Picking Lice With The 70-200 VR2!!

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:44:04 -0500, LOL! wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:43:55 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:54:40 -0500, George Kerby
wrote:


As I recall, there were extra certificaion needed for cave diving. I must
admit, I never had any interest is such things. Hell, I get weird in a MRI
machine! I just wanted to blow bubbles and take pictures on pretty reefs. I
have been to Flower Gardens in the Texas Gulf and Cozumel. Bonaire, I
understand, is a destination that ant diver should add: It's on my 'Bucket
List'. How do you like the Pennekamp Park? We're planning a trip to the Keys
in January.

Depends. If it's a family trip and there are non-divers in the group,
Pennekamp is a good destination. Non-divers can swim and snorkel, and
divers can shore dive. There's a reconstruction of a Spanish wreck
about 100' offshore. For a group of divers, it's too crowded with
swimmers and snorklers. It is a good compromise for a family group.

The divers will want to go out on one of the many boats based in Key
Largo. Many of the boats will take both divers and snorklers if you
have family members that do snorkel but don't dive. The better
diving and snorkeling is a few miles offshore. I usually go to
Islamorada instead of Key Largo. However, there are good dive outfits
all down the Keys. A little pre-trip research on dive sites,
especially wrecks, is the way to go.

January can be cold. Not cold like you have in the north, but
uncomfortably cold for snorklers and divers. Skins are a good
investment, and trap enough body-heated water to add to your comfort.
Not a dive suit, but a Lycra skin like:
http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear-44/1...-Jumpsuit.html
About $30 in most dive shops in the area.

I wear a full skin on every dive because I get a highly allergic
reaction to Fire Coral. I have to get shots after or the wounds swell
and fester. I have scars on my hands from Fire Coral when I forgot my
dive gloves. My wife, a non-diver, wears a skin when snorkeling to
keep her back from being sunburned.

Here I am in a skin at Sting Ray City in the Caymans:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...r213/skins.jpg
Note the "Dilbert's boss's hair".

Oh my. Look at all the basement living trolls pretending like they've
actually done something interesting once in their lives!

LOL!

This particular poster can't be a "basement living troll". Florida
houses don't *have* basements. The only way to have a basement in a
house in this area is to build the house on fill and have the ground
floor several feet higher than street level.

Having never been to Florida - despite your tall tales of imaginary
trips on week-long treks in the Everglades seeking rare botanical
samples - you wouldn't know that.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:07:11 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:44:04 -0500, LOL! wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:43:55 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:54:40 -0500, George Kerby
wrote:


As I recall, there were extra certificaion needed for cave diving. I must
admit, I never had any interest is such things. Hell, I get weird in a MRI
machine! I just wanted to blow bubbles and take pictures on pretty reefs. I
have been to Flower Gardens in the Texas Gulf and Cozumel. Bonaire, I
understand, is a destination that ant diver should add: It's on my 'Bucket
List'. How do you like the Pennekamp Park? We're planning a trip to the Keys
in January.

Depends. If it's a family trip and there are non-divers in the group,
Pennekamp is a good destination. Non-divers can swim and snorkel, and
divers can shore dive. There's a reconstruction of a Spanish wreck
about 100' offshore. For a group of divers, it's too crowded with
swimmers and snorklers. It is a good compromise for a family group.

The divers will want to go out on one of the many boats based in Key
Largo. Many of the boats will take both divers and snorklers if you
have family members that do snorkel but don't dive. The better
diving and snorkeling is a few miles offshore. I usually go to
Islamorada instead of Key Largo. However, there are good dive outfits
all down the Keys. A little pre-trip research on dive sites,
especially wrecks, is the way to go.

January can be cold. Not cold like you have in the north, but
uncomfortably cold for snorklers and divers. Skins are a good
investment, and trap enough body-heated water to add to your comfort.
Not a dive suit, but a Lycra skin like:
http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear-44/1...-Jumpsuit.html
About $30 in most dive shops in the area.

I wear a full skin on every dive because I get a highly allergic
reaction to Fire Coral. I have to get shots after or the wounds swell
and fester. I have scars on my hands from Fire Coral when I forgot my
dive gloves. My wife, a non-diver, wears a skin when snorkeling to
keep her back from being sunburned.

Here I am in a skin at Sting Ray City in the Caymans:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...r213/skins.jpg
Note the "Dilbert's boss's hair".

Oh my. Look at all the basement living trolls pretending like they've
actually done something interesting once in their lives!

LOL!

This particular poster can't be a "basement living troll". Florida
houses don't *have* basements. The only way to have a basement in a
house in this area is to build the house on fill and have the ground
floor several feet higher than street level.

Having never been to Florida - despite your tall tales of imaginary
trips on week-long treks in the Everglades seeking rare botanical
samples - you wouldn't know that.

No. What you wouldn't know is that I was proving a valuable point. You
stupid **** of a dip****.

I know all too well about the limerock of Florida. Not only after having
kayaked many of the spring-fed streams but having dove in some of them as
well. I particularly like the short video I have of a larger than
bowling-ball sized rock being upheld in a spring, tumbling and turning on
what seems to be solid sand. It amazed me that the sediments in any swamp
areas were never more than a few inches thick. Unlike up in Canada where it
can be many yards deep. The limerock bed of Florida is quite interesting,
after having dug into limerock myself a few times. Like the time I was
trying to crack some black-walnuts that I had found and saved while
documenting how to find quartz crystals in the Ozarks (got some nice museum
quality specimens). By placing the black-walnuts on what I had thought was
firm limerock to crack them with a hammer, and the walnuts would become
embedded in the rock from one hammer blow. It finally became clear why that
airliner that dove headfirst into the 'glades couldn't be retrieved. It
became one with the limerock. Or the times I was fishing in some, what I
thought were, land-locked quarries. And I noticed my bait was slowly
floating south, when there was no wind. The water flowing through what
appeared to be perfectly solid "rock".

So don't give me this **** I don't know what I'm talking about.

Now, did you get the point I was trying to make? Or are you going to act
like the perfectly stupid **** of an ass that you have already proved
yourself to be? Time and time again. I won't expect anything less than that
of you. You've been too consistent in that regard.

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:43:03 -0500, LOL! wrote:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:07:11 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:44:04 -0500, LOL! wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:43:55 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Wed, 04 Aug 2010 18:54:40 -0500, George Kerby
wrote:


As I recall, there were extra certificaion needed for cave diving. I must
admit, I never had any interest is such things. Hell, I get weird in a MRI
machine! I just wanted to blow bubbles and take pictures on pretty reefs. I
have been to Flower Gardens in the Texas Gulf and Cozumel. Bonaire, I
understand, is a destination that ant diver should add: It's on my 'Bucket
List'. How do you like the Pennekamp Park? We're planning a trip to the Keys
in January.

Depends. If it's a family trip and there are non-divers in the group,
Pennekamp is a good destination. Non-divers can swim and snorkel, and
divers can shore dive. There's a reconstruction of a Spanish wreck
about 100' offshore. For a group of divers, it's too crowded with
swimmers and snorklers. It is a good compromise for a family group.

The divers will want to go out on one of the many boats based in Key
Largo. Many of the boats will take both divers and snorklers if you
have family members that do snorkel but don't dive. The better
diving and snorkeling is a few miles offshore. I usually go to
Islamorada instead of Key Largo. However, there are good dive outfits
all down the Keys. A little pre-trip research on dive sites,
especially wrecks, is the way to go.

January can be cold. Not cold like you have in the north, but
uncomfortably cold for snorklers and divers. Skins are a good
investment, and trap enough body-heated water to add to your comfort.
Not a dive suit, but a Lycra skin like:
http://www.scuba.com/scuba-gear-44/1...-Jumpsuit.html
About $30 in most dive shops in the area.

I wear a full skin on every dive because I get a highly allergic
reaction to Fire Coral. I have to get shots after or the wounds swell
and fester. I have scars on my hands from Fire Coral when I forgot my
dive gloves. My wife, a non-diver, wears a skin when snorkeling to
keep her back from being sunburned.

Here I am in a skin at Sting Ray City in the Caymans:
http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f2...r213/skins.jpg
Note the "Dilbert's boss's hair".

Oh my. Look at all the basement living trolls pretending like they've
actually done something interesting once in their lives!

LOL!

This particular poster can't be a "basement living troll". Florida
houses don't *have* basements. The only way to have a basement in a
house in this area is to build the house on fill and have the ground
floor several feet higher than street level.

Having never been to Florida - despite your tall tales of imaginary
trips on week-long treks in the Everglades seeking rare botanical
samples - you wouldn't know that.


p.s. It's not just "week long" trips into the Everglades. Try 9-month long
treks while LIVING in the Everglades to document its many life-forms. You
namby-pamby ****wad. Go eat your pablum.



No. What you wouldn't know is that I was proving a valuable point. You
stupid **** of a dip****.

I know all too well about the limerock of Florida. Not only after having
kayaked many of the spring-fed streams but having dove in some of them as
well. I particularly like the short video I have of a larger than
bowling-ball sized rock being upheld in a spring, tumbling and turning on
what seems to be solid sand. It amazed me that the sediments in any swamp
areas were never more than a few inches thick. Unlike up in Canada where it
can be many yards deep. The limerock bed of Florida is quite interesting,
after having dug into limerock myself a few times. Like the time I was
trying to crack some black-walnuts that I had found and saved while
documenting how to find quartz crystals in the Ozarks (got some nice museum
quality specimens). By placing the black-walnuts on what I had thought was
firm limerock to crack them with a hammer, and the walnuts would become
embedded in the rock from one hammer blow. It finally became clear why that
airliner that dove headfirst into the 'glades couldn't be retrieved. It
became one with the limerock. Or the times I was fishing in some, what I
thought were, land-locked quarries. And I noticed my bait was slowly
floating south, when there was no wind. The water flowing through what
appeared to be perfectly solid "rock".

So don't give me this **** I don't know what I'm talking about.

Now, did you get the point I was trying to make? Or are you going to act
like the perfectly stupid **** of an ass that you have already proved
yourself to be? Time and time again. I won't expect anything less than that
of you. You've been too consistent in that regard.

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:03:58 -0500, LOL! wrote:


Having never been to Florida - despite your tall tales of imaginary
trips on week-long treks in the Everglades seeking rare botanical
samples - you wouldn't know that.


p.s. It's not just "week long" trips into the Everglades. Try 9-month long
treks while LIVING in the Everglades to document its many life-forms. You
namby-pamby ****wad. Go eat your pablum.

Like this more colorful of the many many dozens of species of rare and
endangered "Tree Snails" that I documented. Found on many dozens of remote
and isolated hammocks scattered throughout the Everglades. Reachable only
by kayak or airboat. (Airboats are far too noisy, they scare the wildlife,
would never even consider them for photography treks. Leave them for the
know-nothing tourists, and idiot hunters, that scare away everything they
are trying to find.)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4078/4861855661_65a5f81b42.jpg

Greatly JPG degraded because even a thumbnail of this particular species is
highly marketable. You don't even get to see the ones with decent
composition.

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:03:58 -0500, LOL! wrote:

p.s. It's not just "week long" trips into the Everglades. Try 9-month long
treks while LIVING in the Everglades to document its many life-forms. You
namby-pamby ****wad. Go eat your pablum.

Do you really think that anyone reading your posts, anyone at all,
believes these stories?

It's probably excellent therapy for you to create these stories about
your life-as-you-would-have-liked-to-have-lived-it, but are you so
delusional that you think you are actually fooling anyone?

Talk about laughing out loud.



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:56:03 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:03:58 -0500, LOL! wrote:

p.s. It's not just "week long" trips into the Everglades. Try 9-month long
treks while LIVING in the Everglades to document its many life-forms. You
namby-pamby ****wad. Go eat your pablum.

Do you really think that anyone reading your posts, anyone at all,
believes these stories?

It's probably excellent therapy for you to create these stories about
your life-as-you-would-have-liked-to-have-lived-it, but are you so
delusional that you think you are actually fooling anyone?

Talk about laughing out loud.

Do you think that ANYONE believes your bull**** about your "tourist level"
scuba diving in safe and controlled conditions once or twice in your life?

Talk about laughing out loud.

LOL!

Where's YOUR photos of Tree Snails from remote hammocks in Florida? Eh?
We're all waiting to prove you even get out of the house.

Oh, and thanks, for proving what I previously thought and posted:


Now, did you get the point I was trying to make? Or are you going to act
like the perfectly stupid **** of an ass that you have already proved
yourself to be? Time and time again. I won't expect anything less than that
of you. You've been too consistent in that regard.

You ARE consistent, if nothing else! This clinches it, you are too ****ing
stupid to even figure out the lesson you need to learn from this. What a
waste of my valuable time.

LOL!

"tony cooper" wrote in message
news
On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:03:58 -0500, LOL! wrote:

p.s. It's not just "week long" trips into the Everglades. Try 9-month long
treks while LIVING in the Everglades to document its many life-forms. You
namby-pamby ****wad. Go eat your pablum.

Do you really think that anyone reading your posts, anyone at all,
believes these stories?

It's probably excellent therapy for you to create these stories about
your life-as-you-would-have-liked-to-have-lived-it, but are you so
delusional that you think you are actually fooling anyone?

Talk about laughing out loud.



I too occasionally feed Walter Mitty.



--
Peter

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:21:22 -0500, LOL! wrote:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:56:03 -0400, tony cooper
wrote:

On Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:03:58 -0500, LOL! wrote:

p.s. It's not just "week long" trips into the Everglades. Try 9-month long
treks while LIVING in the Everglades to document its many life-forms. You
namby-pamby ****wad. Go eat your pablum.

Do you really think that anyone reading your posts, anyone at all,
believes these stories?

It's probably excellent therapy for you to create these stories about
your life-as-you-would-have-liked-to-have-lived-it, but are you so
delusional that you think you are actually fooling anyone?

Talk about laughing out loud.

Do you think that ANYONE believes your bull**** about your "tourist level"
scuba diving in safe and controlled conditions once or twice in your life?

Yeah, I think people do believe what I write. I don't spin fantasy
yarns about things-that-never-happened. The scuba diving I've done
*has* been done in safe and controlled conditions. As it should be.
If I ever post an image of a rare tree snail, it will an image that
*I* took and an image that is presented without false claims of being
deliberately degraded. If it has been altered (as my recent violinist
photo was), that fact will be stated as full disclosure. I'm not
trying to fool anyone.

Talk about laughing out loud.

LOL!

Where's YOUR photos of Tree Snails from remote hammocks in Florida? Eh?
We're all waiting to prove you even get out of the house.

--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

"tony cooper" wrote in message
...


If I ever post an image of a rare tree snail, it will an image that
*I* took and an image that is presented without false claims of being
deliberately degraded. If it has been altered (as my recent violinist
photo was), that fact will be stated as full disclosure. I'm not
trying to fool anyone.


Tony,
If an image is presented as a pictorial, why do you feel disclosure of
things like a background change is necessary. I think that if you are
presenting a PJ shot, where background is a part of the scene, or a pure
nature shot, no alteration other than normal adjustments should be made. for
purposes of my comment I define "normal adjustments" as one which enhances
the image without changing its essential message. IOW the reason the shot
was taken, should not be altered.
If I am presenting a pictorial, I think anything goes.
That of course, is just my opinion.

I can understand if you are


--
Peter

On Thu, 5 Aug 2010 09:20:33 -0400, "Peter"
wrote:

"tony cooper" wrote in message
.. .


If I ever post an image of a rare tree snail, it will an image that
*I* took and an image that is presented without false claims of being
deliberately degraded. If it has been altered (as my recent violinist
photo was), that fact will be stated as full disclosure. I'm not
trying to fool anyone.


Tony,
If an image is presented as a pictorial, why do you feel disclosure of
things like a background change is necessary.

It depends on the forum and where the image is displayed. I don't
participate in Flickr, but I might put the image up there without the
disclosure. This forum, though, is different.

There's an issue of credibility here thanks to our
participant-of-many-names. On careful examination of the violinist
photo, you'll see some careless masking around the violin strings. If
I don't tell you the photo has been significantly altered, you might
start doubting my credibility on other photos.

This particular image was a project photo anyway. I thought it was a
good project for practicing using a layer mask to drop the background.
There are so many little areas (mostly around the violin) where the
original background showed through that the detail work was extensive.

Here's the original taken straight from RAW to .jpg.

http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/photos...3_BHGFw-XL.jpg

That area around the hands and violin strings was a bitch to mask. I
had to use a shot of the same trees so the masking around the girl's
hair wouldn't show.

I think that if you are
presenting a PJ shot, where background is a part of the scene, or a pure
nature shot, no alteration other than normal adjustments should be made. for
purposes of my comment I define "normal adjustments" as one which enhances
the image without changing its essential message. IOW the reason the shot
was taken, should not be altered.

If I am presenting a pictorial, I think anything goes.
That of course, is just my opinion.

When I link to photos in the "Street" photography forum I participate
in, I leave them as-shot as far as intrusive background. In that
group, background stuff is quite acceptable that would be criticized
here. We are expected to shoot scenes as we see them and not to go
for posed shots. We can edit for contrast (most shots are in black
and white) and other "normal" adjustments.

This shot was well-received in that forum, but would be roundly panned
he
http://tonycooper.smugmug.com/Other/...7_W7ACa-XL.jpg



--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida