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

Hi again Izzie,

Thanks for your reply - but I rejoice (not sigh) at your progress.

I am not at all surprised the sourdough bread was only fit for garbage after that :D

I appreciate you giving us the shooting information on each, thanks.

Moving on to the next post with pictures:
I really like the Eggplant and clown shot.
I think the Chokos might not have fulfilled their true potential yet - to me their expression indicates they have been sucking on lemons :)
Although you have a piece of Lime(?) in shot, the firemen figures distract from the sourness of lemon being relevant in context.

On the orange glass shot; I feel the expression (mouth shape) might be made more relevant somehow.


With regard to your legs and frequent trips to your den to view the pictures, can you not tether a tablet to the camera to be able to see this downstairs in the kitchen? Perhaps even get a Cam-Fi if you want to go wireless - just a thought - I'm sure Bill won't mind.


I am busy doing a third instalment of butterflies, then I need to PP some more baby pics shot on Thursday when I also broke new ground using manual bounce flash for some.

Thank you Dave for putting in the time...I normally put a link in my drafts folder in my email so I can go back to them when I go to the net later on. It is hard to multitask taking photographs, post processing them, then have to response to other posters too.

Anyway, I am always complaining of my legs in jest, but I like going up and down the stairs -- it beats the actual treadmill I have in my bedroom which is in the same floor level. Going up and down the stairs is my exercise for the day. I have a tether program for my laptop. Despite Bill teaching me how to access my laptop downstairs to my desktop, I still have to do it properly. Info just goes over my head and I keep losing my desktop from my laptop and vice versa. :rolleyes:

Back to my image, in the chokos shot, the fireman was looking at his dog mascot who is salivating on the lemon, while the chokos were telling him not to touch that piece of lemon, therefore the master should be there with his mascot. Can you see the story there? Look at the direction of their eyes...

As for orange, I agree, that was a disaster of a shot, despite 6 (2 focus shots each) because of the mouth -- I could have made the mouth into a nose and carve a piece of sushi wrapper for the mouth. And the eyes keeps wandering down several times. Sticking those eyes was easy enough -- I used miso paste with dashi. I can't figure out at the time how to shoot the liquid in the glass so I googled glasses of orange and analyzed them all -- none of them were shot from the top like I did, hence the rim of the glass did not show. I should have gone down lower or tilted my camera up to prevent that. I am still learning...

Thanks for passing by and responding...I do appreciate it very much.

Week for this month of March 7 - 13, 2016 :
Trip to the Butterfly House at Faust


Due to the influx butterfly shots in this forum, I decided to go to the Butterfly House down the road from us. It was a wonderful humid experience. Being Asian born and raised I thought the humidity will be tolerable for me. Inside was over 80°F temperature with 77°F humidity. I can only grin and bear half an hour inside and I have to go out for a while to recuperate. But the experience not only cleared my lungs, get my breathing going good again and I must have lost 10 lbs in there -- it was practically like a sauna place. And for $5 entrance fee, it is a cheap way to lose weight and get rid of all the toxins inside me.

So next time Bill will say he is going to his hangar for just a little while, I will ask him to drop me off at the Butterfly House which by the way is on the way to his hangar, and pick me up on his way out and we can go home at the same time. Saves gasoline for one and I have a driver! Yeyyy!!!

Anyway, here are some of my shots: I used my 105mm macro lens for all of these shots, handheld, manual. No tripods allowed and no flash either. I do not want to fiddle with either Aperture Priority nor Shutter Priority as I barely used them. I set my camera at first to Aperture Priority but I wasn't very well versed with it so I changed my setting to manual which I am more familiar with.

1 Shot at the distance on approaching the Butterfly House; 1/400 @F8, ISO 125, Nikon S9900

http://i67.tinypic.com/fk06x4.jpg

2 Edited version cropped

http://i65.tinypic.com/htgvtj.jpg

3 Exposure 1/400 @ F8, ISO 125, Nikon S9900
http://i63.tinypic.com/2ni4i68.jpg


4 1/500 @F8, ISO 125 Nikon S9900

http://i63.tinypic.com/110kvpj.jpg

5 Inside near the door is this display of the Morpho butterflies in its early stages. 1/200@ F8, EC-2, ISO 800. This is shot with my adult camera, D810

http://i64.tinypic.com/2ekn2nl.jpg

6 1/160 @F8 ISO 800
http://i68.tinypic.com/ajvte1.jpg

7 1/50 @F8, ISO 800, Nikon D810

http://i66.tinypic.com/27yxu2d.jpg

8 I will try to upload some more actual ones that I have later on as this post is becoming too picture heavy. Here is Bill on his way out of the building. 1/125 @ F8 ISO 400 Nikon D810

http://i67.tinypic.com/sn2t5z.jpg

9 And this the view from outside of the door...I converted this last one to mono because it looks better...no other reason. 1/125 @ F8, +1.3 EC, ISO 125 Shot with my Nikon S9900

http://i65.tinypic.com/517fpl.jpg

I will appreciate any comments and critiques. Thank you very much.

Excellent images... wonderful place!!!

Butterfly House. All very good shots. These comments are what I would consider doing if they were my shots.
1. Very nice. IMO : Crop a bit off the bottom and lose the sign?
2. Perfect! Perhaps lower the highlights?
3. Good just the way it is.
4. Lower the vibrancy?
5 . ? Don't know
6 Love the detail on the wings; great DOF control
7. Same as 6.
8. Hi There Gentleman Bill!:)
9. Not sure if it is a bit soft or if it is my eyes or monitor.

Nice series.

Some good shots here, my only thoughts are about #2 and #4 which somehow seem a bit overly 'strong' and unnatural looking to me. Possibly a bit of an over processed feel to them. I'm not really sure what has happened here.

I think I would probably lose that bit of top branches in #1.

The highlights are getting a fraction on the over exposed side with #7.

Looks like a fun place to go. You captured it well.

Edit version of #2 and #4 respectively...

#2 Edit -- let u see if you like this one now...I see there is not much difference...despite that this is only from Viveza and I did not even touched the saturation from ACR nor in Viveza either...

http://i66.tinypic.com/j0ejrs.jpg

#4 edit -- well this one looks better...I think

http://i68.tinypic.com/o87668.jpg

I have to look ... but I need to submit it first before doing so... or I forgot to do something I should do before uploading this to Tiny Pic....:o

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Originally Posted by Wavelength

Excellent images... wonderful place!!!

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Thank you Nandy, John (Shadowman) and Ziggy...I appreciate your responses. I think by your appreciation, I am doing something right for once...:p

[QUOTE=joebranko;592673]Butterfly House. All very good shots. These comments are what I would consider doing if they were my shots.
1. Very nice. IMO : Crop a bit off the bottom and lose the sign?
[QUOTE] This is the original shot. I was doing the before and after. The before is this #1 and the after is #2 which is the crop of #1. Hope I made this one clear...

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2. Perfect! Perhaps lower the highlights?

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I thought I did...I removed the Colour Efex special effects layer (see message #49) but I don't think I did a very good job despite that I did use any saturation in any software, both in ACR and Viveza at all...

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3. Good just the way it is.

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Thank you.

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4. Lower the vibrancy?

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I never use any vibrancy. I just deleted the Colour Efex layer. This is straight from ACR then Viveza for lowering the brightness and adding structure and increasing the shadows.

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5 . ? Don't know
6 Love the detail on the wings; great DOF control
7. Same as 6.

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Thank you.

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8. Hi There Gentleman Bill!:)
9. Not sure if it is a bit soft or if it is my eyes or monitor.

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Must your monitor. I converted this to mono on the bluish side because it is much clearer. The sun was up when we went out of the building and that boy standing on top of the statue of the caterpillar on the left side was sort of foggy. Converting it mono made it more better than the coloured version...

#8 and #9 are my closing shots here. Closing Shots actually mean, "goodbye", the end of the show, this show particularly on this post hence I invited everyone to comment and/or critique.

Thank you so much for being part of my audience here. I do appreciate your suggestions and comments very much.

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Originally Posted by Geoff F

Some good shots here, my only thoughts are about #2 and #4 which somehow seem a bit overly 'strong' and unnatural looking to me. Possibly a bit of an over processed feel to them. I'm not really sure what has happened here.

I think I would probably lose that bit of top branches in #1.

The highlights are getting a fraction on the over exposed side with #7.

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You know...come to think of it while I was thinking and responding to the other posts, it must be that I forgot to translate my images to sRGB before I uploaded them...as I am using ProPhoto on my Photoshop so I can print properly, more colours...I am sorry...I tried to correct them by removing the Colour Efex layer in Photoshop as a short cut and it did not turn out well. I will try again. I put the correction in a separate post so I can replace them without losing anything...I will do better...

Ah...#1 is the overview of the place and I just cropped #2 out of it. That is why the branch at the top of the image is not there anymore and also the sign posts and other rubbish.

Thank you for responding. I value your opinion and appreciate your comments.

Hi Izzie, the edited versions look a bit better to me with the colours toned down but that's a personal choice.

I wonder if the 5th might be better with the top half cropped off.

I assume the shots of the butterflies were shot through glass. Maybe some reflection is affecting the 7th shot. I wonder why you used 1/50 ss. There appears to be a bit of motion blur in there.


PS 30C (85F) and 85% humidity here (for the 34/35th day) - maybe that accounts for all the butterflies around here :)

Izzie.....I like them all, but my favorite is the photo with the light and darker shell eggs.......also a very good idea :)........

Griddi.......

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Originally Posted by FootLoose

Hi Izzie, the edited versions look a bit better to me with the colours toned down but that's a personal choice.

I wonder if the 5th might be better with the top half cropped off.

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I thought about that too and I did cropped it out, but I put it back to show a bit more of the environment where the pupa lives in different levels.

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I assume the shots of the butterflies were shot through glass. Maybe some reflection is affecting the 7th shot. I wonder why you used 1/50 ss. There appears to be a bit of motion blur in there.

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I was trying to inch away from some guys also looking at the butterflies and one of them have a kid. As I only have a 105mm macro and manually only relying on my exposure triangle, I think I should have waited for my time to be at the front of the glass...I was even wondering that next time I will not put any deodorant under my arms so I will smell and people will naturally move away from me...like that will help... With the humidity inside there, my sweat will surely stink....:D Maybe I should have go down my aperture instead of adjusting my shutter speed.

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PS 30C (85F) and 85% humidity here (for the 34/35th day) - maybe that accounts for all the butterflies around here :)

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Nice weather...I will be glad to go home for a visit on that...hopefully it will not rain as I want to take Bill to so many places there including the rainforests of Tassie.

Thanks Greg. Appreciate your comments very much as usual...my fodder for improvement.

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Originally Posted by just me

Izzie.....I like them all, but my favorite is the photo with the light and darker shell eggs.......also a very good idea :)........

Griddi.......

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I will try to upload some real flying/landing butterflies later when I remember as this week will be too tight a schedule with all these elections going on around here plus packing and unpacking and rearranging my luggage. I am getting fanatic about lists...We will be in Melbourne this coming Friday just in time to have a shower before going to my grandchild's Grandparents Day event at her school. And all I can think of is a serve or two of that Salt and Pepper Calamari from that Thai restaurant...:D

I am glad you enjoyed my images. Thank you for your comments.

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Originally Posted by IzzieK

I will not put any deodorant under my arms so I will smell and people will naturally move away from me...like that will help... With the humidity inside there, my sweat will surely stink....:D.

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:D:D You cracked me up, Izzie :D

Nice set Isabel, my fav is #6 :)

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Originally Posted by bnnrcn

Nice set Isabel, my fav is #6 :)

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I am glad you like my shots. Thank you for passing by.

Week 3 March 14-20 Magnolia Tree in front of our house

Yesterday Bill asked me to take a shot or two of his precious Magnolia tree up front. I obliged because when we come back, I am afraid it won't be there anymore, well, at least most of the flowers will then be gone. So here by best shots. I am not happy with them yet as I think they need more work...

1 A full view -- 1/320 @F20, EC -2, manual setting 82.0mm

http://i65.tinypic.com/2mdij9w.jpg

2 a bunch of them 1/100 @F8 Manual setting, ISO 100, 300mm lens

http://i68.tinypic.com/w7exi1.jpg

3 And what will this shot be without a single one in the set? 1/120 @F6.3 Manual mode EC-0.67 ISO 400 Focal length 220mm

http://i63.tinypic.com/wji6mg.jpg


I am going away tomorrow and will be arriving at our destination this coming Friday so if I did not respond quick enough I am sorry...I will try to get rid of my jet lag first before I embarked on any photoshooting...

Thank you for any comments and critiques. I will read them when I settled down and slept a bit...Many, many thanks for your patience.