main focal object in
a golden section, but I found that to be unneccessary.

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

Cichlidiot wrote:

In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids Siegfried Baesler wrote:



I think you can improve the quality of your photos,
if you would use more creative means like framing of the fish (golden
section).



Golden section is rather hard to do when framing multiple moving subjects.
It's a nice theory, but much harder practice.


That is true, it is a hard job.

I've taken photo classes in
the past and found some use golden section as a crutch anyways. It's not a
required thing for framing shots and sometimes looks quite unnatural with
certain subjects. Besides, these are all crops of much larger photographs
to make them small enough to put on a webpage. If I really wanted to, at
the expense of file size, I could recrop to have the main focal object in
a golden section, but I found that to be unneccessary.


I often see photos from fishes, they look all egual, because of bullseye
focus. Those kind of photos are usful for books, but the more
interesting photos are photos they tell a story and with a photo you can
initiate that.
But this is my personal opinion.

Greatings
Siggi

--
Email
Homepage www.naturundfoto.net
Fische www.aquanet.de/Privat/naturaquarium/
phone +49 30 755 18 770

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids Siegfried B?sler wrote:
I often see photos from fishes, they look all egual, because of bullseye
focus. Those kind of photos are usful for books, but the more
interesting photos are photos they tell a story and with a photo you can
initiate that.
But this is my personal opinion.

Well, if I could really be argumentative here, show me which photo of mine
on that page, other than the whole tank shot and the one closeup of the
similis on the blue-grey-green background, that has the fish in the exact
center of focus. With the exception of the two listed, which would look
rather wierd if shot differently IMO, all the others have the fish
off-center in a fuzzy form of the rule of thirds which takes into account
multiple subjects and the backgrounds.

Take the first photo of the similis in the 10gal. He is in the upper third
of the shot, although a little close to center. The rock is in the left
third. The shell is in the right third. The closeup of the fry in front of
the leaves uses the leaves to create the thirds. The fry is somewhat
off-center. The larger leaf takes up 2/3rds of the photo, the small leaves
make up the other third and the fry is at the margins of the two.

As I said in the first post, I could have cropped these photos to an exact
golden rule in several cases (others could not due to the issue of framing
multiple subjects that I also mentioned), but it would have increased
their file size to an extent I found unneccessary given the fact that the
current croppings don't have any of the fish dead smack in the middle of
the photo except for the closeup of the similis. That one is more of a
portrait which would look rather odd, due to the lack of balancing
background, if the fish were not somewhat centered, but even then, it is
not exactly centered.

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

"Cichlidiot" wrote in message
...
In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids Siegfried B?sler
wrote:
I often see photos from fishes, they look all egual, because of bullseye
focus. Those kind of photos are usful for books, but the more
interesting photos are photos they tell a story and with a photo you can
initiate that.
But this is my personal opinion.

Well, if I could really be argumentative here, show me which photo of mine

Yah Yah Yah. If you didn't want some critical comments why post at all?
You want us all to go 'oh wow'

You remind me of that idiot on American Idol when told his performance
sucked, threw a glass of water in the judges face. Grow up, get a life, and
learn some humility.


Graham.

P.S. I thought the photos were okay, nothing to rave about.

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

Graham Broadbridge wrote in message
.. .
"Cichlidiot" wrote in message
...
In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids Siegfried B?sler
wrote:
I often see photos from fishes, they look all egual, because of
bullseye
focus. Those kind of photos are usful for books, but the more
interesting photos are photos they tell a story and with a photo you
can
initiate that.
But this is my personal opinion.

Well, if I could really be argumentative here, show me which photo of
mine

Yah Yah Yah. If you didn't want some critical comments why post at all?
You want us all to go 'oh wow'

You remind me of that idiot on American Idol when told his performance
sucked, threw a glass of water in the judges face. Grow up, get a life,
and
learn some humility.


Graham.

P.S. I thought the photos were okay, nothing to rave about.



ok, to all involved he
Do you think it might be a good idea if this was the last post in this
thread? Why not just forget about arguing this thread and just move on.
You're not going to convince each other that you are right or they are wrong
etc. Really there is no point to continuing this thread is there? unless you
really enjoy arguing of course.

So, who can stand up here and help keep our fantastic aquaria groups free of
silly arguements like this?

paul.

p.s. I won't be reading any further posts in this thread, so please don't
bother to reply to this post.

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

"Cichlidiot" wrote in message
...

I've put up a page with my current photo gallery of my similis tanks and
their fry. I got some good photos with my new digital camera in macro mode
which motivated me to post the pictures. Later on, I'll make a more
detailed breeding tank style page.

Here's the URL:

http://www.shwaine.com/fish_similis.html

Enjoy.

I don't know much about photography, although I'm learning. :-) So, all the
rules of thirds, golden framing, etc, doesn't particularly interest me. To
me, the main jist is to be able to see the fish clearly so you can see if
you like them. The graininess you spoke of could be alleviated if you had
more light over the top of the tank when taking your photos. The aggression
with the fry from the adults I believe you would see completely alleviated
if you added a dozen more small shells to the tank. In my 20 long with my L.
multifasciauts I have nine adults, a large bunch of fry swimming around and
over three dozen shells that are large enough for an adult to swim into
easily. I also have quite a few smaller shells that I brought back from the
lake. If you look at the page I did for my multies,
http://www.amateurcichlids.com/fish/...asciatus.shtml you'll see in the
middle one of the pictures I took at the lake showing the vast amount of
shells these little guys had to choose from. ;-) The similis live in similar
conditions in a few locations in the lake. L. similis are more apt to live
among the rocks and pebbles a bit deeper than the multies. But even in that
habitat, they have hundreds of small caves and crevices to choose from to
live in.
These are great little fish and I'm glad you're enjoying them. It's also
nice of you to take the time to put them up on a webpage to share your fish
with the world. Don't let any of the criticism discourage you.
Amateur
www.amateurcichlids.com

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

In rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids Amateur Cichlids wrote:
you like them. The graininess you spoke of could be alleviated if you had
more light over the top of the tank when taking your photos. The aggression

I think the graininess of the Pentax photos was more a combination of my
cheap scanner and using 400 ISO film. Probably mostly the scanner though
as the photos themselves are pretty clear, but the scans were turning out
dark and grainy even on the highest quality scanner settings.

with the fry from the adults I believe you would see completely alleviated
if you added a dozen more small shells to the tank. In my 20 long with my L.
multifasciauts I have nine adults, a large bunch of fry swimming around and
over three dozen shells that are large enough for an adult to swim into
easily. I also have quite a few smaller shells that I brought back from the
lake. If you look at the page I did for my multies,
http://www.amateurcichlids.com/fish/...asciatus.shtml you'll see in the
middle one of the pictures I took at the lake showing the vast amount of
shells these little guys had to choose from. ;-) The similis live in similar
conditions in a few locations in the lake. L. similis are more apt to live
among the rocks and pebbles a bit deeper than the multies. But even in that
habitat, they have hundreds of small caves and crevices to choose from to
live in.

Shells are such an issue in this area. Very few fish places sell
appropriately shaped and sized shells. What I have now have actually been
gathered over 2 years of searching shops for shells. The conch shells were
particularly a happy find since the wild caught males are about 2" long
and need something the size of a conch shell. Part of the reason the two
rock piles were put in was when I first got the similis, I didn't have the
conch shells yet, so I was trying to give the males a choice of territory.
Turns out the fry like the rocks more than the males.

So one thing a local store that doesn't carry shells (but sells shell
dwellers, go figure) mentioned was that there was an import shop that sold
escargot shells. I checked it out but what made me leery was it said the
shells were prewashed. I know prewashed would be great if I were eating
escargot out of the shells, but I don't know if this means just a good
disinfecting with say boiling water or if I have to worry about detergents
of some sort being in the shells. Any experience using "prewashed"
escargot shells intended for human use in the tanks? I just lost most of
my paracyps due to accidental contaimination from their tank's canopy.
Don't want to go through the same with the similis. I had been planning to
use the similis in the 10 gallon as a guinea pig, but now I'm too attached
to it as well (and thinking it would make a good seed for genetic
diversity by moving a few select fry from each pair to that tank to
hopefully make a second colony of genetically diverse fish, the fact I
have only two females breeding in the main tank right now is rather
genetically restrictive).

These are great little fish and I'm glad you're enjoying them. It's also
nice of you to take the time to put them up on a webpage to share your fish
with the world. Don't let any of the criticism discourage you.

It was rather deflating. Took some of the fun out of my new toy (the
digital camera). Probably why I was so defensive. Well, that and I've
taken photo classes in the past. Practically lived my senior year of high
school in the photo lab and the only thing keeping me out of the lab right
now in grad school is the lack of privacy for my SSN in the current
registration system the university has for the on-campus photo labs, so I
refuse to register and put myself at risk for identity theft. Which is why
I finally got a digital camera instead of macro photo equip for my Pentax
and a better scanner.

My "Lamp." similis photo gallery
 

"Cichlidiot" wrote in message
...
Shells are such an issue in this area. Very few fish places sell
appropriately shaped and sized shells. What I have now have actually been
gathered over 2 years of searching shops for shells. The conch shells were
particularly a happy find since the wild caught males are about 2" long
and need something the size of a conch shell. Part of the reason the two
rock piles were put in was when I first got the similis, I didn't have the
conch shells yet, so I was trying to give the males a choice of territory.
Turns out the fry like the rocks more than the males.

If you're a member of Cichlid-forum, (www.cichlid-forum.com) Send a Private
Message to "movingsram". He's a nice kids and I picked up my multies from
him. He orders shells on line. Not escargot shells but the place he orders
from has an actual assortment of different types of shells from around the
world. While I was picking up my fish, he'd just received a box of a couple
hundred of shells. I think it was like $50 bucks. Even though I believe
there's a minimum order, you can order a box, take what you need and cut a
deal for the rest with your LFS. ;-)
Another option is to add more rocks to the tank. Similis are more commonly
found among the rocks than among the shells so they shouldn't mind.
AC