Project 52 by Gregj1763 (Greg)

[Geoff F]

I think, Greg, the B&W version needs just a little more highlights to brighten it. But be careful of the background bright areas.

Possibly, I would work with an adjustment layer and edit a mask to selectively apply the effects.

[Goldcoastgolfer]

I agree with Geoff - actually, I think both could do with a touch up on the highlights. Colour for me too at this stage but I'd be interested to see what they looked like if you do get them touched up.

[gregj1763]

Thanks Wendy & Donald,
I think your right with the colour being the better of the two shots. I do like black and white photo's and Look at your site Donald for inspiration, (Tay Bridge and Laggan Dam are two of my favourites) but something was lost when I converted Georgias photo to B&W, it seemed to muddy the image?
We are painting the exterior of the woodshed and shearers quarters and will be there for another week but I have asked the owner about being able to take some photos during their shearing season which will be about May so hopefully will have some images to show you then.
I still have some more photos from there to come. Hope you don't get bored
Cheers Greg

[gregj1763]

Thanks for the advise Geoff and Mal.
Will have a play with them this morning and see if I can improve.
Cheers Greg

[gregj1763]

Georgia's photo's after slight adjustment of highlight, shadows and a few other tweaks.
Slightly increased the sharpening and definition which has improved the clarity around her eyes, especially in the B&W. I think?

[gregj1763]

Here are a few shot I took of the shearer's quarters I took before we paint them this week.
First is the original then the finished product in colour then a B&W conversion.
Editing was done with PSE10

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Georgia's photo's after slight adjustment of highlight, shadows and a few other tweaks.
Slightly increased the sharpening and definition which has improved the clarity around her eyes, especially in the B&W. I think?

A definite improvement I think. Her eyes definitely pull you in more in the B&W

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Here are a few shot I took of the shearer's quarters I took before we paint them this week.
First is the original then the finished product in colour then a B&W conversion.
Editing was done with PSE10

Great job with the editing Greg. The finish job looks really good.

What are you thoughts on the framing - just noticed the roof is touching the top and the bottom corner is slightly clipped off. I keep wondering too what it would have looked like with more of the rights side of the building included in the capture.

[gregj1763]

Thanks for the comments Mal,
I'm a lot happier with Georgia's photo's now.
A slight clockwise rotation with the shed did clip the top of the gable and in hindsight I should have taken one step back before I took the shot
My main focus was to capture the rough weather beaten boards and there were stacked cardboard boxes just right of frame. Overall I am reasonably happy with the result.
Cheers Greg

[gregj1763]

Hi all,
Noticed these crickets while at work today so I slipped the 90mm macro on and grabbed a few shots.
I wanted to get a nice sharp head shot of one and the first photo is the best of what I took. I used flash as the cricket was in shade, slightly down it hole. Reasonable happy with the result.

The next photo I'm not happy with but was the best of a bad bunch. The photo was overexposed with distracting highlights in the foreground.
I left my camera on auto iso which I think was a mistake as it used ISO 1000.
I'm going to try and get some more photo's of them tomorrow.
Any tips on the settings I should use.
Cheers Greg.

[Geoff F]

For macro photography, Greg, I prefer to set suitable camera options manually (say 1/200, F14, Iso 200) then rely on the auto flash exposure to pick a suitable output. Some flash output compensation is usually required which means a bit of experimentation.

But this eventually becomes second nature and you should be able to guess the correct compensation fairly accurately.

I normally use flash for insects under all conditions. The flash compensation auto adjusts for sunlight but avoids harsh shadows.

Some overexposed areas on a shiny insect are normal when shooting 'in the wild'.

[gregj1763]

I'm going to make this week 15 for me, even though the photo's were only taken a day apart as I am falling behind a bit.

Geoff, Thank you so much for your advice.
I am very happy with these photo's compared to yesterdays. Focus could be better on some of them but overall I felt it was a great improvement.
Here are a couple of about Fifty I took today.
Cheers Greg.

[Geoff F]

Those certainly look better, Greg. The exposure is correct.

And shooting 50 insect shots to get 2 good ones also sounds about right to me..

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Those certainly look better, Greg. The exposure is correct.

And shooting 50 insect shots to get 2 good ones also sounds about right to me..

What Geoff said - all of it I have to confess to pretty much using flash all time time now for macro shots - it's just easier given that it's hard enough to get sharp focus and the right composition.

[gregj1763]

You can't miss an opportunity like this.
Got home from work and this little fella was sitting just inside our back gate. I had to step over him to get into the house to get my camera.
They are very patient creatures. It just sat there and I was able to take as many shots as I liked.
I had to set up a wind block because of the weather conditions and I swear I could have let a bomb off and it wouldn't have moved. I noticed after about 10 minutes that it had piece of dog hair wrapped around it's front legs and I was able to just remove it with my fingers without it even moving. I can only imagine what that would have looked like from it's perspective
Here are two shots. I wanted to get the whole bug and then a close up of their amazing eyes.
Ps, Thanks again for the camera settings Geoff





Cheers Greg

[Donald]

You can't miss an opportunity like this.

That's the second image of these guys that's been up here in the last couple of hours. The other one was Mark's. Looks as if they like getting their picture taken!

[Goldcoastgolfer]

Great captures Greg - you really got in his face I find it fascinating after a while when you look at bugs through the lens how curious they can really be.

[Wendy Stanford]

Hi Greg,
great shots, in the second one you have the focus spot on the eye and antenne,
Praying Mantis are about the only insect that will wait while you go and get your camera and stay put while you take its photo

[gregj1763]

Got away from town and down to a place called Port Sorell.
Just got a polarising filter for my Tamron 18 - 270 mm and wanted to try it out.
The sky/cloud was my main point of interest with this shot and had considered cropping the photo tighter on the right to remove the land but didn't want to lose the blue sky.
I found the brightness of the sun a bit distracting so I cropped it out with the second shot
Your opinion please.
Cheers Greg.

[FrankMi]

Hi Greg. This is a peaceful scene with an interesting sky. I think you made the right choice with the cropping as the sun's reflection leads the eye nowhere of interest. But even in the second image, with the boats and horizon as small as it is, it doesn't hold the eye's attention and that leaves me with a feeling that the composition is lacking a subject to explore.

My feeling is that if the boats were larger and the image was shot from a position more to the right, you could use the sun's reflection on the water to lead the eye directly to the most prominent boat. That should give the composition a stronger subject and cause the viewer to linger longer to examine the rest of the scene. Hope this helps!