Dark Ether

Good stuff - I enjoy reading over those from time to time.

Looking very cool!

very nice! I think we need more art to see!

Nicely done! I'd love to see more of your work.

Well, I'm currently using a 17" widescreen laptop at home, and a smaller laptop at work, so anything will seen larger to me.

I guess given that I'm used to laptops, I'm not going to be as happy with a keyboard that clicks with each key press. I understand it's more of a personal taste, but was just curious about those lcd displays and how they can work with the game, if they even can.

Everybody cheer!


Strawberry Synapse, Huckleberry Pie!

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!


GooooooOOOO TEAM!!! YAY!!







Sorry.

Nice art, and cool concept characters!

Nice sketches, Tartyr, and that's a cool card, Khel!

(and I played a bit of Spellfire too, but only at GenCon in order to win some goodies! )

I got one shot of mine on the cover of a map, but it was a work-related thing, so the "pay" was a large print of the cover and my name inside. But it's something, anyway. Copy of that pic is on my DA page, with a few others.

I've got a new computer in the works, so now I'm searching the world over for a new keyboard and monitor. I'm hoping some folks here might have a few recommendations.

For a keyboard, I don't normally care about all those extras, but do want a nice wrist rest. But I was looking at a Saitek and the Logitech and had a question about the latter one - for something like the G-19/15, is it possible to have selected in-game stats appear in the lcd? Also, I'd prefer USB to wireless.

For a monitor, I'm used to 1920x1080, and am looking in the 20-24" range, quick response time, and HDCP would be nice to have for future-proofing any movie watching. I'll be running a 5870 vid card, fyi. I have a few I've been reviewing, but can't find one that just really fits the bill so far.

I apparently have a mere 16 people that have llama'ed me. Alas.

Wow, I want one of those.

Have fun!!

Yay, a new forum game!

For mine, dunno, and don't really care. Hopefully zero - I don't need more stalkers than I already have.

Those are nice - congrats!

I enjoy film photography, but have a different insight for starting out.

If you begin with a digital camera, you can take a look at what you've shot, see how you like it, reshoot, delete, make adjustments, shoot again, etc.

With a film camera you take your shots and, once the roll's done, drop it off to be processed. Once you get it back, then you know how your shots turned out. Try looking at a shot right after you take it and you'll be disappointed. Try deleting a shot that you got a fingertip in and re-taking it, and you'll be disappointed.

I really think for experimenting with framing, aperture settings, angle relative to the sun, etc. a newer photographer can do better with a relatively simple digital camera.

Since you got "an extra telephoto lens", then you got some sort of SLR, whether film or digital. But here's my general view for those starting out in photography:

I'd recommend starting off with a compact digital - the smaller size would mean you can take it with you, and take more pictures. That's the best way to get better - just keep shooting and trying various things.

I'd say one with a decent zoom, 3-5x or so, and a lens that would allow you a bit of widescreen capability, so the focal length on the minimum side something in the 20-30 range or so would be fine. From there, a fair F-Stop/aperture range for the lens is good for quicker shots of animals while moving and giving you control over depth of field for closer-in shots, or macro shots if you want some really close shots of a flower or an insect or something like that.

I generally don't recommend jumping right in to a digital SLR until you have some experience with photography and learn what you can do with a camera. That way you'll figure out what body and lenses you'll want and so on. Plus, they're a lot more expensive.


Edit: Forgot to mention - if you're going with 8x10 prints or so and no larger, 6-8 Mp is more than enough. If you want larger prints or some really big files for photomanipulation, then you'll want more pixels to work with.

Also, Optical zoom is the only thing you should consider - digital zoom is worthless, since all it does is act like "zoom in" to the picture you have, so the pixels get bigger, and the picture less crisp. You can zoom digitally all you want in Photoshop or whatever you use.

That looks really cool, and I've got you on watch now!