In other words, fingers that someone actually used while out observing. Sorry, but I disagree.
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I know at least one person with a ruler tattoo. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/106054813
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Needs recalibrating on a regular basis? Ouch!!
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Heās one of the people I was mentioning
Just flipped through the taxon photo browser and there are some, and a decent amount of poison ivy being held; Iām much more impressed by the handful of pictures of stinging nettles being held with bare hands. I myself got a photo of me holding tree spinach, which was regrettable.
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I know someone who routinely picks stinging nettles bare-handed. He says it used to hurt, but now heās immune and it doesnāt bother him.
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u have to use your hands to show plants and mushrooms to get all the features in the observation that u need. otherwise it would be VERY HARD to show all the details.
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I have enough observations like that, not all hairs are stinging, and really if you donāt hold it with force you wonāt get hurt. I also hold Aconitum quite a lot this year if you look at photos, but actually I barely touched the plant (and washed hands later). Though that one time when I saw a new nettle species for the first time and didnāt recognise it before touching the leaf, ughā¦ https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/88793034
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No assumptionsā¦ I am a heavy SLR user, and have been for fifty years. I know what I experience.
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Can I just say, now each time I see fingers (or toes) in photos, I think of this thread and smile. Thank you for that, @chrisc!
By the way, one of the most recent observations I saw was by a staff member ā so not only can you ignore (or politely correct) people who leave you āNo fingerā comments, but hopefully you can chuckle about it, too:)
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Google ātranslate to Englishā is a godsend for me. And the conversations that alternate Russian and English are fun to look at!
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I also find that seeing the growth pattern of a plant is helpful. So some pictures with fingers and some without, and some pictures of parts and some pictures of the whole is a good approach.
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Iām sorry that I was suggesting beauty rules. I am missing a finger tip, and most of my fingers have been re-shaped by injuries. I often have mahogany dust under my fingernails, because i clean up at the end of the day. I find myself trying to not get my broken and dirty fingernails in photos. I didnāt mean to offend anyone.
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I always prefer natural photos, but sometimes hands are a product of a necessary ID photo, or the organism isnāt cooperatingā¦so it can mean the difference between good data, and limited or no data. So the trade-off is a natural but necessary problem in my opinion.
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I prefer natural, hand-free photos so I try to take them when possible and generally use that as the first/cover photo thatās seen by anyone who is quickly looking through iNat.
However, I use a Pizel 4a (Android) camera which doesnāt have any manual focus option, so a ruler or hand photo is sometimes needed.
Regarding privacy, I cannot ID observers in my area by hands, but for a few I can ID them by their rulers.
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Sometimes I pick up insects or other small invertebrates from the road so they donāt get squished and take photos of them while Iām holding them, or for example when I need to stabilize a plant or show some specific feature. I donāt see anything wrong with human fingers in photos xD
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Iām okay with IDāing observations with or without fingers; I donāt have a preference. For my own observations, I try to avoid having my finger in the frame for plant photos but sometimes on windy days itās unavoidable. For arthropods, I actually enjoy letting them land or crawl on me, so I like when my fingers get to be in the photos. If they let you handle them, thatās also a great opportunity to get a clear photo of their facial features, which is something I love so much that I recently created an entire project dedicated to it!
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I just recently got an ID of a beetle because I had my finger in the uncropped photo. I was told that it was one of two species depending on the size, so I went back to the uncropped photo, measured a section of the finger shown (thankfully both finger and beetle were roughly in the plane of the image) and was able to estimate the size of the beetle well enough to clinch the ID :). Not deliberate, I was just holding the stem of the plant still to get a better photo!
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Urtica urens (Dwarf nettle) isnāt too terrible. The leaves have short trichomes (needle-like hairs) and pinching them tends to break the hairs. This doesnāt work as well for the main stem, those trichomes can be 3-4x bigger and definitely get through. Not sure if itās worth the injury, but I enjoy the fresh leaves, they have a very cucumber-rind-like flavor.
Edit: Hereās my hand observation of Urtica dioica (European Stinging Nettle), Dwarf Nettleās larger cousin.
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