Day 21: July 2010 Photo-a-Day Thread

[rick55]

Sheffield & Derby;
From Glasgow back south today to Sheffield and Derby, and homeward bound.

Passing through Olton, a district I normally do not seee much of, I find another bit of street architecture that intrigues.

This decorates the entrance to a local rail station.

Before the PAD challenge I'd noticed but not quite connected with the proliferation of this type of street decoration... so, one more for the archive and day 21 complete!

(Coudn't get online yesterday so have just posted the day 20 images)

James

Good heavens, James: intriguing, maybe, but I have to say -- tacky! This should be in front of a Burger King or something. It looks like something you'd see at a theme park. It's a great capture, with all the shiny parts to deal with.

Cheers,
Rick

[Dave Humphries]

Here's my Day 21 picture, one of several I shot this evening, but I stupidly left the PP until after 1am.



Nikon D5000 + Nikkor 105mm VR2 Macro: 1/750s, f/11 at iso1600

[Shauna]

WOW! Thats and incredible picture..awesome job

[rick55]

Beautiful shot, Dave: I expect that white dust is pollen, so she's giving the payback for the nectar. Is she missing a left front leg there, or is it folded underneath? It looks truncated.

Cheers,
Rick

[Crovean]

[Dave Humphries]

Beautiful shot, Dave: I expect that white dust is pollen, so she's giving the payback for the nectar. Is she missing a left front leg there, or is it folded underneath? It looks truncated.

Rick, and Shauna,

Yes, it will be pollen, although noticeably not as much as I have seen on some bees, no wonder they're dying out

Thanks for the kind words, I checked on some earlier shots (28488) shows a left foreleg, so it must be folded under.

As said, I intend to PP several from this shoot. 28484 is also good of this particular bee.

Thanks,

[ScoutR]

Here's my Day 21 picture, one of several I shot this evening, but I stupidly left the PP until after 1am.



Nikon D5000 + Nikkor 105mm VR2 Macro: 1/750s, f/11 at iso1600

These are getting better and better. Methinks I am going to be forced to get this lens. If you can do this with moving insects, I should be able to manage some florals.

Wendy

[ScoutR]

From the garden. Single diffused studio light and reflector.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocosmia

PAD gallery

EXIF

Sigh, that is another beauty. You do it everytime though. Just when I think I'm getting a bit better with the florals, you come up with something like this that makes me want to bin mine.

Nice work.
Wendy

[ScoutR]

I followed Dave's suggestion about working at the pixel level. I did red-eye first, just to get the colors in range, then painted as he suggested around the blown area so the reflective area was a more reasonable size. Then I used the burn tool to take the whole thing down to a more reasonable brightness, with stronger burn on some real blown spots, still leaving them a little higher, so as to show a specular reflection.

It's a pretty subtle change (good!), but I think she looks less wild-eyed and more natural than in my previous attempt. A good PP lesson.

C&C most welcome.

Cheers,
Rick

Yup, it's subtle but perfect and very natural looking now. Great shot of a very nice doggie.

Wendy

[carregwen]

Sigh, that is another beauty. You do it everytime though. Just when I think I'm getting a bit better with the florals, you come up with something like this that makes me want to bin mine.

Nice work.
Wendy

Wendy,

Thank you for the comments.

We must get this sorted for you! Here is a shot of the setup I did yesterday (I left it there) You can see how basic it is. The white art board against the wall was used for the backdrop. The box file on the right has a sheet of glossy white photo paper taped to it and acts as a reflector to bounce back some of the studio light which is on the left. The Crocosmia is in some water to keep it fresh in the heat. The light meter at the front is just to get the right settings, but you could do without that. The studio light with the diffuser box on was pretty cheap. You can also see my black perspex that I use for reflections. And that is basically it. Nothing too sophisticated, I think you will agree. And I took this with a £500 camera (Panasonic G1) handheld, not the Canon 5D.

Ok, I grant you, it helps to have a great garden with a resident botanist!

[Dave Humphries]

These are getting better and better. Methinks I am going to be forced to get this lens. If you can do this with moving insects, I should be able to manage some florals.

Hi Wendy,

You might be better off with the 60 or 85 mm version for florals, especially if the flowers are big and you may not be able to get far enough away. The 105 can be a little tight at times.

From memory, only one of those (60 or 85) is an exact equivalent of the 105mm - i.e. has VR2 and is IF-ED, and has Nano-crystal coatings, etc. and I can't remember which just now.

Incidentally, this is the only (new) non-DX lens I own, so should I ever go FF, at least I won't need to change it

Thanks,

[Antonio Correia]

[James G]

Rick, it did stop me dead in my tracks...And I dont't disagtree over tacky! The intriguing element is the KLnight on Horseback theme to it. I'm going to have to do a little research and see if it has anything to do (artistically speaking), with another construction I posted a couple of days ago for PAD. If so I'll be disappointed because I thought the Castle Vale knight was quite good.


James

[rick55]

Thanks, Wendy - great advice from Dave on handling a tricky little problem.

Cheers,
Rick

[rick55]

Rick, it did stop me dead in my tracks...And I dont't disagtree over tacky! The intriguing element is the KLnight on Horseback theme to it. I'm going to have to do a little research and see if it has anything to do (artistically speaking), with another construction I posted a couple of days ago for PAD. If so I'll be disappointed because I thought the Castle Vale knight was quite good.


James

Your photo certainly isn't tacky, and if I saw something like that, I'd certainly want to preserve it. "You won't believe what I saw..." The other one was certainly different: it made me think of chess, with the castle-looking thing behind.

Cheers,
Rick

[ScoutR]

Hi Wendy,

You might be better off with the 60 or 85 mm version for florals, especially if the flowers are big and you may not be able to get far enough away. The 105 can be a little tight at times.

From memory, only one of those (60 or 85) is an exact equivalent of the 105mm - i.e. has VR2 and is IF-ED, and has Nano-crystal coatings, etc. and I can't remember which just now.

Incidentally, this is the only (new) non-DX lens I own, so should I ever go FF, at least I won't need to change it

Thanks,

Thanks Dave, I hope to have time this weekend to check out lenses and some kind of studio light or off camera flash. I will make it a point to compare the 60 and 85mm macros too. When it comes to DX non-DX FF... well I sort of kind of have a bit of an idea what you are talking about but, not really.

Wendy

[ScoutR]

Wendy,

Thank you for the comments.

We must get this sorted for you! Here is a shot of the setup I did yesterday (I left it there) You can see how basic it is. The white art board against the wall was used for the backdrop. The box file on the right has a sheet of glossy white photo paper taped to it and acts as a reflector to bounce back some of the studio light which is on the left. The Crocosmia is in some water to keep it fresh in the heat. The light meter at the front is just to get the right settings, but you could do without that. The studio light with the diffuser box on was pretty cheap. You can also see my black perspex that I use for reflections. And that is basically it. Nothing too sophisticated, I think you will agree. And I took this with a £500 camera (Panasonic G1) handheld, not the Canon 5D.

Ok, I grant you, it helps to have a great garden with a resident botanist!

Thanks Rob, these setup shots always help. My goal is to have some kind of a light by the winter, but I hope to have a chance to start looking this weekend. I really do love the lighting in the shots you do with this setup. I like shooting outside in the summer, but many times I think the light is just to harsh and then of course there is the wind and trying to get a decent background.

Thanks again for posting the setup shot. I know you have done this before, but it really is very helpful to see.

Wendy