Mike_tn's photostream  

"God help me."
(concise)

Flickr can be a great place to grow in photography.

About my photostream. All shots are original size and there are no physical download restrictions. I like to share. To download you click on a photo, do so even though it looks big already. You need to get to the page style of it where the photo sits alone and you can add comments. Then up above the photo go to "Actions" then "View All Sizes" then "large" or "original" are good choices. "Large" is good just to view. Better than web page enlargements. "Original" has higher resolution for whatever you want to do with it, like print. If you do download, I use Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 copyright setting.

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

(Mike_tn's addition: you are free to crop it, blog it, email it, all with a link to the original so others can get what they want. And if you'd like extra privileges please ask. I'm generous in general but not likely to offer much more if people are in the shot.)

Click the link at bottom of this profile, near the Creative Commons icon, for more details about this license.

Enjoy and hope to see you on flickr.

Because I am sometimes asked about these two,
gear and post-processing
and it tells what you might do with some entry level basics,
here is my list:

Gear

Current Camera: D40 Nikon
Previous Camera: Kodak Z740

Lens: AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Lens: AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4-5.6
Lens: AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8
Lens: 250D Canon screw on Close-Up for 50-135mm use
All lenses are 52mm filter size and f-numbers are maximums

SB-700 Nikon strobe (new June 2011)
Circular Polarizing, ND2 and B&W color Filters.
Manfrotto Tripod, Monopod & Ball Head.
Lowepro Flipside 200 backpack


Software

Started with Windows, Adobe and Corel and then dual booted with Linux and then May 2012 threw out all Windows Operating Sytems and Windows based software except one backup program, Acronis TIH because it is OS independent.

Linux Operating System - Debian Linux Stable and Testing versions. And use Ubuntu Linux on a USB stick for portability and rescue.
digiKam - photo management application on Linux, KDE platform.
XnViewMP(multi-platform) - photo view, organize, convert
GIMP2 - GNU Image Manipulation Program
UFRaw - Unidentified Flying Raw


Digital Aside

Getting involved in digital photos and flickr, leads to the inevitable learning of computing. I enjoy learning about computing and software for fun as much as running around the woods or urban jungles with my camera. A computing extra:


Linux distributions are obtained for the low low price of free. I'm amazed by them. There are other good ones, hundreds even.

If you never tried, in a nutshell it's this way:
HAVE FUN COMPUTING!
The details...
Get your free GNU/Linux OS downloaded to a CD or DVD. You get it from their website. Like debian.org, ubuntu.com, or find more links at distrowatch.com.

You should pre-test the Linux brand with a "Live CD" and see how it runs on your machine. A Live CD is the entire system downloaded as an ISO file at no cost and burned to CD. It runs from your CD-DVD tray loading what it needs to the RAM without touching the hard drive. You boot from the CD when you turn on the PC. That disk which can also be put on a Live USB will also become a primary computer rescue tool for you. Free and rescue just seem to always go together. This can be done with Mac hardware too, I just haven't, no offense intended to Apple lovers.

At your PC desktop or laptop,If not set up already, make a hard disk partition, I make at least four partitions. Always make a backup of your current partitions or critical data before partitioning a hard drive. Dual booting Linux with Windows on the same hard disk may be a good way to try Linux but in the long run is also troublesome because you juggle too many things. Also after XP, Microsoft made Windows 7 compatibility with Linux harder. If you dual boot Linux with W7, you must reformat it all and do not allow the useless tiny Windows "system reserved partition" to be made in the first place. Only allow 4 total partitions because W7 will not recognize extended partitions properly if you use Linux with it. I learned the hard way, but was backed up. So as I said it's better to use one or the other but I did not. New users will likely dual boot or better yet have two PCs, one for your familiar OS and one with Linux. Microsoft tries to make it complicated for OS competition like Linux to be used. There will likely be new hoops to jump with the next Microsoft version. Use a Linux Live CD tool like "GParted" to do all partitioning whether you dual boot or not. Backup each partition individually and the begin by wiping the entire partition table. All remnants of Windows are removed, right down to the boot track. And then put the old OS back if you want it in one partition. However it is better off you are not being controlled by the Borg Collective in the first place. Another variation is to format into four partitions and install two Linux versions in two of the four. Empty space is between the two mostly for storage and ~5GB for Linux "swap". You can usually back-out of the install during its setup period at anytime before a final installation warning is given. The distributions I use work out the kinks automatically for dual booting if you want to do that. I never leave it to chance any more though. I partition in advance, tell it where "root" is to be, where "Grub" is to be installed, where "swap" is to be installed. It may want to format something so know what "filesystem" type you want. Read about these things online in advance. There is a large Linux Community, just search. Once installed there can be hitches running the software regarding hardware recognition that need working out. There is a ton of helpful support on their forums, go there first. Or just delete what you installed and try a different Linux distribution.

There are three things which are of concern to get right. First your graphics drivers. If you have Intel you are home free. nVIDIA works but takes some practice. Second are wireless drivers if needed. Trouble here is you need to get online to fix any possible problem. Best to have a wired setup to learn on or at the very least may need a wired PC connection to go back and forth figuring things out if the wireless driver you have does not work immediately. There are fixes for just about everything though. And for myself, photo editing with good mouse control is vital, so it has to include the package "xinput" which Debian and Ubuntu both do. After that you have to find good mouse settings and write a simple script to make it "go".

Good things about Linux are, lots of support, community help like we have on flickr, tons of updated software at your fingertips all the time. All at no cost though support and sharing with others is encouraged. A richly endowed command-line terminal. The option most times to use either a Graphical Interface or command line terminal to do tasks. High stability. Highly configurable to your liking. No Anti-Virus required. No planned obsolescence.


Other

I post-process life with the Bible, Catholic teaching, Alcoholics Anonymous text and the readers of these. Success is not guaranteed by membership alone.

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Playing on the computer and getting out with the camera are my diversions. The rest of the days I work, grocery shop, cook, do laundry, walk for exercise, pay bills, run errands, just like everyone else. Faith and Morals are important, and that has an overarching presence for me especially since I quit drinking when I was...37. So I try to get to weekly mass and a weekly AA meeting and "say my prayers" as they say. A set minimum of religious piety has more importance than moderns admit.

*********************

All praise to you Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory.
May the Lord bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen

All work in the photostream is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License



Click any of the icon images left & above for source credits and descriptions.