2020 Project 52 by Geoff F - 2nd Quarter

[Geoff F]

For obvious reasons I will need to make some changes to my weekly project this year and will have to concentrate on images from around my house and garden.

The 1st quarter images are here

2020 Project 52 by Geoff F - 1st Quarter

Week 14 - Garden Insects. I have been taking a camera with me while doing various maintenance tasks in the garden.

Bee Fly. These flit between flowers and hover with legs just touching the flowers so they are difficult to follow and get a shot before they move to another flower.



7D with Sigma 180 macro lens 1/200 F11 Iso 400 with flash

Hoverfly - Melanostoma scalare female.



7D with Sigma 180 macro lens. 1/200 F11 Iso 200 flash used on a tripod.

Hawthorn Shieldbug



1/200 F8 Iso 400.
Merge of two focus points. There was a reflection problem from the bright sunshine so I created a bit of shadow with my body and adjusted the flash output to give a reduced flash.

Misumena vatia



1/200 F14 Iso 400. Merge of two focus points. Flash.

[Antonio Correia]

What a start for the second quarter !

All images are sharp and you are making a good use of the flash !
Good work Geoff !

[Wavelength]

Wonderful set of images

[Geoff F]

Thanks for the comments.

Flash is normally my 'default setting' for macro work, Antonio, but it needs to be used with care. Under suitable conditions it will overcome those harsh shadows which occur with bright sunlight and will guarantee that I have sufficient shutter speed for any subject movement or wind rock.

My standard settings would be something like 1/160 to 1/250 F8 to F14 and Iso 400 all set manually then I vary the flash output compensation slightly to suit individual scenes.

For any 'studio work' macro shots I have a couple of daylight quality lamps which I can use instead of flash for things like moths from my moth trap.

[Geoff F]

Week 15 - Isolation. Keeping myself at home and hoping to avoid the virus. I'm much luckier than many because I have a fairly small mature garden which had become a bit neglected. This dangerous time must be a real struggle for those who have to live in an over crowded city apartment.



7D with Tamron 24-70 lens 1/200 F11 Iso 400. Flash

This was an experiment. I worked out an exposure for the bright background then bounced the flash from my ceiling. On reflection, maybe I should have used an Iso of 200 and reduced the shutter speed.

Several attempts were ditched because of reflections in the window. I wanted it to be open but had to vary the angle to exclude any reflection.

[Antonio Correia]

But it is well done Geoff !
Don't show this photo to your wife or else she will scold you (hope it is the right verb, I used a translator ) because of the curtain out of the window.
PVC or aluminium windows ? Perhaps a bit too thin for PVC...

[Geoff F]

They are PVC window frames, Antonio. Thanks for the comment.

Looking at the original scene I wanted to do something different with the curtain instead of it just hanging there; so I thought maybe I could give it a bit of an impression of movement and also the curtain is going outside while I am having to stay indoors. Although in reality I can safely wander around the garden.

I also tried various arrangements for the bottom left corner. I though the open bird identification book and binoculars gave the right sort of impression although I did another version with a partly finished crossword puzzle and a pen.

When I bought this house, nearly 40 years ago, the window frames were made of galvanised iron which fitted very badly and in frosty weather any room condensation turned into ice on the frames.

[Cantab]

Geoff, that's quite a view out your window.

Galvanized iron window frames! They would have done a very good job of conducting heat out of the room. When I bought our house, the window frames were all aluminum. I don't know which of iron and aluminum does a better job of conducting heat but aluminum did it well.

This was a challenging shot. If there were any white balance issues with the two different light sources, they're not apparent. I'm wondering what the shot would look like if there was a blue sky with a few white puffy clouds.

[Geoff F]

Looking sideways towards some form of horizon usually gives you greyish skies here, Bruce. It may be blue overhead and with perfect little fluffy clouds but once you look sideways you get this greyness over the horizon. Not pollution, just something to do with the light angle.

Another problem with those poorly fitting metal window frames was the draughts. I tried some stick on foam but it didn't really work for long. When there was a gale blowing heavy curtains would billow inwards like sails. Eventually I fitted some DIY secondary glazing which worked reasonably well until the metal frames had reached a stage where everything had to be replaced. A gas fire was another serious problem when a gale force draught would come down the chimney and blow out the flames!

[Geoff F]

Week 16 - Attractive Weeds. Had a go at photographing some wildflowers in my garden today. I am willing to tolerate a few attractive weeds; until they take advantage of my good nature and launch a take over bid for the entire garden.

Barren Strawberries



7D with Sigma 180 macro lens 1/200 F11 Iso 400 with a little bit of flash. Merge of three focus points.

Forget-me-nots. I think this is the Wood Forget-me-not species but they are tricky to fully identify and it could be an escaped garden variety.



There have been a few bees around my bee nesting tubes recently. Looks like Red Mason Bees (Osmia bicornis) and probably early season males searching for emerging females.

[Antonio Correia]

Geoff... good work as usual !

[Geoff F]

Week 17 - Ploughing. Seen from the road outside my house. I tried for a wider landscape scene but that made the tractor too small and the more distant areas lost clarity. Even the closer bits are really too far away for the conditions and I was shooting across the light angle.



7D with Canon 70-200 lens at 200. 1/400 F11 Iso 400

Ruby Tiger Moth. It was flitting around various plant stems in my garden so I couldn't manage a perfect angle; although from this angle it looks like some fearsome alien monster.



Sigma 180 macro lens 1/200 F11 Iso 400 with flash

Bluebottle. A fresh wind kept most insects moving around so when this common fly came near and posed for just enough time to focus I clicked the shutter.



And a moth from the moth trap at couple of days ago. It is called a Chamomile Shark.



1/100 F8 Iso 400 indoors with 'studio lights'

[Antonio Correia]

Perhaps with a little of Dehaze it is possible to get rid of the haze you have in your first photograph... Perhaps you could frame the area with some branches out of focus in the foreground...
Just some thoughts...

The last one is great ! Sometimes lucky strikes !
I mean, you were lucky the fly made a pose on the flower.

[Geoff F]

I did use a bit of dehaze filter on that farm scene, Antonio. The east wind haze is just too much to totally overcome at that distance; but after viewing the image again this morning I added a fraction more highlight brightness which did lift the overall scene a little. If I could have found an angle where I was facing north, instead of west, I would have managed a clearer image. That current scene is about a 50% crop of the original shot, which was at 200 mm.

[xpatUSA]

I did use a bit of dehaze filter on that farm scene, Antonio. The east wind haze is just too much to totally overcome at that distance; but after viewing the image again this morning I added a fraction more highlight brightness which did lift the overall scene a little. If I could have found an angle where I was facing north, instead of west, I would have managed a clearer image. That current scene is about a 50% crop of the original shot, which was at 200 mm.

Pardon me playing with your image, Geoff. I just had to try RawTherapee's Dehaze function on it:

[Cantab]

Pardon me playing with your image, Geoff. I just had to try RawTherapee's Dehaze function on it:

Ted, did you also increase the sharpening or is the different result solely because of RawTherapee's Dehaze?

[Geoff F]

That is the problem with dehaze filters. They brighten the highlights while darkening the shadows and add extra sharpness; so they need careful use. A bit like using an adjustment layer set to overlay/soft light/hard light which gives an artificial look to the image.

Perhaps I will post the alteration which I made by simply by increasing the highlights a fraction.

[DanK]

Interesting. A severe dehaze in LR/ACR changes color balance, but this seems not to.

I'd be interested in the internal mechanics of RawTherapee's dehaze. If I'm not mistaken, Adobe's includes a hefty does of clarity--a mixture of local contrast and midtone contrast--but no sharpening. This looks like it might include some sharpening. Whatever it does, I think it is a big improvement. I'd be tempted to back off the adjustment a little, but not too much.

[xpatUSA]

Ted, did you also increase the sharpening or is the different result solely because of RawTherapee's Dehaze?

Not solely, no.

DeHaze did most of the work, Bruce, but the image was still a bit soft by my standards - so I applied some Contrast By Detail Levels. I can show just the DeHaze if you would like. It does work well!

[xpatUSA]

Interesting. A severe dehaze in LR/ACR changes color balance, but this seems not to.

I'd be interested in the internal mechanics of RawTherapee's dehaze. If I'm not mistaken, Adobe's includes a hefty does of clarity--a mixture of local contrast and midtone contrast--but no sharpening. This looks like it might include some sharpening. Whatever it does, I think it is a big improvement. I'd be tempted to back off the adjustment a little, but not too much.

Here's the RT DeHaze output at default settings with no additional adjustments:



No doubt there are other apps/utilities that can do just as well ...