|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 24, 2018 22:00:38 GMT -5
Love the All-star batch! Great variety, polish, & as always, the presentation. No need to apologize for the quantity, as we all look forward to your photos! Gotta say 5, 7, 17, & 29 are the favorites. Glad you've thawed out enough to keep'em rolling. Thanks for the show.
Jeremy
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 23, 2018 11:47:05 GMT -5
Billy, you are one lucky dude! You get paid to play with the dirt and then get access to the pre-sorted rock piles! I know the governmental agencies have made your access more difficult, so glad you were able to hop on that pile! Too bad you can't bring a friend or two........
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 20, 2018 23:34:16 GMT -5
Great batch, Rob! Gotta say 7, 24, & 30 are the favorites. Don't have much experience with bots, but I've had similar impact marks when tumbling some of the Marfa agates. Never thought about agate being soft.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 19, 2018 15:34:50 GMT -5
Thanks, Randy! The light box has opened some new possibilities. Still need to figure out the lighting for tumbled rocks. Ditched my first few attempts. I think the lights were too close and at poor angles. Headed back to your origional setup post. Work in progress anyway. Good to hear from you! Hi Jeremy. Can't believe I missed this thread. Great work all the way around. I'll be following what you do for getting results with tumbles in a lightbox setup. Since I'm still relying on some sun/skylights/etc for diffusion, I held up on photographing my last couple of batches. Also have taken a photography hiatus. Your stuff is great inspiration and may cause me to work on my lighting a bit more dilligently. Nice work! Hey, thanks Dave! Still a work in progress, but the results seam to be pretty promising. Working on the tumble photos as we speak. Got a batch of obsidian, that are turning out pretty cool.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 10, 2018 8:28:40 GMT -5
Henry has museum quality material, just hanging out around his house. Saw all these in person and the pictures don't do them justice! Especially those Woodward Ranch's and that septarian.
At some point, you'll have to post some photos of those crystals you've collected!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 6, 2018 19:01:39 GMT -5
This load was more then 50 percent ceramic filler. That has been key for me. Lots of smalls and monitoring the slurry to keep the action gentle and consistent.
2 days in 120/220 4 days in 500 2 days in A/O .3 polish
Chuck [/quote]
Yep, that's it. It was the 4 days in 500, that I cut short for the 1st failure. The second was burnishing the batch, too long. Makes it rough when each mistake adds 6 more days to the process!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Feb 6, 2018 14:18:40 GMT -5
Great batch, Chuck. Perfect Shine & pictures. Tough to get that liquid shine, even in the lotto. Finished a batch a little while ago and it took 3 attempts to finish them out in the lotto. Still working on the picture part.
Thanks for sharing!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 27, 2018 17:28:50 GMT -5
Great batch, Chuck! Excellent variety and photos. Dialing in the iPad and light box, combo. Favorites are the oolite & rutilated quartz. Thanks for sharing!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 26, 2018 17:10:35 GMT -5
Looks like you executed exactly as planned! Beautiful stuff, very hard, but they take a great polish. Now you should have extra room, for the San Jacintos you collected a couple weeks ago. Looking forward to seeing those polished up!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 19, 2018 11:10:23 GMT -5
Those are the fixtures for reptile lights (ceramic sockets) but what are the bulbs? I have tried to take rock pictures inside my iguana's enclosure - figured on using the bright light to my advantage - but the UVB lights gave a green cast to the photos. Are your pictures so awesome because of the paper filtering the light or are those standard incandescent bulbs? Thanks, Bob! I'm continung to follow your major finds and can't wait for next set of pic's after tomorrow's trip! They are "Daylight" LED bulbs, around 500 lumens. Found them on sale at HD 2 bulbs for $6. Like Scott said, the color is most important, not the brightness. The fabric is there to diffuse or spread out the light.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 18, 2018 17:07:35 GMT -5
Thanks, Randy! The light box has opened some new possibilities. Still need to figure out the lighting for tumbled rocks. Ditched my first few attempts. I think the lights were too close and at poor angles. Headed back to your origional setup post. Work in progress anyway. Good to hear from you! Jeremy, Those are truly mind boggling pics. The fact you are unhappy seems normal.... Have you tried moving your side lamps (reptile lights!) farther from the screen? Glad you noticed the reptile lamps. Truly a DIY, use what you have, project. Tried to move the lights up, but the box corners limit the angles and block a lot of the light. I'm going to build another one that allows light in from higher angles. Also found someone talking about "cross polarization". Polarized filters on the lights and on the camera lens. Need to do some more research on it.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 18, 2018 16:28:33 GMT -5
Wow, Jeremy, love this new set of pics. That lightbox has taken things up a notch! Some truly beautiful material you grabbed. Thanks a bunch for sharing! Thanks, Randy! The light box has opened some new possibilities. Still need to figure out the lighting for tumbled rocks. Ditched my first few attempts. I think the lights were too close and at poor angles. Headed back to your origional setup post. Work in progress anyway. Good to hear from you!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 14, 2018 10:14:06 GMT -5
"also wondered if/when burnout might occur. Surprised it took this long. Your experiments on faster and faster tumble runs are TRULY interesting, and admirable. But... all that work seemed to make the tumbling process - work!
I'm sure you find it all a challenge, and hopefully still enjoy it. But all the daily checking and moving rocks for this and that stage run - and in such quantity, has to become tedious at some point. I sure couldn't wouldn't do it.
Your (outstanding) results speak for themselves, but don't take the fun out of it. Or it's not as much fun! Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing."
[/quote]
Can't say it any better than That!
You're right, James, a good haul from the Rio would re-energize that tumbling bug!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 10, 2018 20:46:06 GMT -5
Those are bad-ass! Breaking new barriers daily....amazing! Took 4 tries to polish my last batch of obsidian.
Love the first picture!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 9, 2018 14:52:33 GMT -5
Included some of the San Jacinto material in the 3 loads I have running in coarse stage. Those river tumbled rocks are a bonus for tumbling. Still studying the geology of SE Texas and still confused. There do seem to be some ancient River Deltas in the San Jacinto Watershed including the ancestral Brazos and a couple of others from the north and from an Ancient Arkansas Igneous Zone. So many different layers put down over the last 100 million years and then tilted, eroded, new layers etc, etc. Whatever happened it did help us, now if we can just find anot yet discovered deposit of Red Plume/Bouquet agate in the Brazos near Sealy! Looking forward to seeing how those tumbles come out! You found some winners, the other day! Assuming you'll give me a heads up on that deposit of Red Plume/Bouquet agate, that you're going to discover .
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 9, 2018 14:44:23 GMT -5
I am finishing the background in post production. I just started using ON1 Photo Raw. Still learning my way around it, but really like it so far. Starting with a mostly black background, seems to make it a little easier to do. But, these are the first pictures that I've tried it on, so I'm not sure what the "best practices" are. I'll keep playing around with it. Thanks for the photos. That looks relatively simple to do and I have ON1, too. Don't know squat about photography, but I can fiddle around in there bit. There are some good tutorials on the ON1 site on navigating around the software. The box was very easy to build. Plenty of options for DIY light-boxes out there. I'll probably add more white to the inside of the box. It should keep more light inside, putting more light on the subject. The instruction videos and ease of use, were the selling points for ON1. Being new to the hobby, I found it easier than PS, to navigate. Still have a ton to learn.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 9, 2018 7:40:31 GMT -5
1) I continue to shake my head at the variety found in the George West wood, the color, the patterns, it is a real treat! 2) It appears that Jeremy has moved to the next level with his photography skills and I didn't think there was another level. (Captbob, now you see why I waited for his pictures) 3) Will cut a few more slabs out of the pastel wood, it was my favorite. 4) Finally got to collect the San Jacinto River with Jeremy last week. A good time. Still scratching my head about the Crowley Ridgeish agates found, how and the heck did they get to southeast Texas! Good quality time with a fellow RTH member sharing his collecting spot. Looking forward to more collecting opportunities with him and with other RTH members, thanks Jeremy. Appreciate the kind words, Henry! The feeling is definitely mutual. I'm amazed with the variety of George West wood, too. Can't wait to get back down there! It is kind of amazing to see the variety of rocks in the San Jacinto River gravel. I'd love to know how they all got down here! You may have to see if your Geology friend can help put some of the pieces together! Glad to finally get you out to hunt the San Jacinto! Thanks, again, for all your help!
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 9, 2018 7:22:57 GMT -5
txrockhunter , thanks for the photos of your shooting setup. Are you darkening the background in post-production? Or are you getting that black in-camera? Lynn Lynn, Glad to share whatever limited knowledge that I posses! I am finishing the background in post production. I just started using ON1 Photo Raw. Still learning my way around it, but really like it so far. Starting with a mostly black background, seems to make it a little easier to do. But, these are the first pictures that I've tried it on, so I'm not sure what the "best practices" are. I'll keep playing around with it.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 9, 2018 0:13:20 GMT -5
Thanks for all the positive feedback! zarguy & hummingbirdstones , here's my setup. Not very extravagant, but somewhat effective. Cardboard boxes, white fabric, duct tape, black felt, and daylight LED bulbs. Camera set in Aperture Priority, at f11, ISO 100. Sabre52 , I cut with mineral oil, so that's what I use to bring out the depth. One day I'll build a flat lap, to polish some of these slabs.
|
|
|
Post by txrockhunter on Jan 8, 2018 18:28:53 GMT -5
|
|