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View Full Version : Healthy Big vs Skinny Orange Sea Star Comparison


Samw
01-08-2004, 04:26 AM
I believe they are Echinaster luzonicus

http://www.breeders-registry.gen.ca.us/Reprints/SeaScope/v13_fall/star.htm

The smaller one was brought in from the office and was probably starving for several months. After trying to keep a reef in an unmodified Eclipse 6 for a year, I have to say that it doesn't work. Nothing is really fluorishing in there. The stock 8W light can not support any soft corals or polyps, not even Xenia or Green Star Polyps. The powerfilter does not provide much oxygen either.

Anyhow, the 2 stars were about the same size at first. But clearly, the one in my tank has outgrown the one from the office. You can see the tube feet on the big one but not on the small one.

http://www.hyperdream.com/~samw/reef/Critters/RedSeaStar/154-5500_img_std.jpg

LostMind
01-08-2004, 04:36 AM
Can I take camera lessons from you?? I cant take a decent pic ever!

Samw
01-08-2004, 04:39 AM
Sure. Here it is.

Set camera to quick shutter or auto mode.
Point, focus, click.
Upload the image to PC.
Process the image with Imaging software (BreezeBrowser) and use sharpen option durng the resize.

That'll be $100 please.

:lol:

LostMind
01-08-2004, 04:41 AM
I do all that and set white balance... I use gimp, not breezebrowser because I never heard of breezebrowser before... hmmm.

I think I need a tripod and a better camera :|

Samw
01-08-2004, 04:47 AM
I haven't checked my manual for setting white balance. I don't touch that setting. I only learned how to use manual focus a few months ago and seldomly use it. But in some situations, I definitely need to use manual focus; mostly for taking Macros.

LostMind
01-08-2004, 04:49 AM
Well, whatever you are doing seems to work :)

You have posted some great pics.

I just bought a star that looks just like those from JL. Was sold as a fromia tho.

sumpfinfishe
01-08-2004, 05:33 PM
Sam,
You should try playing with your white balance settting, you can get some really good results sometimes. By no means am I telling you how to take pics Sam :wink: , as you are aware that I think you take some of the best images on the board, this is just a suggestion to try another feature that digital camera's offer.

I use my setting quite a bit when I want to get good coloration without having to take long exposures. I simply take a WB reading of the front of the tank by taking a shot pointed at the tank while my manual WBS is on, and then I just start shooting from there.
If you don't like the results your getting, just take a picture of a white wall or white board or dial your setting back to auto WB. Like I said above, to capture true color from some of the corals and fish in our tanks we need to take long exposures, but if the subject is moving then we can't, so the WBS allows us to do this by adjusting to the colors that are found only in the tank.

Here is a recent image of my brain using the WBS, if I did not use this setting I would have had to take a much longer exposure with a smaller aperature setting otherwise the brain would be overexposed and look fuzzy or tend to glow or glare a little, and with a longer exposure the clown would have also been blurred or out of focus. You can also see how the WBS that I took of the tank didn't effect the white stripes of the clownfish, they still turned out a nice white.

http://www3.telus.net/sumpfinfishe/images/clownbrain.jpg

AJ_77
01-08-2004, 05:55 PM
Good results with that tip, Rich! My ghetto-cam has only Auto...

Love that shot, Pinks are awesome. :cool:

StirCrazy
01-08-2004, 06:06 PM
I second the "you should be using white ballance" remark, if you look at the star fish you probably had to use the software to change the color to match the look of the star fish in actual life.. if you didn't then we would go to your house and see the star fish and say "that doesent look like the pic you showed me" but with white ballance set properly you get the true colors of everything , including the rock, as if you only had daylight on the tank. the problem with lights in this hobby is digital camera don't do actinic well at all so while we see different colors in the rocks when we gool at it with our eyes when you take a pic all the camera will do is show different shades of blue.. the more actinic the worse this effect is. by using white ballance you can reverse this effect. I would highly recomend playing whith white ballance for anyone whith a camera that has that capability.

Steve

Samw
01-08-2004, 08:54 PM
See, I still have a lot to learn. Thanks Rich. I'll make white balance the next feature to learn on my camera. Steve, I have started using the Autolevel option on my photo software lately. Is that what you mean? I'll try posting pics with and without Autoleveling and compare later. Other than that I don't do any white balancing with my software as far as I can see.

EmilyB
01-08-2004, 09:45 PM
WOW Rich :cool:

You guys are going to shame me into figuring out my camera.... :redface:

Delphinus
01-08-2004, 10:00 PM
You guys are going to shame me into one day BUYING a camera...

I tried taking a panorama last night with my wussy 1.0Mp A50 from like .. I don't know ... 1960 or something. It turned out horrible. Might be worth something as a Picasso knockoff though. ... Gonna try again tonight maybe. But man I wish I had something different ....

PS. Sam, what do these orange stars eat? Are they as fussy as the other linckia's? They look similar to linckias. I'm not sure I'm going to try another linckia until I have a much bigger tank, my burgundy linckia didn't seem to do well in my 72g. :frown:

StirCrazy
01-09-2004, 01:15 AM
See, I still have a lot to learn. Thanks Rich. I'll make white balance the next feature to learn on my camera. Steve, I have started using the Autolevel option on my photo software lately. Is that what you mean? I'll try posting pics with and without Autoleveling and compare later. Other than that I don't do any white balancing with my software as far as I can see.

ya I am still sort of a auto level junkie, but it does some funly things.. when it does a auto level it picks what it thinks should be white and then bases the color off that for everything else so if your white is a little on the blue side all the other colors are going to be skewed also.

I find if you use a proper white balance on your camera you will get more "Proper" colors out of the camera instead of the "blue aura" so many of our pics have.

Steve

Samw
01-09-2004, 04:18 AM
PS. Sam, what do these orange stars eat? Are they as fussy as the other linckia's? They look similar to linckias. I'm not sure I'm going to try another linckia until I have a much bigger tank, my burgundy linckia didn't seem to do well in my 72g. :frown:

Yes, they can easily be mistaken as Linkias as the author of the link above also states.

I don't target feed them and I've never watched them eat anything. They crawl on the glass a lot so they must be eating the film of algae. They seem easier to keep than Linkias and Fromias. I haven't been able to keep Linkias and Fromias alive for any length of time. Whereas with these, the first one I've had for 5 months so far and the other for 4 so far and they don't show any signs of rotting.

sumpfinfishe
01-09-2004, 11:16 AM
Sam,
It's too bad your not going to be there on Sunday or I could have given you a quick lesson on white balance, and then you could have given me a quick one on macro's :mrgreen:

Drop me a line if Seth can't make it, otherwise I'll let him pry it out of my hands :biggrin: