2017 Project 52 - 3rd QTR - Sandy(Skitterbug)

[skitterbug]

Nice set Sandy, my fav is #2. Nice light on the barn

Hi Binnur ~ I'm glad you enjoyed looking at these. I found it hard to make a choice but #2 with the swirl of spray, etc. is definitely interesting! Thank you for commenting!

[skitterbug]

If you get another chance, Sandy, try some shots with a shutter speed around 1/200 which will blur the propeller.

Not easy to achieve perfect results with a slow shutter but these shots are well focused so you should be able to still obtain excellent images.

Hi Geoff ~ I have a collection of pics of these crop dusters, many of them are rubbish! <lol> I'll be honest about the fact that I like the propeller to be "stopped in action". I'm not crazy about the blurred look of motion. But I think you are reasoning that a little blur of motion is worth it because the lower ISO will produce less noise in the pic - right?

So I looked back through what I had with my experimentation of camera settings and found a few with an ISO of 200. This one was set at f/5.6 - 1/1250ss and seems fairly decent to me. I did tweak it just a tiny bit but really didn't do much. Cropped it to get rid of wires, etc. rather than dealing with cloning chores.

See if this is what you might be after me to do?

Taken on July 19 - and I must tell you that the pilot dipped his wings saying hello to me! It was fun!

Little Yellow Crop Duster

[Wavelength]

very nice; can you increase the contrast a bit?

[skitterbug]

very nice; can you increase the contrast a bit?

Hi Nandakumar ~ Maybe a tiny bit of contrast but I wouldn't want to make a major change since the sky and plane were those colors. Neither really stood out. I'll "play" with it a bit and see if it improves the pic. Thanks for your suggestion!

[skitterbug]

very nice; can you increase the contrast a bit?

Okay Nandakumar ~ I'm back with another version of the Little Yellow Crop Duster. I did a bit more to it and of course I can never leave it alone once I start. But yes, I did up the contrast a bit as well. See if it is more pleasing to you!

[joebranko]

Hi Sandy. Beautiful capture! I agree with Geoff's suggestion of blurring the prop with a slower shutter, if you get another chance.

[John 2]

Nice set of captures Sandy. Interesting to see the vortex forming around the wing tip in 4 and5. The additions to the wing tips in thelater yellow crop duster I think are designed to eliminate that.

[skitterbug]

Hi Sandy. Beautiful capture! I agree with Geoff's suggestion of blurring the prop with a slower shutter, if you get another chance.

Hi Joe ~ Thanks for the praise and I'll keep the idea of blurring in mind next chance I get. Probably won't happen around here now until next spring's crops need dusting! I might get lucky then because usually the field across the road rotates from soy beans to field corn. When it is corn, the crop duster goes right over our home! It's a free air show that is fun to watch!

[skitterbug]

Nice set of captures Sandy. Interesting to see the vortex forming around the wing tip in 4 and 5. The additions to the wing tips in the later yellow crop duster I think are designed to eliminate that.

Hi Joe ~ Thank you very much for enjoying the photos! I don't know much about crop dusters other than they look rather daring during their work! I like the idea of those tips helping stop the swirl but seeing the swirl happening does make an interesting pic!

[skitterbug]

Week 34 - Both of these pictures were taken by our koi pond. The first is a water hyacinth. We started with 5 plants and ended up with too many of them. They are beautiful but so very prolific. Sadly, because of space, we have to toss them out regularly or we'd be overrun by them.

The second is a skull that our grandson found in our grove of evergreen trees. We think maybe it is an opossum that may have been injured on the road and then made it to our grove to pass away. But anyway....I decided to see what kind of pic I could create by placing it among the rocks and vegetation. I think the results are interesting so I'll add it to my P52 photo collection for comments.

Basically, with these entries, I'm trying to keep a simple workflow going. Import photos, toss out unusable ones, develop keepers by cropping, reducing noise and sharpening them. Fine tuning what I like to change and I'm done. Suggestions for adding in additional points to pay attention to while doing PP and tasks to add to the work flow will be welcome information. So any suggestions will be appreciated!

#1 - Water Hyacinth - ISO400 - f/5.6 - 1/4000ss (camera chose this speed? Not sure I understand why it would?)





#2 - Skull - ISO800 - f/6.3 - 1/25ss

[bnnrcn]

Hi Sandy I think the light wasn't very helpful for the first shot, so may be try again late in the afternoon or early in the morning.Your SS is high because you shot with ISO 400. If your ISO had been 100 the SS would have been 1/1000. Here is some info about exposure triangle. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...a-exposure.htm

[vaez]

my fv 1 image very cut

[skitterbug]

Hi Sandy I think the light wasn't very helpful for the first shot, so may be try again late in the afternoon or early in the morning.Your SS is high because you shot with ISO 400. If your ISO had been 100 the SS would have been 1/1000. Here is some info about exposure triangle. https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tu...a-exposure.htm

Thanks Binnur for your observations!

[skitterbug]

my fv 1 image very cut

Thank you Vaez!

[Geoff F]

Fast shutter speeds are always a problem with that sort of scene, Sandy, where you want to bring out the fine detail and subtle colour of petals; as Binnur has already mentioned. If possible, I try to do flower photography on an slightly overcast day to avoid harsh light and heavy shadow contrast. But that can go the other way and cause problems with too slow a shutter and subject movement.

With the skull, I think it may be worth taking a bit of time to carefully compose a scene which will fully stretch your artistic talents. At the moment those out of focus bits of the Stonecrop plants are tending to spoil a potentially interesting composition.

Going back to the plane and freezing the propeller in flight. The reason why I like to do that is because if the propeller looks static I have to ask myself 'What is keeping that plane in the air without an engine running'. It tends to look like a static plane photo has been pasted in to the scene. Jets are so much simpler to photograph!

[skitterbug]

Fast shutter speeds are always a problem with that sort of scene, Sandy, where you want to bring out the fine detail and subtle colour of petals; as Binnur has already mentioned. If possible, I try to do flower photography on an slightly overcast day to avoid harsh light and heavy shadow contrast. But that can go the other way and cause problems with too slow a shutter and subject movement.

Too much brightness can ruin a photo but I thought this one had enough definition to be decent. I was puzzled by the camera's choice of speed though. But I reckon the camera thought there was way too much light too so it wanted to get the job over and done! <LOL> Trouble with trying to take a pic of this flower is that early morning, it is not at its best and by late afternoon it will already be starting to fade. So the situation presents a problem for photo opportunities.

With the skull, I think it may be worth taking a bit of time to carefully compose a scene which will fully stretch your artistic talents. At the moment those out of focus bits of the Stonecrop plants are tending to spoil a potentially interesting composition.

I'll have to think about this one a bit. I don't want the usual scene but I do want something noteworthy........

Going back to the plane and freezing the propeller in flight. The reason why I like to do that is because if the propeller looks static I have to ask myself 'What is keeping that plane in the air without an engine running'. It tends to look like a static plane photo has been pasted in to the scene. Jets are so much simpler to photograph!

This is more a matter of how one would want to present the prop plane then? Rather like the running water of falls, that some like to have smooth and silky and some want the water to look crisp and bubbly. Hopefully, I'll have more chances next spring/summer to capture them in action.

Thank you Geoff for taking the time to give me food for thought!

[Wavelength]

I liked it more, after small edits you have performed in the image ; again the image of the water hyacinth flower is lovely with its subtle colors; the skull image tries to say something i suppose

[skitterbug]

I liked it more, after small edits you have performed in the image ; again the image of the water hyacinth flower is lovely with its subtle colors; the skull image tries to say something i suppose

Hi Nandakumar ~ I have to agree that adding a bit more contrast to the plane pic did help it! Your suggestion definitely was good to make!

Our little pond full of those water hyacinth blooms is interesting to see. The blooms range from freshly opened to fading fast. I like the little medallion of yellow and deep blue that is prominently displayed on them.

If my grandson had left the little skull where it was originally, that may have been the best place to have a pic taken. But being the curious fellow that he is, he trudged to our house carrying it to ask us what we thought it was. I believe he was going to take it home but forgot. I wanted one decent pic of it for his "memory book" that I fill full of pics of him or of things he did during the year. I try to have the book done for a Christmas present to him.

Thank you for looking and commenting on my last entries!

[Geoff F]

Soon be Halloween, Sandy. Perhaps that will give you a few ideas for the skull.

[skitterbug]

Soon be Halloween, Sandy. Perhaps that will give you a few ideas for the skull.

LOL! I like the way you think!