Camera Labs

I was just walking around in this section and love the many images that you can find here. Good work, all ya contributors, thank you!
But I find it a little irritating that there is no order or system how all those beautiful images are sorted. Then Patti's "Duck-O'-the Day" thread came to my mind and I thought "Gee, why not try to start a single thread per species (e.g. "Roses") that slowly fills up with shots!?". Then you have those beautiful pictures of roses together with the relevant c&c in one single thread, adding new posts as we go.

I'd like to do two things for now:
- I've set up a poll here, so please vote, what you think of this idea. And give any c&c as you please.
- We have to discuss a little before storming into this thing, as this bulletin-board does not allow for easy merging or sorting of different threads/posts. The only thing which can be done easily is splitting. So E.g. an "Insect"-thread could be split later on into "Butterflies", "Dragonflies", "Spiders" , and "Other Insects". Still I'd love to see some suggestions here as to which permanent threads/categories you'd like to see.
Here's what I'd suggest, guessing from former posts and my own hierarchical tag-scheme in Lightroom:

Plants
- Flowers
-- Roses
-- Orchids
-- Poppies
-- Crocuses
-- Dandelions
-- Daisies
-- Tulips
-- Thistles
- Fruits
- Crop
- Grass
- Cacti (Well, put the blossoms of the cacti under flowers?)
- Moss
- Mushrooms/Fungi
- Trees

Animals
- Insects
-- Bees, Wasps
-- Flies
-- Bugs
-- Dragonflies
-- Butterflies and moths
-- Caterpillars
- Spiders
- Squirrels
Only small animals go here, because we're in the "Flowers and macro (close-up) photography" section. Larger animals (like squirrels) belong in the "Wildlife and Pet photography"-section.

What do you think? Please vote and comment!

And for starters I've hijacked (sorry, popo!) a thread about dragonflies and converted my own thread about tulips.
You're all invited to post your pics there!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Oh, and one other idea:
Before someone starts a new "definitive thread" (like about the dragonflies and tulips) let's search this section for a good starting point.
This could give a good kick-start to the thread and also keeps the thread-count down in this section
Any suggestions for worthy thread-starters?

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I'll be happy to go with the flow whichever direction it goes. The only minor concern I have is that, after a while, each thread could get pretty long. So old posts will kinda get buried and harder to locate. It might be better to have sub forums and separate posts, but that might take a while to populate enough so they don't look empty.

As a minor comment, the photo I previously posted as a dragonfly was later identified as a damselfly, so I had corrected it. I guess they're in a similar family, like bees and wasps are to each other yet distinct.

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Canon DSLRs: 7D, 5D2, 1D, 600D, 450D full spectrum, 300D IR mod
Lenses: EF 35/2, 50/1.8, 85/1.8, 135/2+SF, 28-80 V, 70-300L, 100-400L, TS-E 24/3.5L, MP-E 65, EF-S 15-85 IS
3rd party: Zeiss 2/50 makro, Samyang 8mm fisheye, Sigma 150 macro, 120-300 f/2.8 OS, Celestron 1325/13
Tinies: Sony HX9V.

Well yes, eventually. But this is currently the major problem with 7 pages of different threads
I doubt that e.g. all roses (plus c&c) put together in one thread as of today would make for one 7-page thread. And we (moderators) could easily lock one thread if it's getting too long and start a new one on the same species.
As to the scientific "sharpness" of all the categories: I'd vote for a not-so-scientific approach, lumping wasps and bees together, damselflies and dragonflies etc.. As I said: Splitting subsections out of a thread is relatively easy.
Btw.: Thanks for your open-mindedness as to your thread!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I think that it would then end up as hundreds of images in one thread, gets kinda messy after a while.

How about sub-categories under the Flowers and macro section?

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Graham
Flickr

I think its bad because when you open a thread, all the attention goes to YOUR photo, it won't happen in the "one thread for a specie".

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Flickr
__________
Bodies: Nikon D80, Nikon FM2n, Zenit 3M, Olympus Pen EE-3
Glass: Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 + Nikon 50mm f/1.8 + Nikon 35-70 f/2.8 + Industar 50mm f/3.5 (M39 Screw mount)
Light: two Nikon SB-28's
Backpack: Kata DR467
Shoplist: Nothing for now

I could start a spider one to see how it goes and maybe we could see what is good and what is bad about it.

MBrutus2009: Good idea. Although I don't have that many spider-photos
I think of my idea more like an invitation to post ones photos in one thread. I would not necessarily enforce it as a rule but just encourage everybody to follow a lea-thread, just liek Duck-O-the-Day or Dragonflies.

Enjoy!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I don't see any harm in it as long as such threads wouldn't become the compulsory place to post photos of the species. As long as people would be free to post them in a separate thread if they'd prefer and that wouldn't be made to feel as 'frowned upon' behaviour.

The Dragonfly thread seems to thrive so far. So does "Da Duck O' Da Day" (that's how I think of it ) so there seems to be a place for these threads. Sometimes it's just easier to post in an existing thread. People may feel they have to 'justify' starting a separate thread and by having such running threads they would have an alternative.

So simply as just that, an alternative, I think it would be useful.

Ben
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When in doubt..... Press the shutter.

There is however something to be said in favour of letting such threads appear/evolve more spontaneously. People with a particular affinity for a species might make good 'keepers' of such threads. Patti is certainly doing a good job. So instead of making all threads in one go people could be invited to start a thread if they have such a particular affinity with a species (and some nice photos to start the thread with).

Ben
_________________
When in doubt..... Press the shutter.

Well spoken, Ben. That's exactly the way I'd like to live it!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

I doubt that e.g. all roses (plus c&c) put together in one thread as of today would make for one 7-page thread. And we (moderators) could easily lock one thread if it's getting too long and start a new one on the same species.

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flowers melbourne

It seems the dragonflys and ducks are working OK so it makes sense to give it a go. But where do you post if you have a bee on a flower

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Jim K
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimkirkwood/




Nikon D300; Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR; Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 AF APO DG OS HSM,SB 800

Our hit-list as of today:
#1: Duck'o'Day, 13846 views on 340 posts (=41 views/post)
#2: Share your pets, 9756 views on 156 posts (=63 views/post)
#3: Dragonflies, 2684 views on 79 posts (=34 views/post)
#4: Bees&Wasps, 1529 views on 48 posts (=32 views/post)
#5: Feathered friends, 606 views on 24 posts (=18 views/post)

And if you have a bee on a flower you may post it twice although currently we only have a definitive bees&wasps thread but the Q is what is the main subject?

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

forgive me for not reading everything above this thread to see if what I say is mentioned or discussed, But here is my opinion.

I think a sub category would be nice. Macro: then Animals/Bugs whatever, then Flowers/plants, then Still image/Non-living (waterdrops, macro of a bolt screw, or a person's eye(but living))

Or make people another category
But I personally don't like the Duck-o-Day type posts. I do think they tend to get lost, and when people comment it could be about something 25 posts ago and the "poster" might not even see it or know someone is asking a question about there picture.

I think you guys do a great job on the site and good luck with the changes

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Canon 40D kit Lens 28-135mm IS, Canon 50mm F/1.8, 10-22mm, 100 2.8 macro, 580 Ex.