Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Hello fellow kiddos!
This month will have a juvenile influence.
Since i did not want to decorate myself too much with my daughters cake, it is at least her honor to send us into recent popculture with "Superpowers" as the leading line of the competiton.

She spoke about animals and their superpowers compared to us. Since cuteness is a superpower according to her, we may be able to again have a very broad definition of what our actual subjects could be :D

Rules are as usual:
Photos must be taken during this month (after theme is announced) and posted before voting starts.
Photos must be taken by the posting member.
Photos must be taken with a phone camera.
Post processing is allowed but you have to say what you did.
Users must name the phone and software they used.
Users post only one photo per entry.
Users can change the entry only once.
3 day voting period starts on May 29th after 08:00 UTC and ends at between 08:00 and 23:59 UTC on May 31th.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Is destruction a superpower? Because I have one Nokia N900 which doesn't boot due to not enough space on rootfs, another Nokia N900 which doesn't boot because of multiboot-something-something, another Nokia N900 which no longer detects SIM card (it was the last Nokia N900 I was using of the three devices mentioned), and now an Fxtec Pro1 which doesn't take photographs or detect SIM slots (because of how I broke it with Sailfish OS updates).

Anyway, sad jokes aside, there is still a lot of time ahead within this month. Even if I will have to dig out Nokia N900 in order to be able to take photographs of anything at all.

Thank you. Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

I lost my cam while making my sim work with N900 (and sim works!) but now I do not take pictures. Possibly gonna start using N9 for pictures as a pocket camera.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Ray

While visible to camera, the hue was lost for naked eye.

Thank you. Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

^^ Was it taken with a Camera Obscura, Wiki? (As it looks 180° rotated :p)

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Just Fxtec Pro1 upside down, I guess - I didn't notice. But in Gallery it's the right way up.

Thank you. Best wishes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Per aspera ad astra...

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

The Pro1 seems to create images upside-down and rotate them with metadata; which means that anything that can strip the metadata (e.g. uploading to a forum) reverts to the hardware output rotation.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

If you looking for the cam module, I remember the same is used in N97 mini.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Back in the day before -- I just Altavista or Lycos anything and have the internet at my fingertips, it took me an Imperial eon (aeon?) to find a copy of that novel. From what I've read lately, there's a newly available recently English translation that's been well-received. Maybe if our libraries ever re-open, I can get a copy of that.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

My college physics building had a lab where the individual experiment rooms had light-blocking door sweeps and blackout curtains on the windows. I didn't need a dark room -- I don't know what experiments needed that actually -- but I pulled the curtain to see just how dark it could get -- very dark was the answer. But when my eyes adjusted a bit, on the wall opposite the window was the outside world, upside down! There was a tiny pinhole fissure in the blackout curtain! I'd read of camera obscura, so it wasn't a total surprise to me, but it was fun to see the effect for real and in person.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Since Bees have multiple superpowers, here is a macro done with the Pro¹ of a solitary bee on a thyme plant as my entry.
Cropped in original aspect ratio to ~60%.

https://mosushi.de/misc/photocomp/pr...518_151530.jpg

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Nice pic! I'm always trying to get a good bee picture, but they just don't sit still!

(BTW: If you're ever possessed of the thought, "Tossing these dried thyme branches on the fire pit would smell really nice," disabuse yourself of the notion immediately! My wife tried that once, and the voluminous VOCs drove us both inside immediately and it gave her a case of the hives!)

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

This was done with a smartphone? Amazing!

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

As robthebold pointed out, they don't hold still very well.
This was a luck shot i discovered after looking through the ~50 attempts i made.
Key was imo that the thyme has so many blossoms that while hopping from one to next every 2 seconds i could still follow them.
The macro effect became much more intense when i cropped it down from 4000px width to ~2400.

To get more precise on the species, it is an Andrena, subgenus Gonandrena, a sand or mining Bee. They seem to be kind of rare and thus i keep the hill they dig their wholes into untouched.
Reading into the species i learned that not all of them dig their own holes but some are called cuckoo bees and just place their stuff into other bees holes so they do not need to raise up kids. Brilliant.

I guess this is worth mentioning, we have the World Bee Day today as i saw.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Continuing on the themes of animal superpowers, the powers of the Vipera Berus are good hearing, keen sense of smell and of course the powerful venom it uses for hunting and defence.

"Adder in grass" Taken with XperiaX/ Piggz Advanced Camera, cropping and levels in Gimp.

http://swagman.org/juice/adder-in-grass.png

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

A viper in Finnland?
How can they move/survive in not-summer-times over there?

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

They are actually quite common here. There are 3 different kinds of snakes in Finland, of which only one is mildly poisonous (the very one I captured above)
The other two are much rarer, I have only ever seen each of the non-poisonous snakes once in the wild.

They all go to deepsleep during the winter on burrows below ground, and only wake up when the temperature rises up way over freezing. On the spring they start to wander around to get to warm places, as tehy really are the true children of the sun, they love warmth and can only move quickly in warm conditions.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

I just had to look this up. Apparently, snakes can brumate* in cold months, hidden in protected dens from harsh weather. They live on every continent except Antarctica. Not Ireland, of course, because St. Patrick. Who also chased them out of Iceland, Greenland and New Zealand. Basically, everywhere that ends in "-land". Well, not Finland, I guess. And patron saint of Engineers! Patrick, that is, not snakes.

*This is a real word! It's like hibernation, except different to people who really care about the difference. So I guess that's another superpower this cold-blooded nightmare fuel has.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Thanks to you two.
Now I also had to loop up a bit.

The vipera berus is also known (not common) in Germany and called 'Kreuzotter'. According to my (wrong) childhood school knowledge it would have been the only mild poisonous snake (ever seen once in my life 40y ago). But there is also the vipera aspis (Aspisviper) mild poisonous.
Generally we have only 6 snakes over here...

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...7f980deb_o.jpg
DSC00147

11 year old picture -- but with a cameraphone(!) -- sadly not an entry. I caught this specimen wandering through my iris looking for slugs. Some variant of garter snake (Thamnophis), I'm gonna say Eastern plains garter snake (T. radix radix), but definitely some Eastern garter snake.

Only recently, it's been observed that they're venomous. I guess because that doesn't really apply to humans no one really looked into it. Anyway, risk of salmonella from handling a specimen is of much more concern to homo sapiens -- wash your hands, people, these things are unpasteurized eggs in the wild! They'll poop on you!

Shortly after the photo was taken, this individual, or one very much like it, was found in my basement eating a mouse. Mixed message: pest control good, being another pest: bad. Being a conservationist, I took the invader back outside -- it dropped the mouse first, thinking that was my goal. Failing that, it rared up, mouth agape and made as if to snap at me. It must have known its harmless nature, since it only threatened and didn't actually bite thus and reveal its harmlessness like a cowardly dog pretending it would maul you if not for this darn leash!

If you're wondering, I shot this with a Sony-Ericsson K550i -- a really nice camera in a candybar format phone, particularly for nature closeups in good light.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Hmm... something does not quite add up here. If only I could put my finger on it... :D

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

The use of powerful here is subjective. It's pretty mild when adminstred to a huge[1] animal like the "third chimp", yours truly, but very effective on the intended prey of the viper :D


[1] Contrary to what some people mistakenly believe humans are among the top fraction of percentile of animal size, there are just a handful of species that are larger in mass compared to the tens of thousands that are way teenier... go figure?

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

How close did you get?
Looks like ~1m, while the snake seems to have noticed you and is moving toward you. I don't think I'd've had the guts to do take that picture.

Is rantakäärme (beach snake) one of them? I'm pretty sure we have seen them a few times in Helsinki/Lauttasaari, both in the water and on the beach.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

I went down on my knees and maybe about 70cm towards the snake. (this variety by the way is called "Kyy" in Finnish)

It would have been easier but I was on my daily run and I had my dog with me which I held by a very short leash behind my back with one hand while trying to get a good shot with the other hand. All the while Dora the dog was trying to nose up closer to the snake barking... difficult. I think the poor viper was really disturbed by us and I tried to make it quick in order not to shock her too much.

Kyys are really very peaceful and nice animals, so I had no need to fear her really... if one bites you it sure stings like hell but is no concern really; last summer I was stung by a wasp in my eye and boy that one hurt for a long time! :eek:


Yes, the other varieties are Rantakäärme and Tarhakäärme; both are more rare than Kyykäärme and non-poisonous. Very easy to tell apart from each other too, however many people don't know the difference but try to kill "the horrible snakes".
In reality all snakes are protected and should not be harrassed but people just fear them out of no reason, some even dislike Sisilisko which are really beautiful small lizards.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Tarhakäärme is another name for rantakäärme, usually easy to recognise from the yellow marks at the neck. While adders can have a varying colouring with a clear zigzag pattern to completely black. They can also often be seen swimming.
The third one is kangaskäärme, who only live in Ahvenanmaa/Åland, not in mainland Finland.
And some might think that vaskitsa or copper snake (slowworm) is a snake because it looks like one, but it's a lizard without legs.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Thanks for correcting me!

I mis-remembered the Kangaskäärme, mainly as it is so rare and does not live on mainland at all. Now as I checked it, indeed Rantakäärme used to be called Tarhakäärme but in fact they are the same species.

Really nice article in wikipedia I ran across, in the olden times in Finland people used to have tame snakes of the Tarhakäärme variety on farms, to keep the rodents away. They were fed and cared for and even lived in animal shelters and inside farmhouses!
translation of the article

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

I should have had the Superpower of these guys. I think they never drop a phone. The Screen of my Pro¹ is now unfortunately damaged :mad:. I hope to get a spare one.

http://talk.maemo.org/attachment.php...1&d=1590159658

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

I'm back in business. Changed to a working N900 with camera! Still some configuring to do and have been messing with updates and repositories which vanish or change to unusable and then trying to figure how to get them working again. Not a single time have I managed to do all right on the first time. In these couple of years flashed about 30 times.But now almost done again. Have to take a picture soon.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

As a child, I always thought that viper bite would be roughly the same as bee sting. Nowadays I work as an nurse on ICU, and I have seen some patients due to viper bites. While it really is really uncommon to die because of viper bite, it still can cause massive swelling, moderate pain and even symptoms of hypovolemic shock which sometimes need ICU treatment. So I have been quite surprised on how serious it may be.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

This is my definition of "superpowers". You put a one year old potato in the dirt and three weeks later you got this. Another 4-6 weeks, you will have an excellent meal from those plants. :D
Xperia X, Sailfish stock photo app, no editing.



https://svenskasprakfiler.se/show/Superpowers.jpg

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

. . . meal for my squirrels :(

I can't have nice things!

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Lucky for me, we don't have those squirrels. Instead we have lots of killer snails (Arion vulgaris) which is a veritable scourge.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

This flower has super powers:
https://talk.maemo.org/attachment.ph...1&d=1590992796
OK, the on-topic-ness is a little forced, but it's my nicest picture this month.

Taken on Sony Xperia XA2 with Sailfish OS Camera.

PS: finally understood what the "Unofficial Storage for camera phone competition" is there for...

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Here is my entry. This snail has climbing superpower. He manage to escape from his matchbox and jump to my kid plate :p .

https://i.postimg.cc/vBBVhjMX/20200524-101836.jpg

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

Don't have time to take a better one. Or maybe gonna change it tomorrow. I just have to put this now to have even one pic here. So my Tuulispää (Windy Hair) has not been flying too well. The cardboard based wings I had bought for her had been torn into pieces in rain. Today made new wings for her and she can fly again! That possibly can be included to superpowers.

https://talk.maemo.org/attachment.ph...1&d=1590776036

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

May has nearly ended so here is our voting line-up.
I am really proud that all entries sticked to real powers and non tried to sneak marvel or dc related overpowered-fake-superpowers into this serious competition :D

#1 Wikiwide - Pro¹ camera obscura
The green Ray
https://talk.maemo.org/attachment.ph...1&d=1589457654

#2 mosen - Pro¹ (rotated and cropped by 40%)
Pollinating solitary bee on thyme plant
https://mosushi.de/misc/photocomp/pr...518_151530.jpg

#3 juiceme - XperiaX/ Piggz Advanced Camera, cropping and levels in Gimp
Adder in grass
http://swagman.org/juice/adder-in-grass.png

#4 Fellfrosch - Pro¹
Didn't drop nuffin'
http://talk.maemo.org/attachment.php...1&d=1590159658

#5 eson - Xperia X, Sailfish stock photo app, no editing
Potato Wonderland
https://svenskasprakfiler.se/show/Superpowers.jpg

#6 nonsuch - (N900?)
Superpowered flower
https://dt.iki.fi/stuff/forums/maemo...515_140055.jpg

#7 john_god - (no cam specified)
Jumpy snail
https://i.postimg.cc/vBBVhjMX/20200524-101836.jpg

#8 Maemish - N900
Tuulispää can fly again
https://talk.maemo.org/attachment.ph...1&d=1590776036


Happy voting!
Wrap up and passing on the imaginary trophy some when tomorrow evening.

EDIT,
My vote is on #7 john-god.
Omg that's cute :)
Bonus points for showing a half eaten plate that looks like staged for the shot. A very disciplined eater you are!

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

My vote goes to #2 mosen

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

This time again a hard decision!
Love the pic from wikiwide and juiceme showed us real superpowers,
but my vote goes to #2, mosen.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

An amazing shot of a bee by mosen! I often struggle to make such a shot even with my DSLR. On John God's snail I alwways think, there is something written on it. Very Interesting. WIkiwide's shot ist just beautiful. Catching a adder in wildlife is also very impressive. And Maemish's bike? Just :eek::D.

Anyway my vote goes to nonsuch (#6). I think, it's the only pic where the photographer shows with a carefully chosen perspective, what he thinks is the superpower of his shown motive.

Re: Phone Camera Competition May 2020: Superpowers
 

I vote #2 mosen. Very good bee photo.