Project 52 by Rebecca Humphries

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Rebecca,

Currently I open them in Photoshop then re-save using quality 9, 1.0M size, format option 'baseline' standard.

I do hope you are slightly changing the filename and not saving over the original jpg file

I agree with 9, that's what I use.

Do you know which of these stages I can alter in order to increase the image size?

As we discovered this morning; the image appears to be in a folder with a name starting "s" and a number.
e.g. for your cactus, it was "s640" ~ lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5JBGQTwvzQk/T1IBNffpcBI/AAAAAAAAHZ8/IceoHqU2pwM/s640/940.jpg.
Changing the number to another makes that the length of the longest edge, so I made it "s800" and now it appears 800 pixels tall (in the Lytebox).

I did play around with the backgrounds a bit, toning down bright distracting colours and cloning out the odd fence in the background.

Good

Yes I must switch over to RAW in the camera settings next time I shoot.

Yes

[beckyhumphries]

I do hope you are slightly changing the filename and not saving over the original jpg file

Yes I have set up a separate Adobe Photoshop folder where I save a new version of each photo I edit.

Thanks for increasing the picture sizes, I will know how to do this myself now in future so thank you.

Rebecca

[Dave Humphries]

Yes I have set up a separate Adobe Photoshop folder where I save a new version of each photo I edit.

Good

Thanks for increasing the picture sizes, I will know how to do this myself now in future so thank you.

I also know I'll forget if someone asks in 6 months!
(unless I write down how to do it)

[beckyhumphries]

This week I have some smoke pictures to share. They were shot using a lit incense stick, with 3 lights on the smoke and a helper (dad!) to waft the smoke to encourage some interesting shapes. Towards the end I also tried colours over the lights. I used two lenses, the macro Nikon lens (with adaptor) and my 14-140 Panasonic lens. The main difficulty I had was to get the focus right on the smoke, especially when I was using manual focus on the Nikon lens. I am also a bit worried about the noise levels.

All comments much appreciated.


Panasonic 14-140 lens, f/5.8, iso1600, 1/400sec, 280mm (35mm equivalent)


Nikon macro lens, (I have forgotten the f number!), 1/500sec, iso1600


Panasonic 14-140 lens, f/5.8, iso1600, 1/500sec, 150mm (35mm equivalent)

[FrankMi]

OK Becky, you really stumped me this time. How in the world did you get the smoke to curl so perfectly as if it were a scroll waiting to be opened?

[Dave Humphries]

This week I got the chance to have ago at some macro shots. My dad kindly got me an adaptor for my Panasonic GH2 so that I could borrow one of his Nikon macro lenses. These photos were both shot on the dining room table with three lights for lighting and using a tripod. Manual focusing was something I haven't tried before but hopefully I am starting to get the hang of it now.


ISO160, 1/16sec, f/22


ISO160, 1/10sec, f/22

All comments much appreciated, thanks.

Hi Rebecca,

Seems I am at least a week behind on comments too

#1, well not too much to say; it is well exposed, sharp, nicely cropped, the only problem being the grubby top of the pot.

#2 is not bad eitheer; fairly sharp, a natural colour, good exposure and background, but it really doesn't show the depth of the crystalline 'insides' well - because of the lighting - when you are able to have another go, try some more directional lighting with some shadows cast inside to give depth.

For other viewers, this is about 25mm (1") in length, so way smaller than the light sources being used quite close by, giving the soft lighting.

That means you may have to think hard about how to channel the light, or use different sources, to get harder shadows on something this small.

Hope that helps,

[Donald]

How in the world did you get the smoke to curl so perfectly as if it were a scroll waiting to be opened?

That was my first reaction too.

They are wonderfully lit. What were the three lights and where were they relative to the camera? And what was the backdrop?

[Dave Humphries]

OK Becky, you really stumped me this time. How in the world did you get the smoke to curl so perfectly as if it were a scroll waiting to be opened?

Ah, since it was me doing that bit, I'll explain, shall I?

I was flicking my finger at it, to create a narrow, rapidly moving draft, which caused a vortex in the ascending smoke. By doing it quickly several times, it was occasionally possible to get a kind of resonance going which produced a chain of the scrolls like #2.

[FrankMi]

Ah, since it was me doing that bit, I'll explain, shall I?

I was flicking my finger at it, to create a narrow, rapidly moving draft, which caused a vortex in the ascending smoke. By doing it quickly several times, it was occasionally possible to get a kind of resonance going which produced a chain of the scrolls like #2.

A master magician at play! Thank you, Dave. I would have never figured that one out on my own!

[Dave Humphries]

That was my first reaction too.

They are wonderfully lit. What were the three lights and where were they relative to the camera? And what was the backdrop?

Hi Donald,

These are the three lights, seen here set for last week's cactus and stone macro shoot;



...and here are two visible for the smoke shots;



... the background was just the biege wall behind (seen in 3 lights pic), which we were careful not to let the light spill onto, so with distance, it remained quite dim, it probably had a little help in PP too, but only Rebecca knows

... towards the end, I put some coloured lighting gel over some lights giving #3.

I think we were both shooting hand held towards the end, you needed circa 1/500s to get sharp enough smoke anyway, hence the high iso, which has resulted in some noise.

These two shots came from my little Canon S100 - Rebecca, I hope you don't mind having them here - we can always take them out later if you want to keep the thread just for your pics.

Cheers,

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Hmmm... well I seem to be well behind commenting on the Project 52 threads as well. The Week 9 macro shots look pretty good - nice and sharp and excellent DoF. I'd be inclined to try shooting them from a different angle of perspective to try and give them a better feeling of depth. As it stands, as well lit as they are, the front on views to tend to make them feel flat. A different perspective would I think give them a better perception of depth.

The smoke - well, that is amongst the most creative I've seen. Well done to both photographer and assistant

[beckyhumphries]

Hmmm... well I seem to be well behind commenting on the Project 52 threads as well. The Week 9 macro shots look pretty good - nice and sharp and excellent DoF. I'd be inclined to try shooting them from a different angle of perspective to try and give them a better feeling of depth. As it stands, as well lit as they are, the front on views to tend to make them feel flat. A different perspective would I think give them a better perception of depth.

The smoke - well, that is amongst the most creative I've seen. Well done to both photographer and assistant

Thanks Mal. I might return to the macro stone shot to see if I can create the better depth of field as suggested. It wasn't something I considered too much at the time. I was so focused on lighting it well I probably overdid it leading to no shadows.

Rebecca, I hope you don't mind having them here

No I don't mind at all. Thanks for posting them. I meant to post the picture of the setup in week 9 but never got round to it.

Just for added measure here is a shot of the 'assistant' working his magic



Getting the scroll shapes wasn't too difficult, I just kept clicking as the shapes were changing so quickly before you could even see them. I probably took over 500 photos (eek!) but still have quite a few good ones. It did take quite a bit of trial and error to find the right iso and exposure settings though.

Thanks for all the comments.

[FrankMi]

I probably took over 500 photos (eek!) but still have quite a few good ones.

Your hard work certainly pays off. Over time you'll be able to pull off near-perfect images of this type with significantly less effort as your skill improves! Nice results!

[Ryogenetic]

This has been another project I have wanted to try for some time now. Those are some great captures and thanks for sharing your set up

Ryo

[beckyhumphries]

Nice results!

Thanks Frank. Yes practice will hopefully make perfect one day

This has been another project I have wanted to try for some time now. Those are some great captures and thanks for sharing your set up

I'd definitely recommend giving it a go Ryo. The setup was much simpler than expected and it was mainly just a case of getting to the right settings and then happily clicking away.

[Dave Humphries]

Many would attempt this with flashes/strobes of course, which would avoid the need for high iso and the noise which, due to the image content, is going to be obvious if cropped and sharpened - but that wasn't an option for us.

[Wendy Stanford]

Hi Rebecca, Been catching up a little on the last couple of weeks, you have some wonderful wildlife shots.

Smoke, haven't tried but always admired, you and your assistant have done well, I particularily like #1, the composition of the 2 entwining parts, the colour with the light and dark, nice and calm to look at, the eye wanders around and finds different shapes, perhaps a clone to the tip of the incense at the bottom.
I think the noise level isn't as noticeable in the first 2, but comes through more with the colour
well done
Thanks for the setup, very informative Dave

[beckyhumphries]

Hi Rebecca, Been catching up a little on the last couple of weeks, you have some wonderful wildlife shots.

Smoke, haven't tried but always admired, you and your assistant have done well, I particularily like #1, the composition of the 2 entwining parts, the colour with the light and dark, nice and calm to look at, the eye wanders around and finds different shapes, perhaps a clone to the tip of the incense at the bottom.
I think the noise level isn't as noticeable in the first 2, but comes through more with the colour
well done
Thanks for the setup, very informative Dave

Thanks Wendy

[beckyhumphries]

My week 11 shots were taken today (to make the most of the very rare sunshine!) at Cotebrook Shire Horse Centre in Cheshire, UK. Unfortunately I didn't get many good pictures of the horses, as they had all decided to roll in the mud and so weren't looking their most photogenic today. There were some other animals: deers, otters, ducks, piglets and of course the chickens who took offence to my fluorescent pink wellies and decided to attack me


f/5.8, 1/1000sec, iso400, 262mm (35mm equivalent), 0 exposure


f/5.8, 1/4000sec, iso640, 280mm (35mm equivalent), -0.7 exposure


f/5.7, 1/2500sec, iso400, 128mm (35mm equivalent), -0.7 exposure

All comments appreciated.

Thanks, Rebecca.

[Geoff F]

They work well.

Just a couple of thoughts. With #2 there is a line, possibly a path, which runs across the scene, by the horse's mouth. I think I would be tempted to consider cloning this out.

And, the pigs would have looked slightly better with less space behind them and more in front, just a little though. I think there might just be sufficient space for a tiny crop of the left edge. But if this is already a crop I would change that slightly instead.

But just very minor suggestions. The 'piggy hop' with the front piglet is excellent.