Izzie's P 52 month of February -- for C&C please

[IzzieK]

Hi Isabel I find the hightlights too much in all images, so I would reduce them. I think my best is the colored strawberry shot.

Thanks Binnur, I will try to edit tonight after dinner. 'Appreciate your comment and suggestion...see my reply to Mark and Tony... Thank you again.

[IzzieK]

I really like the mushroom and the stack of bread, Izzie. The bluish reflected light on the strawberries rather detracts from them IMO. Great isolation on all of the subjects.

Sorry about the blue...I did not notice it before I upload...I will try to be careful next time...

'Appreciate your passing by and commenting on your preference too. Nice to hear from you.

[IzzieK]

Hi Izzie,

Here's my Week 2 Macro Feedback

1. Strawberries - Call me daft, but to me these seem 'upside down', if that makes sense. Apart from that, I'm not sure I can suggest anything helpful.

Well, I tried to line it up to the corner but it must not have been too successful there...

2. Grey strawberries - Nah, not for me either

I thought I might be asked to submit a grey/mono of that shot so I did it before anyone did. At least I am ahead...heheehhe

3. Mushroom - I like this one best, but wished you had focus stacked this shot, so we got more of the cells sharp, although I note someone else suggested the opposite YPYMATYC*
That said, you have very largely achieved your aim.

Well I did a focus stacking but there was this blurred thing that did not come out well, so I dumped that for the overall view of this one because it turns out better without the stacking..

4. Bread - yes, it does look appetizing, but there's still a significant nearest part of it that's very out of focus, despite the stacking, possibly just a case of not shooting over a wide enough focus range? I don't stack, so cannot advise.

That's OK I am just experimenting on what DanK suggested...I think it is good enough as it is...

5. Personally I always struggle to find a workable composition with a scene like this, but you have (well done) - the only thing that detracts for me are the out of focus foreground leaves in top left corner, perhaps they could have been cloned out in PP?

You should have seen what I did with Nik's Color Efex -- it was a disaster and although the whites are whites, the surroundings became dark so I dumped that version to the nearest simple one that I edited in Viveza. Oh well...

I glanced at this thread much earlier today didn't particularly notice the highlight brightness as being an issue, but now Binnur has said it, I tend to agree, it wouldn't take much (of a drop) to keep us happy

I understand...it was also an experiment on stacking so I guess I passed a little, if not much...

With regard to your comment on learning to balance daylight and tungsten (on the strawberry shot); unless you have a specific reason to, I'd personally avoid mixing light sources of such widely differing colour temperature - i.e. the 'balance' to achieve is to overwhelm one with the other (and set WB for that), so that the dominant source visible is all the same white balance - here I can see that the bluer daylight is getting in to the strawberry's dimples.

You should have seen the original shot --it has a lot of highlights on the first strawberry so I clone them out and this is the best I could manage.

I'll try better tomorrow, the start of Week 3 for February. I went out with Bill yesterday to buy my supplies at Lowe's and he promised to cut my wood tonight but I think he is slumped on his chair already. I have to push his butt to cut that wood for me tomorrow...

I didn't find the subjects boring, I am intrigued by what you couldn't find though - keep it up.

Cheers, Dave

Dave, I have to find something to photograph for my P52 while it is bloody snowing blazes here so I do not get too tight in my submission again like last week. I am trapped inside this house. We just had 3" falling today, with a little break and then another load of snow again tonight...this weather is sending me bonkers so far...another week of this and I will need a psychiatrist...

* Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice - an olde English saying

[IzzieK]

Third Week : February 15 - 21 -- Little People, Hard Working Men

This week I did many things and thought of two themes for my weekly submission. The first one fizzles out. It was a step by step instruction on how to make a photobox for $20. The photobox was constructed and it nice and portable but Bill made it so I abandoned the idea of it being my week's theme. So I put back my thinking cap when I went to Hobby Lobby and saw some little farm animals...you know how the mind goes...clank, clank, clonk, clonk, then KABOOM! I gotta have some stuffs to do these project. But first, I have to test my water and asked our dear members to teach me how to photograph these little people....After reading a few responses, I got the idea well pat. I knew what I was doing wrong, how I will go about the next scene, etc...and here are some of the continuation of the experiment I did yesterday. Just as I said in my other post, I found Hobbytown, USA that sells train sceneries and models. I got two sets of working men which I used for this project.

1 Two men digging an Angel Cake. This is the last from the HO gauge models I bought online. Saturation is intentional.



2 Farmers -- I can't seem to get the fullness and red of the tomato here so next time, I think I will have to separately pp this one. This is the first of the new set I bought at Hobbytown.



3 Brocolli miners



4 Sumo Mandarin workers -- it is not the workers who are sumo wrestler but when I went to the grocery store where I buy my usual supplies, I saw a pile of large mandarins that looks more like an oversized orange than a cutie ones. The label said "Sumo Mandarin" -- very sweet really...



5 Sourdough Rolls with black sesame seeds



C&C will be appreciated........please...it would be nice to read what you think and how I can improve my sho some more. This week started as a fun project with the first lunch Bill and I bought at Charley's in the mall and turned out to be this week's project. Believe me I had nightmares thinking about the deadline... And all I want to do yesterday was watch the election returns to see if my horse will win in a landslide. He did! And it was a happy night with the results submitted earlier and my pp finishing at 9pm...Please disregard my spelling and skipped words mistakes, my fingers types faster than my brain can think...

Thank you.

[John 2]

3 and 5 work best for me. I love the idea of broccoli miners. You should put these with the garlic miners and start a collection Izzie.

[Wavelength]

Hahaha... really funny and fascinating...... veg laborers....

[Shadowman]

Very inventive, can't wait to see what you come up with next; perhaps a winter scene.

[Geoff F]

Certainly a good idea with these shots, Izzie.

#1 would have worked well but there is too much out of focus, and rather bright, foreground for me. If that area was in focus it would have been good.

#2 works fine, although I'm not sure about the 'ground' texture.

#3 is good. You are losing focus a bit on the rearmost figure but I am willing to accept that for a sharp foreground.

#4 is OK but would have been excellent with a slightly sharper foreground.

#5 is potentially good although the highlights are a bit on the over exposed side.

With a bit more focus depth to the scene and slightly reduced highlights this is a great idea.

[bnnrcn]

Nice series Isabel 3,4 and 5 are my favs. I agree with Geoff about the highlights.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Izzie,

#1 - Angel Cake diggers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/20, 1.3 seconds, ISO 200.
I actually think the focus missed here, there's a line of angel cake surface behind the men that looks sharper than where they are working and while I don't mind the saturation, the exposure of the 'White cliffs of Dover' in the foreground is well OTT.

#2 - Farmers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/20, 2 seconds, ISO 200.
The red channel looks to be well blown, which probably explains the difficulty you had in PP with the red not looking correct. I think you may need to re-shoot, rather than separately PP the tomato.
There's not much of interest on the right hand side and I'm not sure I find the pig's bum all that interesting either
Probably my least favourite scene this week - mainly as I don't like tomatoes

#3 - Broccoli miners = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/20, 0.4 seconds, ISO 200.
The man with the Pick needs straightening up, we might as well be realistic
Good composition and due to colours of fore 'ground' and front models, the exposure is almost OK.
Hey; they have painted facial features (thank you)

#4 - Sumo Mandarin workers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/16, 1 second, ISO 200.
I'm not sure Mandarins work that well as a realistic cameo - although I do enjoy 3 or 4 every morning for breakfast.
I think you could crop a bit off the top edge.

#5 - Sourdough Roll diggers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/16, 2.5 seconds, ISO 200.
Another good scene and composition, sadly spoiled by over exposure.
That looks very tasty too, although I usually avoid poppy seeds.
perhaps crop the foreground woven table covering off? Never satisfied, am I?


In general ...

Well done; I can see you have used f/16 or f/20 in all these to get as much DoF as possible (without stacking, I assume).

You have also tried to avoid a distracting 'table top' surface in many.

One of the techniques you are using (from the start) in these scenes, which I think really makes them work, is that you always place the men 'in' the scene, leaving parts of them hidden behind parts of the scenery.


I'm not sure how you are lighting these (not flash, according to EXIF), but I think that may be an area to address to improve results. I think you have the light too close to the subjects, leading to drop off to the point of interest relative to foreground edge, which is in turn forcing you to over expose the foregrounds in some scenes.

That said, many of the subjects themselves are actually over exposed this week, not sure what the cause is, but I notice the exposure compensation seems to be set at +2 stops on the first and last ones, so if you didn't realise that and were setting the exposure on Manual using the meter (which EC offsets on Nikon cameras, but Canon does not), that might explain it on those two.


The other thing I noticed is that all have been uploaded with the ProPhoto colour space; sRGB is recommended for web display, since some web browsers do not work as well as others - I use FireFox, so it doesn't matter to me.


Accurate focusing, to ensure optimum use of DoF (e.g. in #1) and time permitting, focus stacking to give sufficient DoF, remain issues that ideally need attention.

Hope that's helpful, Dave

[FootLoose]

I agree with others' comments. What struck me though was that all the backgrounds are the same -which is understandable, of course. But the 5th looks a bit odd with that little strip of foreground at the bottom, and it occurred to me that you might trying filling some of the backgrounds with the substance being mined. There could be a mountain of oranges behind the orange miners, for example.

[joebranko]

Very inventive Izzie. I particularly like #3 and 4. Well done!

[IzzieK]

3 and 5 work best for me. I love the idea of broccoli miners. You should put these with the garlic miners and start a collection Izzie.

Thanks John...you know I value your opinion so when I get the chance to find some more O gauge models I will surely work it in my food, fruits and vegetable images...or other scenes not necessarily have to do with fruits. Thanks again. 'Appreciate your passing by.

[IzzieK]

Very inventive, can't wait to see what you come up with next; perhaps a winter scene.

Dear Nandy and John...I am glad you like my images. I truly appreciate your comments. Thank you.

[IzzieK]

Certainly a good idea with these shots, Izzie.

#1 would have worked well but there is too much out of focus, and rather bright, foreground for me. If that area was in focus it would have been good.

#2 works fine, although I'm not sure about the 'ground' texture.

#3 is good. You are losing focus a bit on the rearmost figure but I am willing to accept that for a sharp foreground.

#4 is OK but would have been excellent with a slightly sharper foreground.

#5 is potentially good although the highlights are a bit on the over exposed side.

With a bit more focus depth to the scene and slightly reduced highlights this is a great idea.

Dear Geoff...I did some focus stacking on these and I guessed that Photoshop cannot accommodate so much frames so when I bulked merged them, it did not turned out OK...Then I had this silly idea of merging them 4 at a time or 3 at a time and some 2 at a time, then merging all the "Untitled Panorama" after I have collected all 4 or all 5 of them at the same time. It made it more accurate more or less then I lost some other sharpness on other areas. I am still trying to work this out. Please be patient with me at this time...

I did photographed all these with a remote and my good old Manfrotto tripod as that is the best one that I have that will give me the best sharpness. Then I selected my subjects and inversed the process and used Hue and Saturation to darken the background. I guess I missed some as I got tired working it during the day and processing it during the night to make my deadline for today. The "table" that is showing in my tomato farmers shot is actually a cloth that I extended to the whole board on my table and because I was using a macro lens, the weave showed on it. I only noticed it after I had processed it and cannot redo the shot because it was already late at night when I finished.

I will try to do better and make sure all the nuances and distractions are taken cared of next time..

Thank you for your time with your detailed critiques. I appreciate this very much for my further learning...

[IzzieK]

Nice series Isabel 3,4 and 5 are my favs. I agree with Geoff about the highlights.

Thank you very much for your comments, Binnur. 'Appreciate it very much.

[Javier]

I love de pics¡¡¡

[IzzieK]

Dear Dave...I had replied in kind to Geoff's message in post #75. Urban had also mentioned not using ProPhoto colour space and had replied to him about that too.

I guess all these needed another technique or another lens to get them all in one shot instead of doing what I did focus stacking it, add that I was using the wrong colour space before submitting my assignment theme, equals disaster. The idea is there, the creativity contribed. I should learn to relax and have fun instead of getting too hype up with what others will say too so it will show in my work.

I hope I did not disappoint you as you have been a very big help in my learning experience here at CiC. I do appreciate your comments and detailed analysis, the critique and the suggestions. I will put them all in a note or a link so I do not forget them.

Thank you so much.

Hi Izzie,

#1 - Angel Cake diggers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/20, 1.3 seconds, ISO 200.
I actually think the focus missed here, there's a line of angel cake surface behind the men that looks sharper than where they are working and while I don't mind the saturation, the exposure of the 'White cliffs of Dover' in the foreground is well OTT.

#2 - Farmers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/20, 2 seconds, ISO 200.
The red channel looks to be well blown, which probably explains the difficulty you had in PP with the red not looking correct. I think you may need to re-shoot, rather than separately PP the tomato.
There's not much of interest on the right hand side and I'm not sure I find the pig's bum all that interesting either
Probably my least favourite scene this week - mainly as I don't like tomatoes

#3 - Broccoli miners = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/20, 0.4 seconds, ISO 200.
The man with the Pick needs straightening up, we might as well be realistic
Good composition and due to colours of fore 'ground' and front models, the exposure is almost OK.
Hey; they have painted facial features (thank you)

#4 - Sumo Mandarin workers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/16, 1 second, ISO 200.
I'm not sure Mandarins work that well as a realistic cameo - although I do enjoy 3 or 4 every morning for breakfast.
I think you could crop a bit off the top edge.

#5 - Sourdough Roll diggers = Nikon D810 with 105mm f/2.8 (macro) lens; f/16, 2.5 seconds, ISO 200.
Another good scene and composition, sadly spoiled by over exposure.
That looks very tasty too, although I usually avoid poppy seeds.
perhaps crop the foreground woven table covering off? Never satisfied, am I?


In general ...

Well done; I can see you have used f/16 or f/20 in all these to get as much DoF as possible (without stacking, I assume).

You have also tried to avoid a distracting 'table top' surface in many.

One of the techniques you are using (from the start) in these scenes, which I think really makes them work, is that you always place the men 'in' the scene, leaving parts of them hidden behind parts of the scenery.


I'm not sure how you are lighting these (not flash, according to EXIF), but I think that may be an area to address to improve results. I think you have the light too close to the subjects, leading to drop off to the point of interest relative to foreground edge, which is in turn forcing you to over expose the foregrounds in some scenes.

That said, many of the subjects themselves are actually over exposed this week, not sure what the cause is, but I notice the exposure compensation seems to be set at +2 stops on the first and last ones, so if you didn't realise that and were setting the exposure on Manual using the meter (which EC offsets on Nikon cameras, but Canon does not), that might explain it on those two.


The other thing I noticed is that all have been uploaded with the ProPhoto colour space; sRGB is recommended for web display, since some web browsers do not work as well as others - I use FireFox, so it doesn't matter to me.


Accurate focusing, to ensure optimum use of DoF (e.g. in #1) and time permitting, focus stacking to give sufficient DoF, remain issues that ideally need attention.

Hope that's helpful, Dave

[IzzieK]

I agree with others' comments. What struck me though was that all the backgrounds are the same -which is understandable, of course. But the 5th looks a bit odd with that little strip of foreground at the bottom, and it occurred to me that you might trying filling some of the backgrounds with the substance being mined. There could be a mountain of oranges behind the orange miners, for example.

What a good idea, Greg! I will try to put that in mind. Perhaps I should use the smaller cutie mandarins so I can have a box of them instead of the 4 that I purchased but ate the other two because it was so good and sweet. And oh, the cake is already gone too. I did not even think of giving even a crumb to anyone. I do not think anyone would like it but me, especially with ice cream...yummm!! Thank you so much for your suggestion and comments. I will take note of this and put it in my list of to do when I get to photographing something similar...and I am also waiting for more models that I bought online to come now that I know what gauge I want in size.

'Appreciate your nice comments. Thank you.

[IzzieK]

Very inventive Izzie. I particularly like #3 and 4. Well done!

Thank you, Joe...it is very nice to hear from you too...I am keeping in track with this P52 projects of yours and others too so I can see what they have done so far. Thank you so much for your kind comments.