Project 52 - 1st Quarter by Geoff F

[DonnaK]

Those horsetails at the moment are just the shoots pushing through the soil. They will grow into strange looking plants up to 4 ft high. Almost prehistoric looking with thin needle like leaves. I will have to photograph them later in the year. The family name is Equisetum.

A frequent weed, except for this particular extra large form which is somewhat uncommon - except at this site where they are getting quite invasive on some boggy ground.

A few weeks ago I tried photographing gorse with mixed results. Well here is another gorse flower; plus something extra.



7D with Sigma 180 macro lens. A merge of 2 Raw conversions plus a little bit of fiddling around with an attempt to put a bit of texture back into a slightly over exposed area.

The details on the flower and the hoverfly are outstanding. An excellent shot in every way. Your use of the flash brings out so many details. I like it!

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the replies.

I have had another go with the woodland ferns, which are from the same area as the primroses and most of the other images in this thread.

Not sure if this alternative edit is going to be any better, or worse, but I've gone for a darker scene with a slight switch from yellows to blues and tried to blur some distance between the various elements.



I have been looking and thinking about a fern photo for some time but every attempt so far ended up getting ditched. Possibly needs to wait until they are growing strongly and then concentrate on just one subject.

[Geoff F]

Week 12 - Willow Catkins. Probably Goat Willow (Sallow) Salix caprea but I will need to check the leaves, when they appear. However they do hybridise between Goat, Grey and Eared Willow; all of which can be found in the general area.

Female Catkins



7D with Sigma 180 macro lens.

A closer view.



Had to drop to 1/60 and chance any wind rock.

And male catkins (they occur on separate trees).



Had to do a merge of two focus points on all these images to get everything in reasonable focus but exclude the background. There was more focus depth with my Tamron 24-70 lens but that was picking up too much from the background. I had to selectively use a bit of Box Blur on this image to merge the background elements together.

[Cantab]

Geoff, a very intersting set of photos.

Had to do a merge of two focus points on all these images to get everything in reasonable focus but exclude the background.

Since these were shot outside, I assume you had no breeze to deal with or do you have a way of coping with slight movement when doing the merge?

[deetheturk]

More nice images Geoff, well done mate keep them coming

[Shadowman]

Nicely done, especially like the catkins.

[Kaye Leggett]

Lovely as ever. The first and third work well, but I think as you already surmise the second suffers from too slow a shutter speed. Compositionally it's also interesting that I prefer the 'longer' shots so the often used 'rule' to get closer and still closer I don't think works in this instance.

[Geoff F]

I think, Kaye, that with #2 the closer shot brings out the bud hairs but also emphasises the texture on the catkins which appears somewhat rough. Probably better at full screen size where the texture becomes more obvious. But sometimes, it is possible to 'see too much' when you zoom in closer.

There was a fresh breeze, Bruce, although being fairly stiff twigs the movement was reduced.

However there was some movement between shots. But as I mentioned in my Weekly Photos thread, there was sufficient overlap to obtain auto alignment of the shots and enough variation in focus to allow for auto merge.

I have on occasions, where there has been insufficient overlap, managed to manually align the layers close enough to allow auto align to do the rest.

In this particular case, one of the catkins on the first image wasn't quite sharp enough so I had to 'borrow' a copy of the catkin from another image and paste into place.

I drew a freehand selection around the replacement area, with a 10 pixel feather, then copied and pasted into the final image. But had to clone some background inwards over the 'faulty catkin' so the two would merge together.

[Barbara Ponder]

Very nice! Love the texture of the plant.

[Geoff F]

Various members are posting images of white flowers, which are always so difficult to photograph. So here is my attempt.

Week 13 - Blackthorn Flowers.



A merge of two shots and the best of several edits!

[bnnrcn]

Loved it

Various members are posting images of white flowers, which are always so difficult to photograph. So here is my attempt.

Week 13 - Blackthorn Flowers.





A merge of two shots and the best of several edits!

[Cantab]

Various members are posting images of white flowers, which are always so difficult to photograph. So here is my attempt.

Week 13 - Blackthorn Flowers.



A merge of two shots and the best of several edits!

A nice photo. I've been thinking of trying to get a good photo of several trilliums in our garden. Hopefully your photo will spur me on!

[Geoff F]

It is about time to start a new 2nd quarter thread but I'm going to finish this section with something which I can't quite get correct.

Those very bright golden yellow celandines which over expose as soon as you point a camera anywhere near them. I have tried with diffusing sunlight and shooting in shadow. I can avoid most of the over exposure then edit back any small hot spots but it then comes out too much of a buttery yellow; not that vibrant gold tint!

[JBW]

One technique I have found helpful with a shot like this is to add just a touch of blue when I adjust the colour balance. It seems to bring out a bit of the detail in the white. In Gimp it works best when added to the shadow category in colour balance.

[JBW]

Have you considered stepping down the brightness a bit using aperture priority?

[JBW]

Week 12 - Willow Catkins. Probably Goat Willow (Sallow) Salix caprea but I will need to check the leaves, when they appear. However they do hybridise between Goat, Grey and Eared Willow; all of which can be found in the general area.

Female Catkins



7D with Sigma 180 macro lens.

A closer view.



Had to drop to 1/60 and chance any wind rock.

And male catkins (they occur on separate trees).



Had to do a merge of two focus points on all these images to get everything in reasonable focus but exclude the background. There was more focus depth with my Tamron 24-70 lens but that was picking up too much from the background. I had to selectively use a bit of Box Blur on this image to merge the background elements together.

On my monitor I am seeing a translucent shadow around the catkins.

[Geoff F]

The catkins are shot against a natural background, Brian, so there is a bit of variation in the light level. Maybe I can equal it out a bit more.

Had another play around with those pesky celandines. Found that I can get one angle, facing towards the light and at a particular elevation where the reflection is greatly reduced.

Those posted above were actually shot in shade plus a difflector as well; which helped to remove the hot spots but at the expense of duller yellows.

So one from today's experiment.



It has had just a little edit. The distant petals have retained good texture but the foreground petals are a bit over plain; and this is a merge of two focus points.

The problem with these flowers is that their reflective surface gives that stunning shining golden yellow colour. But it is so difficult to reproduce in a photograph.

Another one, with a guest, straight from the camera.



And after a bit of editing where I moved the colour fractionally towards the blue and red channels in an attempt to make the petals more golden.



Taken with manual camera settings plus a bit of fill flash.

[Kaye Leggett]

Geoff I am enjoying this study and am finding that perhaps yellow flowers are more difficult than white ones ! I think your edit with your visitor to the Celandine is the best of the bunch - as you say you have lost some of the texture in the first.

[IzzieK]

I love this last experiments .... a good learning experience for me... and going back to Week 13, I like those Blackthorn flowers. One of your best shots I want to put on the top of my list.

[Geoff F]

This project has certainly been a challenge and with a lot more to learn than I initially realised.

The second quarter continues here:

2015 Project 52 by Geoff F - 2nd Quarter