bumblebee

Here's a couple of better macro shots.

Yes, the AI struggles mightily with human hands, but considering it was released in July 2022 at version 1, and we're currently at version 5, I expect it to conquer hands by this year.

...these three images were generated simply by me prompting the AI with a few words. So those glowing marbles were its response to me saying "middle-aged man playing marbles with his 10-year-old self".

Huge loss of a gentle man who was both an ambassador and scholar for marbles. Always wished I could have met him.

Our buy/sell forum sees little activity, but there are also some very active FB marble auction groups that have daily posts, sometimes some real killers.

I can't outbid today's bidders on those sites, but I do sometimes still snag something on eBay when no one's looking.

Wow, that's neat, but I suppose it makes sense given the material that these would show up once in a while, but that's a new one for me.

Here's another try although the camera sensor choked on all the white on that foreground marble.

I salute anyone who takes good, crisp photos of marbles. It's not easy.

18 minutes ago, hdesousa said:

Neat way of increasing depth of focus!  I was wondering how you managed to get so many marbles in such good focus when I can't even get one. (3.75")

Lovely mega agate! Is it faceted?

Focus stacking would help if you took a close-up but it looks pretty good to me. You probably had a fairly high f-stop there? Mine were taken at f/5.6.

51 minutes ago, cheese said:

Wow, cool idea and a lot of work I assume, but it made for a great photo!

No, actually the camera does all the focus shifting to take the 20 photos. Many modern DSLRs offer this feature.

Most of the work for me is the setup and then a few minutes of processing them through the software.

A lot of photographs you see, especially close-ups, are using this technique because of limited depth of field on lenses.

Collected these handsome realers over the last 15 years.

Photo is made up of 20 images, each focused at a different point then blended together in Photoshop in order to get everything in focus.

The one in the foreground is a tad over 1".

5 minutes ago, schmoozer said:

Just kicked in some $ to help the proce$$.

Thank you! It helps practically and also inspires me to get down and dirty battling the technology. I imagine I will give the new server transfer a shot next weekend.

Thanks I appreciate it!

Long story short: A year or so ago, I increased the maximum image size significantly, not realizing that the board stores all pasted photos as an uncompressed format known as PNG. So suddenly our storage usage at least doubled, especially with more activity in the past year.

My new hosting has limited storage, so we ran out of space today. I reconverted and reuploaded a bunch of these uncompressed PNG files as specially compressed formats, but it's a tedious manual process.

I also reduced the maximum image size to reduce future image sizes.

Finally, my server doesn't support the latest board versions, so I have to spin up a new one and transfer everything. I figure it's time to get a bigger one, so it'll be $20/m base instead of the current $10/m base. That will buy us more storage and give us another year before I have to look at another option which is to locate all of our images on cheap "cloud" storage.

Kudos to Chad G for playing spammer whack-a-mole.

I tried a few things and finally just turned off automatic registration for new users. Now I have to approve new users before they can post.

Nice colorful marbles suitable to a colorful Carnaval !

https://www.galenleather.com/products/wood-pen-display-box-with-wood-lid

The pen slots are 0.8" wide so that should accompany shooters, assuming you don't mind them touching.

Only thing I don't like is the lid doesn't lock.

I have been putting off a major update because it requires setting up a new server with newer hosting software, otherwise the board updates will no longer install.

I'm a professional procrastinator but eventually I'll have no choice!

Wow, that's very fascinating and charming. An active, dynamic community of marble players and makers right under our noses!

@Steph, didn't I find some newspaper ad from Canada that mentioned a more colorful variety than the usual offering from Asia?

My brain betrays me. 😗

Such a loss. He brought much joy and knowledge and passion to the hobby.

1 hour ago, Fire1981 said:

I just got a special Agate from a Marble Buddy here on the Board that I can add to my collection. Anytime you can snag one these do so. The hit marks and backlighting on these are always fun🔥

 

Nice group! You guys are inspiring me to come up with some sort of custom case where the marble holes contain a bright LED light for backlighting. That would be fantastic!

2 hours ago, akroorka said:

Nice shots bumblebee. I will add a few of mine--it took about 100 shots.

The facets are hard to get an image of under the best of circumstances.

If you have never backlit a faceted Agate--do it and be rewarded. I have one "faceted" that I could have sworn that was mint/untouched until---backlit.

I posted an old bruiser back lit and not---very cool!!

Happy New Year bumblebee!!

Marble--On!!

Wow, you have patience!

Your last one is gorgeous with all that backlighting. Looks like a full moon!

Happy New Year

My macro lens can do better with better lighting, but this is a good example for now.

Just beware using a lens like this on your "mint" glass marbles. They're more damaged than you think. 😉

Notice the grind pattern of the facets varies because the marble was being turned.

Three unusual things on a mildly rotting Halloween pumpkin I'm finally throwing away before 2023.

The center one was affixed to something once but looks like slag glass that was pressed into a mold.

Left is an undyed faceted agate and right is a vaseline glass tear drop.

OK people, when your adult child gives you this mug for Christmas, you are officially chronic.

To be fair, I am unsure whether I agree with this mug. What I do agree with is that I have a problem. 🤣

Wow...look at the shooting technique of some of these fellas. Seriously deadly aim, and artful wind up.