Project 52 by Bill S (ktuli)

[ktuli]

Amazing photo's Bill, Something I hope to be able to produce in the future.
Cheers Greg

Thank you, Greg. If you haven't started down the slippery slope that is macro photography, be warned that it is very addictive.

[ktuli]

Running behind this week, so just quick shot from this weekend's trip to the Aviary.



Thanks for viewing.

- Bill

[Goldcoastgolfer]

That looks great Bill. The Bokeh behind the bird frames it nicely. It looks like it could use a touch more exposure to me but that could just be my monitor.

[ktuli]

Thanks Mal,

Yeah - it could use a touch more exposure, a touch more DoF... both of which I would have easily accomplished if I had just bumped up my ISO a bit. Even taking it to 400 would have been sufficient I think. I always forget to adjust my ISO...

- Bill

[ktuli]

Another macro spider shot this week. However, this is the first time I've tried chilling a subject to get it to slow down. I don't know if I did it right, because I would chill the spider in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes at a time, and it would only slow it down for a few seconds. I still had to be very quick to get a shot off before it would start walking around again.

This shot is another first for me as it is my first 5x magnification shot of a spider (the image below is uncropped).



And for those who are curious, here's a reference shot showing just how small this little fella is...



- Bill

[FrankMi]

I don't know if I did it right, because I would chill the spider in the fridge for about 10-15 minutes at a time, and it would only slow it down for a few seconds. I still had to be very quick to get a shot off before it would start walking around again.

Now that's a technique I would not have thought of! Great idea provided my wife doesn't go in the fridge unexpectedly! LOL!

[ktuli]

Now that's a technique I would not have thought of! Great idea provided my wife doesn't go in the fridge unexpectedly! LOL!

Frank,

Yeah - I've known of the technique for quite a while but have bener tried it up till now because I was nervous about harming the critters. I don't know just how long I should have been cooling them, but the 10 minutes didn't seem to do much (though he would be all curled up when I took him out of the fridge, so it definitely was having an affect). I'll continue the trial, but I still think I'll always error on the side of caution and be sure to keep the little fellas alive!

- Bill

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Great work. I hadn't thought of the fridge technique either - that's pretty cool Mind you, my daughter's petrified of spiders and I don't think she'd be overly enthused about going to the fridge if she knew there might be a spider in there!

[ktuli]

These were actually taken last weekend at the beginning of Week 12, but I didn't get a chance to process them till now. It was a rough day of shooting. We arrived late (11AM) and just were having an issue with the super bright sun (80F temps in March is highly uncommon for us). I wasn't all that pleased with the results - either SOOC or after RAW processing...










- Bill

[Goldcoastgolfer]

I know the feeling - I think I've been behind on my PP for a few weeks now! I'm barely getting to comment on everyone's Project 52 threads let along getting my own up.

I like your first photo but wouldn't mind seeing it in colour. Your second photo has just a few too many elements that are borderline in and out of focus that makes it difficult to focus on any element of the photo. My own approach would have been to create as a DoF as possible - but that's just me I wouldn't have seen what you saw in that scene in the first place and it looks like something worth attempting to capture. The third one - well that just made me smile. The little fella looks like he's just been caught out doing something he shouldn't have.

[ktuli]

I like your first photo but wouldn't mind seeing it in colour.

Ask and you shall receive...



As for the second one, I liked the chaos of the field of cattails. They're getting a bit ratty as the birds are starting to pick at them for nesting material. I was thinking about something I'd learned a while back about harsh light working well for B&W photography sometimes, so I took the shot with the intention to convert it to B&W, but I ended up liking the color version better (though it is pretty well monochrome itself).



- Bill

[Goldcoastgolfer]

With your first photo try turning the saturation on the greens as well as darkening the luminosity a bit. A touch of colour and darkening might add a bit more contrast with the water droplets, both the ones in the foreground and the ones that have turned into a circular bokeh in the background. I'd probably have a think about cropping a bit off the right and the top as the water droplets are almost in the centre at the moment so it might be more interesting using the thirds rule thing with the negative space on the left.

Your colour version of the second photo adds a bit of warmth to the scene - I prefer it as well.

[FrankMi]

The leaf in color is my favorite of the set Bill, soft and yet sharp. Nicely done!

[ktuli]

Mal, Frank,

Thank you immensely for the kind words on these images. Like I said, it was a really rough day, and I struggled from the word go. It is nice to see that I managed at least some acceptable results.

- Bill

[ktuli]

I don't know if anyone else is getting tired of these spider shots... I'm certainly not. I could work with spiders all day long if I didn't have to go to work.

This first one is a rather interesting pose. I had picked up this jumping spider on my way home from work on Friday (yes, I do carry small containers to catch spiders or other bugs). Once home, I transferred him to a larger container with a blue lid. He decided to make himself a little hammock form the lid of the container and curled in to take a nap (did you know that jumping spiders spin themselves a small cocoon type web to sleep in?). This shot is just as he was waking up and crawling out of the web (you can just see some of it along his 'waist') - I liked the pose since it is a different view than you normally get. Unfortunately, the shot was done in the wrong mode (in my wife's custom mode which only does JPG), so I didn't have my normal RAW files to work with. Luckily the exposure was pretty spot on. Then there is the problem with the top of the spider's head breaking the top of the frame... and also the slightly soft focus... but considering these are at 5x magnification (the last one is cropped a bit), and I feel that I still have a lot to learn about making these high magnification images sharper.



This next one is more of a standard pose, but I do like the blue background and nice diagonal line to it.



And finally a slightly different pose. This is slightly cropped and focused more on the pedipalps than on the eyes, but I still like it, even with its faults.



- Bill

[FrankMi]

Amazing images of the spider!

[ktuli]

Ok - still struggling photographically... not sure why, but I've been in a bit of a funk.

Last week, I was re-taught a lesson I've learned many times, but never seems to stick... I wish I had my real camera with me for this. Instead all I had was my crappy cell phone (which isn't even one of those nice new 8MP dealies).





Nothing of real merit photographically, but it was a fun event to watch during my lunchtime walk. Just wish I had my real camera with me.

- Bill

PS: For those wondering, this was not a real rescue - just a training exercise. But it is the first time I've seen a helicopter hovering 10 feet above the river in downtown Pittsburgh. And yes - that is the diver hitting the water in the second photo...

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Always love those spider shots of yours Bill. That first one is a great pose as is the third one. Did you try bring up the sharpening at all in the last photo to see if you could get the eyes a bit sharper? The dark blue background works really well too - makes the spider stand out. You could probably turn up the saturation and decrease the luminance for the blues in the other two to create a similar background.

It's a shame you didn't have a camera that could have captured a better picture of the training exercise. That's definitely something you don't see very often but I bet it would have looked fairly impressive with a closer zoom. I have to say that I'm guilty of not having my camera all the time at the moment. I don't even carry the little Olympus all the time - but we are moving house so squeezing in photography at the moment is a bit of a challenge.

[ktuli]

Everything has been blooming early this year because we had one of the warmest March's on record. So while I went hunting for trillium at the end of April last year, this year we decided to head out to look for them in early April.

Red Trillium (Trillium erectum):


White Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum):


Robin's Eggs:


Hopefully this shakes me out of my photographic funk...

- Bill

[ktuli]

My wife and I headed out to a local wild flower reserve this past weekend - I think we were a bit early for a lot of the flowers, but I managed to find this tiny (this is 1:1 magnification) jumping spider. As he crawled around this dried plant stem, I tried to capture this pose of him come up over the back of the stem. Unfortunately, my DoF was pretty small (f/5) to try and get a reasonable shutter speed (1/30) (again - I should have tried a higher ISO, but I always forget to do so... maybe that will be a future week's lesson). So my focus point ended up not including the spider's face as I wanted. I liked the shot so much, I decided to keep it just the same... kind of as a reminder of one that got away.



- Bill