User talk:Rhododendrites
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Shells
[edit]Many thanks. I think, You can send the shells as a parcel. In the customs declaration, it is best to state "scientific material, no commercial value". Greetings --Llez (talk) 15:14, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
- Ok. I'll ping you whenever this happens to get an address, etc. — Rhododendrites talk | 16:27, 23 February 2023 (UTC)
Auroras for beginners
[edit]Ok, here we go. So auroras are about to peak soon due to increased activity in this solar cycle. See [1], [2], [3] &[4]. Last week this one was shot in NY and this one with Perseids was shot in Ohio, even further south than NY. During the big aurora in May, you got these from NY. The first thing you do is to start scouting for a good location. You need a place with an open view to the north, like a hill, park or beach. As you've seen in my photos, you don't need absolute darkness. If you can see stars, then it's fine for aurora too. At southern locations, the auroras can mostly only be seen down by the horizon and up about 1/4 of the sky to the zenith. Try to get something nice in the foreground or to frame it with.
If I lived in NY, I'd probably go somewhere along the north coast of Long Island. According to the light pollution map, it has about the same light as where I live. The Hamptons would be preferable, and this here 40°54′15″N 72°31′41″W / 40.904295°N 72.528166°W would be a perfect location. You get a clear view north over the bay, a gap in the lights between New Haven and New London, and the lights from the mainland shielded by the North Fork. Next up if following the weather forecasts, both normal and space. My go-to page is NOAA. When the charts start to turn yellow-orange, you know something is up. Scroll down to Aurora Forecast and hit play. When the "doughnut" starts to bloat and turn some other color than green as it hits your location, it's time to get moving. Social media are also great. Follow some aurora chasers (there are many in Scotland, Alaska and Minnesota), a lot of these guys will post photos almost immediately when an aurora starts, so this will give you a heads up. Aurora nights often come in pairs, so if you are late to the party the first night, you might get it the next.
Tech stuff: A tripod is a must. Always do manual focus, set it on some small bright spot as far away as possible. Strong auroras can be shot at ISO 800, but usually you'll need to go up to 1600-3200, or further if you have a really good camera. Use a short lens, 18-24 mm, as these things are huge. Use the lowest aperture possible, anything from f/1.2 to f/4.5. Since the aurora can move very quickly at times, don't let the exposure time get too long, try to keep it under 10 sek (ideally 2-6 sek). Auroras behave a bit like smoke, and the shorter the time, the more well-defined you can get the rays and drapes of the aurora. With longer time, you will get a more hazy glow, and also star trails. Last week I was primarily out to get meteors and thus used very long exposure (25-30 sek) and I was just plain lucky the aurora was a bit sluggish that night.
To the naked eye, auroras are paler than you see in photos. The camera will pick up the color better than your eyes, especially for red/pink auroras, since they often drift into the infrared spectrum. When I shot this one, I was so focused on the meteors, I actually didn't notice the aurora until I saw it glowing on the camera screen; it was too close to IR. A good start for you would be to just set up the camera somewhere when you think there might be an aurora (according to forecasts), point it north and see if you catch anything. The camera can pick up things you yourself don't see at first. Faint auroras take some time to learn to pick out, but once you see it, you’re hooked. Do not be afraid to take partial shots of the aurora, they can sometimes make for better compositions than doing the whole thing. Ask follow-up questions if you like, and May the Earth’s Force Field be with you! --Cart (talk) 11:00, 20 August 2024 (UTC)
- So this might be a 'heads up'. When accounts like this [5] start paying attention to increased solar activity, auroras might happen in a few days. We can see the solar activity long before the particles reach Earth and that's what the enthusiasts go for. --Cart (talk) 22:06, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
- Belatedly, thanks for all of this! Interesting that you would go east a couple hours to Long Island rather than north a couple hours -- I suppose a couple hours north wouldn't change that much compared to a big open view? I think most likely this is advice I will save for when I'm going to a place that's darker/more open and check the forecsasts then (rather than driving a couple hours from the city on a chance.... unless the chance is really big), but I do hope to use it. — Rhododendrites talk | 11:17, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- If I had a choice, I would always go to a place with water reflection for auroras, hence my recommendation for Long Island. A beach is also easier for a beginner since it provides an unhindered 180 deg view. On land you always run into obstacles like vegetation when the aurora decides to veer of course. Myself, I'm a bit landlocked now that I don't have a car and the busses stop going at 22:00. Sure, I live close to the fjord, but hiking there alone at night and taking on the local wildlife (moose, wild boar), is not something I like.
- I hope you'll get a chance to do this kind of photography soon. You might want to keep an eye on the sky even from NYC. With the strong auroras now, I've seen a lot of photos taken right in cities, so it's a start. This here is taken right in central Stockholm(!), so it's the equivalent of making a shot from the Brooklyn Bridge Park (even if that photo might be faked). The aurora can be spotted, but very few people think there is even a chance to capture it, so they just Don't Look Up. (pardon the very bad pun) --Cart (talk) 12:39, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
- Just a heads up. Strong aurora warning today. The beginning of it was seen in mid US last night and it looks like it's building up for another night. [6] I'm praying the clouds outside will go away. --Cart (talk) 14:51, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
- Belatedly, thanks for all of this! Interesting that you would go east a couple hours to Long Island rather than north a couple hours -- I suppose a couple hours north wouldn't change that much compared to a big open view? I think most likely this is advice I will save for when I'm going to a place that's darker/more open and check the forecsasts then (rather than driving a couple hours from the city on a chance.... unless the chance is really big), but I do hope to use it. — Rhododendrites talk | 11:17, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
Convenience record for 2025 FP/FV/PC (archived, but retained for a while for ease of reference)
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QIC sections
[edit]I know it's been a while since you asked about QI notifications at [7], but I finally implemented a change today that adds the dates into the section headers that should resolve this. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 20:42, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
- Ah! Don't recall if I replied to this elsewhere, but just in case: thanks Mike Peel - a regular slight inconvenience that had accumulated into a moderate inconvenience over time. Thanks. :) — Rhododendrites talk | 22:33, 4 January 2026 (UTC)
Commons Photographers User Group: Board Elections 2025
[edit]Dear member of the Commons Photographers User Group,
the 2025 board election is starting soon.
The timeline for the 2025 election will be
- November 25 – December 2: Applications for the election committee
- December 2 – December 15: Vote for election committee (if necessary)
- December 16: Election committee starts work
- December 20 – January 4: Nomination phase for candidacies
- January 5 – January 11: Elections
- January 15: Results announced
In the first step we ask you to be part of the election committe. Please add your name on the Election Page.
We are very much looking forward to hearing from you. Please use this talk page for your thoughts.
All the best
--Ailura (talk) for the CPUG board
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stitching
[edit]Hi there. Focus stacking and panoramas are type of stitching I suppose, but we cannot tell here what you have done. Perhaps you could showing both images or explain more? It's just that taking the best bits of two images may not be OK for FPC. Charlesjsharp (talk) 20:39, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Charlesjsharp, not sure what you mean, but I mean stitched in the same sense as a panorama. Two shots in quick succession at a greater zoom, getting the top half in frame then the bottom half in order to improve detail. If by "taking the best bits" you mean e.g. taking two full-length photos and keeping half of each, no, that's not what it is (although I don't see much difference between that and focus stacking, but that's a conversation for a different case). — Rhododendrites talk | 21:04, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
- Great, that's a sort of manual focus stacking which is fine. Your wording made me concerned, that's all. Charlesjsharp (talk) 21:11, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
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Commons Photographers User Group: Board Elections 2025/2
[edit]Dear member of the Commons Photographers User Group,
thank you for your interest in our board election.
This week we ask you to vote for the election committe.
Please support up to three candidates on the Election Page by December 16th, 00:00 UTC.
We are very much looking forward to hearing from you. Please use this talk page for your thoughts.
All the best
--Ailura (talk) for the CPUG board
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Quality Image Promotion (07 December 2025)
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AI on FMC
[edit]New things calls for new guidelines and rules. Should AI-generated media be allowed on Featured media candidates? Share your thoughts and/or vote on Commons talk:Featured media candidates#AI-generated content. You are being asked since you vote on that project. Thank you, --Cart (talk) 17:30, 18 December 2025 (UTC)
Happy holidays!
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Merry Christmas and warm wishes for a joyful, healthy, and peaceful New Year 2026! |
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Happy holidays...
[edit]...and a Happy New Year.
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Warm greetings from Italy. Terragio67 (talk) 17:36, 21 December 2025 (UTC)
Happy holidays!
[edit]| ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ ✴ | |
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Merry Christmas
and a happy new year! ✴ |
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Happy holidays and best wishes for 2026!
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✨ Happy Holidays
Rhododendrites! 🎄 Merry Christmas! 🎉 Best wishes for 2026! |
Questions
[edit]If it's alright to ask, are there any techniques for bird photography you use? I am new to bird photography and have a Canon 70D with a 75-300 mm zoom lens. Is there a specific method or lens you use for your photos? The lighting in almost all of your photos are spectacular. Also, if I can ask, how are you able to get shots of most birds fairly close up such as woodpeckers or cardinals? Henry Sims 222 (talk) 23:37, 26 December 2025 (UTC)
- Hi Henry Sims 222 and thanks for the message. I bought a 40-150mm lens with a 2x teleconverter for my micro four-thirds camera back in 2021 and that's basically all I've used since then -- nearly all of the bird photos I've uploaded were taken with that lens. That amounts to a bit more zoom than a standard 300mm lens, but typically with fewer megapixels (so not all that different from what you have, I think? - though I'm not knowledgeable about Canons). For lighting, I find that I have trouble motivating myself to go out if the light won't be halfway decent, but I also nearly always do corrections/adjustments in Lightroom afterwards. Do you use Lightroom or something similar? As for getting close to birds, a lot of it is just being out a lot and getting lucky occasionally. I don't know how much birding experience you have otherwise, but learning things like what plants are fruiting, what nearby birds like to eat, what trees have been popular, etc. can be really helpful. There's this flowering dogwood tree in a local cemetery that's one of the last trees to fruit in autumn, so it attracts a bunch of the late migrants. Once I know those migrants are around, it's a great place to just stand still and wait-and-see. Sometimes nobody visits, but sometimes they do and I get a good shot of a blackpoll or a tanager. I'm also lucky to live in a city with big urban parks that sit along a migration pathway. In urban parks, resident birds are more used to humans and migrants have fewer options so they wind up coming closer more often (not true of all birds, of course). Cardinals are a great example of that -- if you go to a place like Central Park, it's much more common to see them up close than if you're in, say, a big forest. Woodpeckers I find to be more about being quiet and positioning myself to get off a very quick snap before they notice me, as even in urban settings they're pretty skittish in my experience. Hope this is helpful? — Rhododendrites talk | 00:31, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
- What about the photos you have took of the semipalmated sandpiper or the hermit thrush? I've noticed that the birds are very large in both photos, did you manage to get fairly close to the birds in both different situations? Were they just incidental and the birds in both situations weren't too frightened? Henry Sims 222 (talk) 06:31, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
- @Henry Sims 222: If you can find your way to the edge of some good mudflats and just sort of park yourself by the edge of the water, several of the shore birds will eventually come fairly close. Not true of all of them. As above, it's good to have a convenient place where you can get so close. In my neck of the woods, that's the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. A trip there requires big mudboots, lots of bug spray, and often enduring bright sun with no shade, etc. but you can get really good looks at a lot of shorebirds in August. The hermit thrush is a different story. I find basically all thrushes other than robins to keep their distance from humans, even in urban parks. I've seen a hermit thrush probably ... 150 times? And maybe a couple really good photos. :) There again an urban park helped, but a lot of them come down to luck and persistence. Still waiting on my lucky shot of a swainson's, wood, gray-cheeked, or [yeah, right] bicknell's thrush. :) — Rhododendrites talk | 22:40, 4 January 2026 (UTC)
- What about the photos you have took of the semipalmated sandpiper or the hermit thrush? I've noticed that the birds are very large in both photos, did you manage to get fairly close to the birds in both different situations? Were they just incidental and the birds in both situations weren't too frightened? Henry Sims 222 (talk) 06:31, 1 January 2026 (UTC)
Your Most Memorable Shot Submission!
[edit]Hello Rhododendrites!
As we step into a new year, we’re happy to invite you to take part in “Your Most Memorable Shot 2025.”
Since 2018, photographers from across the Wikimedia community have come together at the beginning of each year to share the photographs that meant the most to them over the past twelve months. Now in its eighth iteration, this tradition continues to be a space for reflection, storytelling, and celebrating meaningful moments through photography.
Whether you are a member of the Commons Photographers User Group or not, you are warmly welcome to participate and invite others too. Every image carries a story, and your perspective helps enrich this collective showcase.
Whenever you’re ready, please select your most cherished photograph from 2025 and share it on the designated page.
The deadline for submissions is 28 February 2026, so we hope you’ll join us before then.
We look forward to discovering the moments that made your year memorable and to continuing this wonderful tradition together.
Warm regards, -- Suyash Dwivedi (💬) 22:36, 4 January 2026 (UTC) (CPUG)
File:Bird flu sign in Central Park (83883).jpg is missing information
[edit].jpg){kind=link}
Hi!
In rare cases, contributed file information is not transferred to the respective file page. It would be good if you readd the missing information to File:Bird flu sign in Central Park (83883).jpg to avoid potential deletions. Thank you :) --PantheraLeo1359531 😺 (talk) 09:35, 23 January 2026 (UTC)
- @PantheraLeo1359531: Hm. Odd. The other files from that batch look ok. Anyway, fixed now. — Rhododendrites talk | 14:39, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
Quality Image Promotion (28 January 2026)
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--QICbot (talk) 05:30, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
Commons Photographers User Group: Board Elections 2026
[edit]Dear Rhododendrites,
You are receiving this message because you are listed as a member of the Commons Photographers User Group.
The Election Committee is pleased to announce that the Board Elections 2026 have officially commenced.
- Election timeline
- February 1–15: Nomination phase
- February 21–25: Community Q&A and candidate engagement
- February 26 – March 7: Voting period
- March 15: Results announced
Full details are available at: Commons Photographers User Group/Board Elections 2026
All eligible members are encouraged to participate in the election, including standing as candidates.
If you wish to run, please add your name and candidate statement on the nomination page during the nomination period.
For questions or discussion, please use the election talk page.
Unsubscribe / opt-out:' If you do not wish to receive further notifications related to the CPUG Board Elections 2026, you may remove your name from the mailing list
We look forward to your participation.
—CPUG Election Committee 04:58, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
CPUG Board Elections 2026 – Nomination Extended
[edit]The nomination deadline has been extended to: 19 February 2026, 23:59 (UTC)
Eligible members (joined on or before 1 November 2025 with 100+ meaningful Commons contributions) are invited to nominate themselves.
- How to nominate
- Go to the Candidates page
- Create your subpage
- Add your statement
- Links
We encourage broad participation from the community.
Election Committee, Commons Photographers User Group - 17:36, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
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File:Elaborate mural painting of people having fun editing Wikipedia.png has been nominated for deletion at
This is a deletion request for the community to discuss whether the nominated page should be kept or deleted. Please voice your opinion in the linked request above. Thank you very much! If you created this file, please note that the fact that it has been proposed for deletion does not necessarily mean that we do not value your kind contribution. It simply means that one person believes that there is some specific problem with it, such as a copyright issue. Please see Commons:But it's my own work! for a guide on how to address these issues. |
Dronebogus (talk) 12:23, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
CPUG Board Elections 2026 – Voting Now Open
[edit]Dear Rhododendrites,
You are receiving this message because you are listed as a member of the Commons Photographers User Group and are included in the eligible voter list.
The Election Committee is pleased to invite you to vote in the Board Elections 2026.
- Voting period: 00:00, 26 February 2026 – 23:59, 7 March 2026 (UTC)
- Ballot: Go to the voting server
Full details about the candidates are available at: Candidates Overview
All eligible members are strongly encouraged to participate in the election.
For questions or discussion, please use the election talk page.
Unsubscribe / opt-out: If you do not wish to receive further notifications related to the CPUG Board Elections 2026, you may remove your name from the mailing list.
We look forward to your participation.
— CPUG Election Committee - 10:38, 26 February 2026 (UTC)
FPC nomination categories
[edit]Hello Rhododendrites, you were one of the first to propose adding categories to FPC nomination pages, and if you are still interested in this project you may wish to comment on this bot request. I have written a new bot which is able to add the archival categories to the old FPC nominations (FPCBot can’t do this as it handles only new nominations). It would be very helpful if you could add a short comment to the request, explaining whether you consider the nomination categories as useful or not, and why, and whether you think it is a good idea that the bot should add these categories to all the old nominations. (The other commenters have just added 
Support, but that’s a bit unfortunate because bot requests are “discussions, not votes”, so the closing bureaucrat needs pro and contra reasons, not votes ;–).) Thank you very much, – Aristeas (talk) 18:49, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
PS: I hope this hint is not considered as canvassing or the like. That was not my intention. I am not asking you to comment the way I would like, but I am simply asking you to express your personal opinion on nomination categories and the question of a bot for them, simply to move the discussion forward. I hope this is OK. Best, – Aristeas (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2026 (UTC)
CPUG Board Elections 2026 – Voting Closing Soon
[edit]Dear Rhododendrites,
You are receiving this message because you are listed as a member of the Commons Photographers User Group and are included in the eligible voter list.
The Election Committee is pleased to invite you to vote in the Board Elections 2026.
- Voting deadline: 7 March 2026 23:59 (UTC)
- Ballot: Go to the voting server
Full details about the candidates are available at: Candidates Overview
All eligible members are strongly encouraged to participate in the election.
For questions or discussion, please use the election talk page.
Unsubscribe / opt-out: If you do not wish to receive further notifications related to the CPUG Board Elections 2026, you may remove your name from the mailing list.
We look forward to your participation.
— CPUG Election Committee - 09:58, 3 March 2026 (UTC)
Final Reminder: CPUG Board Elections 2026 – Voting Closing Tomorrow
[edit]Dear Rhododendrites,
You are receiving this message because you are listed as a member of the Commons Photographers User Group and are included in the eligible voter list.
The Election Committee would like to remind you that voting in the Board Elections 2026 will close tomorrow.
If you have not voted yet, please cast your vote as soon as possible.
- Voting deadline: 7 March 2026 23:59 (UTC)
- Ballot: Go to the voting server
Full details about the candidates are available at: Candidates Overview
All eligible members are strongly encouraged to participate in the election.
For questions or discussion, please use the election talk page.
Unsubscribe / opt-out: If you do not wish to receive further notifications related to the CPUG Board Elections 2026, you may remove your name from the mailing list.
We look forward to your participation.
— CPUG Election Committee - 04:36, 6 March 2026 (UTC)