One for dss#24

Velvet-Art

When the theme was announced for this one I was stumped, my mind went blank and I could only think that I'd have to sit this one out. However while having a browse over on the POTN forums I came across a photographer whose work I have admired for a long time.

So while this shot is nowhere near the class that he's in, this is my effort so far.



He usually has a lovely flower in his drops but this is my take on his style. (puts on best Rolf Harris voice) "Can you guess who it is yet?"


So what do you all think?

Tim

edit:- I've just realised that he's also on Dgrin too.

BobbyMarshall

Umm, maybe if it wasn't a shot from the previous challenge it would have been more difficult to figure out, lol.



I may be wrong though, because you are probably referring to the style of photography, not the actual photograph itself. eg. a reflection of an oblect as seen in a water drop. if that is the case, I cant pinpoint any particular photographer who has done it, but it is a pretty neat technique

JAG

could it be Lord V...also known as Brian Valentine?

Velvet-Art

JAG wrote:

could it be Lord V...also known as Brian Valentine?

We have a winner clapclapclap He's been a hero of mine for some time, absolutely fantastic macro photography.

Yea, I know that I'm using my previous entry as a part of it, but all frames were taken in this challenge period.

It's made up of a 7 frame focus stack using CombineZM to get the dof required.

I'm kinda thinking that it's a bit cheesy to use my entry from last challenge as a part so I think I'm gonna re-shoot with a different subject but with the same style.

Tim

divamum

Really cool idea.

I think you're right to use a different subject in the drop; I'm not sure I would have known what it was if I hadn't seen your previous image that you entered in #23.

Great concept - can't wait to see the finished image!

Velvet-Art

divamum wrote:

Really cool idea.

I think you're right to use a different subject in the drop; I'm not sure I would have known what it was if I hadn't seen your previous image that you entered in #23.

Great concept - can't wait to see the finished image!

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

The more I think about it the more I'm sure that I'm gonna re-shoot, I think I was a bit hasty on this one and just used a printout that I'd made from the last challenge as a prop in this one.

But at least I've got the time to do a reshoot, and I think I've just come up with an idea for the reshoot. Roll on friday afternoon wink


Tim

JAG

yeah Brians work is stunning. I definately agree that you should reshoot.

Velvet-Art

Ok, so I've done a reshoot, what do you think of these 2?

They are both made up of 10-12 focus-stacked frames, and just for reference the blade of grass is about 8mm or a little under 3/8" wide. I used a 50mm lens @f8 and 122mm of macro extension tubes.

#2


#3


So what do you think? Any improvements / changes that would make it better? Which do you like better?


Tim

Katmitchell

Parital to Number 1
This is too cool.. I have never heard of stacking before, is it similar to HDR?

I gotta try this someday... right now, just trying to get the basics down but this is so unique and would love to hear more about this technique.. I always thought it was just digital graphic and photoshop tricks, but you make it sound like so much more with the layers and how you shoot them each different to achieve a certain look. please share.

I am partial to number one because there is less foreground distraction. and it really allows the viewer to focus on the eye in the drop.. The composition in number (1) pulls the viewer in and holds them in the center and the composition in number (2) is not as powerful because it pushes back at the viewer and causes them to hover on the outside of the photo looking in due to its strong foreground. So number one has more impact....


I would dodge the white eyeball part on low tolerance to brighten it up too..


my two cents and now I am broke..

looks like you are having fun with this..

I am so stuck on what I am going to do this round.. you are definitely placing the bar high already with this work, super creative.

Kat

divamum

I think I like the second one - the eyes make it look kind of like an abstract frog, which is cool!

I think the only thing would be if the image inside the droplet were clearer - the unbelivable clarity of the macro makes the less-clear not-macro stand out a bit.

Such a neat idea!

Velvet-Art

Katmitchell wrote:

This is too cool.. I have never heard of stacking before, is it similar to HDR?

I gotta try this someday... right now, just trying to get the basics down but this is so unique and would love to hear more about this technique.. I always thought it was just digital graphic and photoshop tricks, but you make it sound like so much more with the layers and how you shoot them each different to achieve a certain look. please share.

Hi Kat, thanks for the comments.

Focus stacking is a great technique when you are dealing in macro photography especially when trying to get more that 1 to 1 magnification.
Take for instance my image #2 (confusingly the 1st one of my latest images), the 1st of the 10 frames had only the "Eye" in focus, then I refocused a fraction closer and shot the next frame, and so on until I had taken frames of all the elements in focus.

Then to combine all the in-focus elements from all the frames I use a program called CombineZP, it is really clever and will align and then combine all the frames to produce one image with all the in-focus bits.

Some folks focus-stack 15-20 frames or even more !!

I guess you can think of focus-stacking as HDR for depth of field instead of exposure/dynamic range.

I've only used it a few times on macro photography, but I guess you could use it on more conventional shots to get an extended DOF.

Hope I've explained it ok, please ask if I've confused you even more.


Tim

Velvet-Art

divamum wrote:

I think I like the second one - the eyes make it look kind of like an abstract frog, which is cool!

I think the only thing would be if the image inside the droplet were clearer - the unbelivable clarity of the macro makes the less-clear not-macro stand out a bit.

Such a neat idea!

Thanks Divamum

Unfortunately a lot of the distortion seems to come from the drop of water acting like a fish-eye lens, I haven't found a way around this yet without photoshopping a picture of the eye in, and my pp skills are not good enough to make it look natural.

Tim

dlplumer

WOW

Velvet-Art

dlplumer wrote:

WOW

Well, that means a lot to me coming from someone who produces great entries each time.

Thank you for that.


Tim

dlplumer

Velvet-Art wrote:

Well, that means a lot to me coming from someone who produces great entries each time.

Thank you for that.


Tim

Well that means even more to me

Katmitchell

wow, ok, yeah I Guess it is like HDR
Now that is a creative way of explaining it vs. HDR.. I absolutely understand what you are saying now..

It is so hard to keep up with all of the latest techniques, they seem to be born out of the software world daily... I am just beginning to learn some of the more advanced techniques of Photoshop.

I do have a question, I downloaded and opended that program to try and first hand see what you meant, and It wont except regular jpegs.. what kind of file does a person have to shoot in, in order to import into the program to play around with it to learn it?

oh yeah... and when I said pic number one,, I meant pic number 2, not the fisrt one you posted by the second one in the sequence.. with the one eye...

I am excited to see what you actually do with this as you move along.. will be watching..

and thanks for investing your time in explaining that to me.. Appreciate it..

Kat

Katmitchell

I dont know
you know now with what Divamum said..hmmmmmmm.

I still maintain my technical statements on #1, but now that Divamum made that statement on the artistic side of it, she has a point.. it "does" look like a frog and that is appealing... now I am stuck on which on looks better..

A lot of help I am huh...? You have a hard choice there.. the frog one does have a lot of character and personality to it.. it just may be the better choice in the artistic department..

Kat

Velvet-Art

Katmitchell wrote:

I do have a question, I downloaded and opended that program to try and first hand see what you meant, and It wont except regular jpegs.. what kind of file does a person have to shoot in, in order to import into the program to play around with it to learn it?

That's funny, it should open jpegs ok, with both of my latest entries all I did was set my camera to take jpeg ( I usually shoot raw ), snap away, transfer images from camera to pc, and then loaded combnezp, select "new" from the "file" dropdown menu, and up would pop an "open file" window that I would navigate to the folder that held the pics, and then I would select all the images to be used in that particular focus-stack. But it can be a confusing program to work with, but there is a good "Help" function on this new version that is well worth reading.

On CombineZM (the older version of combinezp) the default appearance was what I am used to, but on the new version (CombineZP) when it starts up it has a different look, but there is a button to change it back to a more normal view (like combinezm looked like) If you do that and then select "New" from the 1st dropdown menu, that should enable you to select jpegs or gifs or a few other file formats.

What might have happened is that you have selected "Aquire image", I dont think that accepts jpeg, I'm not sure but think it is for extracting a still image from video footage.

Hope this helps,


Tim


btw, thanks for you opinions on the latest pics.

travelways

This is very cool

Have you thought about mirroring one of the eyes?

Velvet-Art

photo-bug wrote:

This is very cool

Have you thought about mirroring one of the eyes?

Thanks Tatiana,

I did try to mirror one of the eyes, but my PP skills are not that great and so couldn't make it look ok.

I did, however, slightly lightened the eyes to bring out a bit more detail.

#4



How's this look?


Tim

dnie

I think your post production skills here are looking good! I could never have done that.
I like the eyes lightened up a bit like that. (JMO)

sherstone

Holy coolness!
That is quite the grass creature you have going there.
Is that a mouth in one of the droplets?

Katmitchell

Hey Tim
Tim,

You were right about the program... I was trying to acquire image.. I got it to work.. so with HDR you take 3 shots in different exposures and here you take three of the same shots at diff, DOF? or apertures? I think I got it.. and I just have to try this out eventually here.. thank you so much for your help..

Let me tell you,,,this most recent work up you did here is down right inspirational... good clarity on the eyes, much better.. and the depth and sharp crisp water drops up front are just breathtaking.. and the crop is dead on..what talent....!

Kat

Velvet-Art

dnie wrote:

I think your post production skills here are looking good! I could never have done that.
I like the eyes lightened up a bit like that. (JMO)

Thank you so much, but I did virtually nothing in PP to this image apart from a little dodging (or is it burning) on the eyes to whiten the whtes and bring out a little of the colour of the eyes.

sherstone wrote:

Holy coolness!
That is quite the grass creature you have going there.
Is that a mouth in one of the droplets?

Thankyou very much, I'm glad you like it. bow It means a lot to me that someone like yourself, who produces such outstanding, Challenge-winning, entries each time, likes my little effort.

I'm not sure if that's a mouth in that droplet, it could be though, but hard to tell with the refraction distortion in the droplet.

Katmitchell wrote:

Tim,

You were right about the program... I was trying to acquire image.. I got it to work.. so with HDR you take 3 shots in different exposures and here you take three of the same shots at diff, DOF? or apertures? I think I got it.. and I just have to try this out eventually here.. thank you so much for your help..

Like HDR it is essential to use a tripod, but with focus stacking you adjust the focal point gradually closer (or further) with each exposure, until you have captured images of all the elements in focus. The amount of frames you take will depend on (1), How much you want to have in focus, (2) how close you are to the subject's (the closer you are the less effective dof you have), (3) your aperture (ie f22 needs less frames than f1.8)

I find it easiest to use manual focus when focus stacking and I also use an old manual focus lens as it also has a dof calc marked on the focus ring. Just focus on the furthest away element and note the focus-ring setting, re-focus on the closest element, take the 1st frame, the adjust focus in steps to the noted setting for the furthest away element, snapping away, and bob's your mother's brother.

Katmitchell wrote:

Let me tell you,,,this most recent work up you did here is down right inspirational... good clarity on the eyes, much better.. and the depth and sharp crisp water drops up front are just breathtaking.. and the crop is on..what talent....!
Kat

Well, I really am getting a big head now wink You all are far too kind. Thank you Kat for you compliments, and I really value everyone's comments and criticism as it helps me to see the many things I have overlooked.

Thank you all again for looking and commenting, bow


Tim

ps, if anyone's interested I can post a setup shot.

Katmitchell

yes
yes, please do post set up.. I am so excited about learning all I can about this technique.. thanks again for the details, I am taking notes.. however, I am lost on bobs your mothers brother.. you lost me on that onehuhhuh


oh yeah.. it is dodge to lighten and burn to darken..
Kat

Velvet-Art

Katmitchell wrote:

yes, please do post set up.. I am so excited about learning all I can about this technique.. thanks again for the details, I am taking notes.. however, I am lost on bobs your mothers brother.. you lost me on that onehuhhuh


oh yeah.. it is dodge to lighten and burn to darken..
Kat

Have you heard the expression "Bob's your uncle"? Maybe it's just local to Ireland, "Bob's your mother's brother" is just my take on it.


Here's a pic of the setup


Excuse the total mess of my backyard rofl

Hanging from the tripod is my remote shutter release, essential for reducing camera shake on these extreme close ups. If you imagine a camera sitting on the tripod, because of all the extension tubes used the front of the lens was about 30-35mm (or 1.5" in imperial) from the blade of grass. I also used a wireless flash trigger to slave my 580EX2 to light the whole scene.

Hope that's clear.

Tim

Katmitchell

wow
that is some set up...

now I am confused as to why your picture is upside down. I am new at this so please excuse if the questions seem dumb. I mean your eye is right side up in the raindrop.

oh yeah. never heard of Bobs your uncle.. lol must be an Ireland thing..

Thanks for the share and the instruction..

Kat

Velvet-Art

Katmitchell wrote:

that is some set up...

now I am confused as to why your picture is upside down. I am new at this so please excuse if the questions seem dumb. I mean your eye is right side up in the raindrop.
Kat

It's upsidedown because of the refraction thing flipping the image, so you have to put whatever you want to appear in the drops the wrong way up to appear upright in the drop.

Tim

Katmitchell

Ok
Got it.. makes sense.. thanks.. your good at this.. I look forward to seeing more of your work..... I will have to share my attempt at this once I try it.


Thanks Tim

Kat

The Curious Camel

Wow, this is awesome.
I love everything about it.
Has he seen your entry?

g

Velvet-Art

The Curious Camel wrote:

Wow, this is awesome.
I love everything about it.
Has he seen your entry?

g

Thanks for that thumb

I dont know if he's seen it, I dont think it's anywhere near his standard.


Tim