Pretzel and the Gypsy King - A Tale of Adventure (cum a spus de fotografie) for 2015
- Thread starter Pretzel
- Start date
Thanks, man!
A little of the fun from class tonight... part of our "assignment" is to "ALWAYS be shooting", and we're supposed to present the best non-project shot each night. As you can see, most people focused on getting different shots of the project instead. Figured I'd get my shot at the project, so I swung around for a different view.
This was our set up.
And here's what we were after. I got to borrow a Nikkor 105mm macro for the shot, and love the lens!
This was our set up.
And here's what we were after. I got to borrow a Nikkor 105mm macro for the shot, and love the lens!
Michael J.
Senior Member
Yes, that is a great one
The other shots are nice, but the first is just comical/funny. It makes you wonder what they are all staring at? And with the light coming back at them I'd swear it's the opening of the Ark of the Covenant.
LOL, thanks!
I actually went in and (slightly) increased the exposure on that, and sharpened as well. TBH, I use a mix of the Noise Reduction in Perfect Suite 9 and LR CC. Typically, I'll do a touch of NR with the LR slider (no more than 40), when needed, before moving over to the suite to toy around. I'll usually test the NR in the suite, then, but it normally doesn't thrill me with the results vs. the impact on sharpness there, so after porting back to LR, I'll mess with the slider a bit more (no more than 30). I've found, though, that it's usually only the darker areas that suffer from noise at higher ISO, so in this case I used vignette to help cover some of it, just masking out the people.
Can't say that I remember the actual amounts of NR or whether or not I did use some inside the suite or not, though, sorry... I'm an edit junkie, and I just toy around until I get what I want, or I've messed it up beyond recovery (in which case I start over). I'd be happy to post a before shot when I get home, if ya like, and at least look at how much of the slider work I did in LR.
Wowzer! Very impressed with your work, Pretzel! How do you like your class?
Thanks! With the instructors here, it's always fun. Very hands on, very open to questions/discussions, and non-pandering! What more could a guy ask for (short of direct upload 'Matrix' style)? Plus, you can email them at any time with questions during the week, and they give ya a 10% discount in the shop as long as you're a student.
All in all, I'm loving it! The class I'll take next is an in-depth "Photography as a Business", which I've heard nothing but great things about.
[MENTION=11881]Moab Man[/MENTION] - Here's the untouched photo before any dabbling. Not a whole lot of noise anyway. Noticeable, but my Primal Beast shoots it up nicely.
1st tonight, we dabbled a bit in product photography in class... I came away with a couple I liked. One with a couple of different edits, the 2nd a full product shot. This was with 3 strobes. One to each side with a shoot through umbrella, and one overhead with a honeycomb.
This was the full product shot... used the white balance from a previous shot where I had my white balance card in behind, then worked with the perspective a bit, as the bottle wasn't lining up with the straight edges on my mini-stand, then a little o' this and that, and viola!
After which I wanted to sample a bit closer up, and against a black backdrop, so got out my $3 3'x3' felt.
Then, just because I could, a little higher contrast and "tweaking" of the light source.
This was the full product shot... used the white balance from a previous shot where I had my white balance card in behind, then worked with the perspective a bit, as the bottle wasn't lining up with the straight edges on my mini-stand, then a little o' this and that, and viola!
After which I wanted to sample a bit closer up, and against a black backdrop, so got out my $3 3'x3' felt.
Then, just because I could, a little higher contrast and "tweaking" of the light source.
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2nd... I got my Raynox DCR250 in today!!! Harder to use than one would think, but with patience (and a little honey) I got these ants to stand still for a moment. Definitely need flash to keep frame rate high enough, as this was shot at f16 (max for my 50mm 1.8G). There's a lot of moving back and forth to get the focus just right, and this was cropped a bit from the original, but MUCH closer than I could ever get before! Gonna try it on the 18-55 (which already has a nice close focal distance) and the 70-300 some time soon!
Then here's a 100% crop of the same picture. For perspective, you could probably fit about 12-15 of these ants on my pinky nail. Maybe even a few more... It's not @Moab Man and his MAGNIFIED MACRO, but it's closer than anything I could ever achieve without the DCR250, so I'm thrilled! I predict MANY days spent crawling on my belly looking for subjects.
Then here's a 100% crop of the same picture. For perspective, you could probably fit about 12-15 of these ants on my pinky nail. Maybe even a few more... It's not @Moab Man and his MAGNIFIED MACRO, but it's closer than anything I could ever achieve without the DCR250, so I'm thrilled! I predict MANY days spent crawling on my belly looking for subjects.
Ok, couldn't help but get another shot. Here's the DCR250 on my 70-300 at it's max aperture and around 200mm (where the lens is supposed to be at it's sharpest). Even f40 isn't enough DOF to get this entire tiny critter in focus. 1st edit is uncropped. 2nd is not quite 100% crop. HUGELY impressed with this performance for the price! (BTW, all of these shots have been handheld tonight, resting somewhat on a rolled up shirt. I think I could get them a bit sharper with an actual bean bag or tripod)
Scott Murray
Senior Member
Now you can see why I have been raving about it