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| Group |
Round |
C/R |
Comment |
Date |
Image |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Great, thanks Salvador. I can see a project here! |
Nov 18th |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Thanks, Tom, it certainly pops out now. Thanks all for the encouragement - I'll give it another go as suggested. I'll see if I can use the lines on the 2p coin somehow as well. |
Nov 17th |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Maybe, but it's November and becoming rather cold here! :(
I think I'll practice indoors a while first..... |
Nov 11th |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Thanks for your explanation. I suppose that's another reason for me to get out of bed early!
Stuart |
Nov 11th |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
Hello Sathishkumar, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance. I can see now that this group does have a lot to teach me and for me to aspire to.
I love the colour of the background which complements and contrasts the subject. It seems to have rim lighting which makes it really stand out. Techically faultless in my view. Super shot. I have to agree with Dick, the vertical crop has a little more punch for me, although I suspect that had I been cropping I'd have taken off a bit less than Dick, perhaps made it square.
This is a macro that I'd love to emulate but have never managed it, so please spill the beans, how did you do it?
*Was the insect alive? (I can never figure out how people get live shots, the darned things always fly away when I try.)
*Was the natural light enhanced with a reflector?
*Was the background natural or placed by you?
*Tripod or very steady hand? |
Nov 11th |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
Hi Tom,
I think this photo has great impact. Whilst I saw the flower first, especially the white hairs, the sky came soon after, and was the feature that really made my eyebrows rise. Super!
The colour, lighting and exposure are spot on for me. I think Melissa has a good idea, not to try to get that background petal into focus (and to be honest I don't dislike its blurriness, it adds 3D to the photo, but I do think its reverse direction is a little distracting). So I too would clone it out.
Personally I'd have preferred not to have lost the tips of the petals on the top and bottom. A tighter crop would spoil it I think, but a little less crop (or more original) would have been better. |
Nov 3rd |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
I do love to break "rules", and rules like that of two thirds and the golden ratio etc are all good in their place - but symmetry deserves symmetry I think, so I agree with Melissa's crop suggestion. The downturned filaments do appear distracting and detract compared to the revised photo.
As for the technique, what can I say - seems perfect to me. I love the idea to pick off seeds off to create this picture.
I also really like Original 2 - symmetry is back. Seems to me like a really good triptych. I've never done one, but are you allowed to have varying print sizes? In which case it occurs to me that left = Original, mid = Original 2 about 20% bigger, and right = final picture, 20% bigger again! Probably have the judges in a spin. |
Nov 3rd |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
Hi Janet,
I keep a couple of colonies of honey bees, and wasps are not my favourite insect either, they can be brazen attackers of a hive. Keeping a sheets of glass between it and me would be a good strategy for me too. I hardly ever take insects as the darned things always move away. Maybe we need an aerosol anaesthetic!
I like the unusual point of view and the way it fills the frame. The colour and light are lovely, and the background is completely non-distracting yet not plain, which I do like. In fact the light and dark areas of the background and the wasp are adjacent, which gives a great, pleasing contrast.
Alas the bane of our lives I think lets you down - depth of field. This is another picture I think where more is needed. The head and hairy front are nice and sharp, but the abdomen and wings are quite blurred despite f16. Focus stacking is not easy on the spur of the moment unless your camera helps a lot, but it's a great tool for dealing with this situation if you can do it. |
Nov 3rd |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
Well, one thing I'll never comment on is the name of a flower or beastie, I know so little about that! I think that the initial impact of your photo is good - nice idea, good composition, simple colour, well defocussed background to make it stand out, and I love water droplets on things too. However I agree with Dick's comment, depth of field could be better. Normally I like using depth of field to emphasis what I want it to, but here the sharpest bit is the foreground (where we want it primarily) but the largest, lightest area which draws the eye is much softer. So here I would agree, any technique to get it all sharp would improve it. |
Nov 3rd |
| 6 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Thank you both! I'll experiment as you both suggest. I'll take the picture again; I'd noticed the upside downess (if that's a word) of the coins, but it was just a learning exercise. The lined paper was quite an accident, it just happened to be handy, but yes the photo club comp judge also commented on its leading lines. I didn't buy Helicon focus as even though it was good, I've found since that Affinity's focus merge works well. But there were many more options in Helicon, I might give it another go.
There were only 5 images in the stack. My EM5ii takes a focus bracket automatically, so I used that and had the camera on a tripod. My EM1ii does stacks internally if you set it to, but it uses 8 images by default. If you want more or less it will do a bracket up to 999 images, so but you have to process the stack in your computer. I've not tried more than about 20 so far.
The 14-50 macro was a jolly good little lens, quite sharp but inexpensive. It couldn't get to 1:1 though and I sold it when I bought an Olympus 60mm macro. |
Nov 2nd |
5 comments - 5 replies for Group 6
|
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Thanks, John. I agree with your sharpness comment, but this was 800mm focal length at f6.3 due to the low light. I'm amazed it is this sharp given the 1/80 sec - 10 times slower than our old rule of thumb limit for hand holding. That's image stabilisation working of course. As for the brightenin, yes, I like that idea; not too much or it will look like a light was on him, but a little will help I think. |
Nov 11th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Reply |
Agreed! |
Nov 11th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
This instantly reminded me of a similar photo of elephants walking taken by a professional wildlife photographer who visited one of my clubs a couple of years ago - alas I can't remember his name (as usual). Most people were unsure about the rear ends, but hey, with rhinos, that can be a better sight than the opposite!
Low key and moody, it does give a great feeling of cool and damp, so I like it.
I agree with Jerry, a bit of anti-clockwise rotation is needed. I've been pondering about the branch on the top left - better removed? Maybe. On balance I would remove it or perhaps better, make more of it by cloning. |
Nov 10th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
I'm sure you're right, Stan, all of the fine detail is a bit fuzzy, the low resolution of this DD site is a limitation. But at least it makes it easier for users of non-full frame cameras like me!
I really like this photo too. Usually I prefer lines in a panorama to be not horizontal, but that's not always true, as here. The lines emphasise the recession into the distance which is a hallmark of all great landscapes I think. The clouds over the mountains, making the far ones less sharp in outline and the nearer one much sharper, contributes to the recession. There's a super range of greys, and detail to look at as well as the impression from the overall vista.
Perhaps the only detail that I'd change is to remove the black post towards the bottom left. Maybe darken down a bit more the top left corner? But yes I agree, it is a good photo. |
Nov 10th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
I'm afraid I don't use NIK as I don't think Affinity supports it, and my subscription to Outdoor Photography expired some time ago.
Whatever the process, I like the result.I like the various textures and overall contrast and sharpness. The composition has two main points of interest, both on opposite 1/3 points, which I think gives a really pleasing, tranquil effect. There are some bright highlights, mainly in the reflection, but I'm perfectly happy with them, that's how sparkly water appears to my eye. There are some blocked shadows, but again this is fine to me, it's not excessive and too much detail wold detract from the overall picture.
Lots of interest, excellent composition, a very nice picture in my view. I won't even mention the very slightly bright bottom right corner and to the left of the building..... |
Nov 10th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
Thank you all.
I've just noticed a line on the picture across the beak and to the left of the beak. I've traced back through my various derivatives of the original raw file and found it on all of them, even the master ".afphoto" file, but not on the raw file. Annoying! Will need to be redone from scratch (pardon the pun) . |
Nov 10th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
One day we'll get to Northern Ireland! We've been to Eire several times (Holyhead to Dublin) but we keep finding it so pretty on the west coast that we find it's time to go home before we get that far north.
I also think that the background is disguising the balls and I really don't know what to suggest. Alas I often find that a picture in my mind when I press the button just never transforms into a successful photo no matter what I do to it, and the shot remains a record shot, valuable and interesting to me but less so to others who weren't there.
Amazing detail considering the camera and the cropping done! |
Nov 8th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
Generally I agree with Gerry. I also think that the bit of handrail in the foreground is a pity. It loks like it as in an awkward place and might have been hard to avoid, but with effort it could be removed. I quite like high contrast when it's used for a purpose, and the treatment is making it fairly abstract here which I quite like. However I do think that the contrast would be better reduced a bit to give a little detail in the bright areas of the bent pipes. |
Nov 8th |
| 64 |
Nov 18 |
Comment |
I can see what Don refers to too. It's a sort of new optical illusion think. I wonder if the decrease in sharpness as you travel up the right edge to the top is part of it? Running a parallel action ruler over it, it seems to me that the edge of the building to the left of the lit windows is converging slightly against the centre of the picture (which I'd expect), whereas the far right building vertical is slightly the opposite way. Very curious! Like all these things, once you've seen it....
Anyway that's by the by, I don't normally put rulers onto photographs. Initially I thought it's a bit too dark overall, but I think a picture at night is going to be substantially dark, so that's fine, and an urban picture like this is going to be a bit cluttered, so whilst that was also my initial reaction, it's OK here and needed to put the trains into context. Overall not my favourite of John's photos, but an interesting one and a good action catch. |
Nov 8th |
7 comments - 2 replies for Group 64
|
12 comments - 7 replies Total
|
