John's 2010 52, Part 2, Week 52 @ the end - Together (Jan 1st)

Been a busy week for you John and I feel like I've missed a lot.
(y) for the cropped cloud shots. I actually prefer the crop on both of them, but the sunbeams are spot on. IMO that's worked really well.

Project : Lovely cityscape and some really impressive cloning on the second version. What tablet and pen are you using? I'm thinking of getting myself one.
 
Thanks very much Sarah. The accuracy of the tablet is far higher than using a mouse. I was very surprised... The one I've been playing with is a Wacom CTF-420... it's a very small pad, but it works nicely.
 
Love project - I'm a sucker for pictures of the city at night & with the removal of the laser that's a cracker!

Phil
 
jgs001 said:
Thanks very much for the comments on the other shots too. The UTA and other effects around the sun, can be quite tricky to spot, it's best to get the sun behind something (a fist works well) and sunglasses to help improve contrast too. You can get effects up to a complete ring (22 degrees out and a fainter one 45 degrees out) as well as all sorts of odd rainbow effects, like the UTA, sundogs etc.
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I find myself looking at the sky much more carefully since reading your post, John, but I'm intrigued - what's a sundog? My imagination is working overtime, wondering if it's related to a hotdog. :D

Light: I liked the original version but the laserless version is tops. Very impressive. :clap:

Jean
 
Light: two stunning images :clap::clap: I prefer the closer crop on no.1 but think it's a pity you have lost the bottom of the cloud in no.2. Personally I would leave in a bit of the horizon line but use the clone tool to disguise the building. JMO of course.

Project - wonderful colours and composition (now that the laser has gone ;)) I love night cityscapes like this. Is it taken from the Greenwich observatory?
My only niggle is that it doesn't seem quite straight to me - the buildings all seem to lean a fraction to the right, although the colonnades in the foreground appear horizontal. :shrug:
 
philthejuggler said:
Love project - I'm a sucker for pictures of the city at night & with the removal of the laser that's a cracker!

Phil
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Thanks very much Phil

jeangenie said:
I find myself looking at the sky much more carefully since reading your post, John, but I'm intrigued - what's a sundog? My imagination is working overtime, wondering if it's related to a hotdog. :D

Light: I liked the original version but the laserless version is tops. Very impressive. :clap:

Jean
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:D... addictive isn't it... Just make sure to keep the sun tucked behind something... your fist at arms length is about the right size, although anyone around you is going to give you odd looks.. as for sundog.. it's actually gonna be quite cold ;)... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_dog

Thanks Jean.

Tracer said:
Light: two stunning images :clap::clap: I prefer the closer crop on no.1 but think it's a pity you have lost the bottom of the cloud in no.2. Personally I would leave in a bit of the horizon line but use the clone tool to disguise the building. JMO of course.

Project - wonderful colours and composition (now that the laser has gone ;)) I love night cityscapes like this. Is it taken from the Greenwich observatory?
My only niggle is that it doesn't seem quite straight to me - the buildings all seem to lean a fraction to the right, although the colonnades in the foreground appear horizontal. :shrug:
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Thanks Tracer, I need to have a look into the rays image... maybe just black out the building to silhouette altogether...

I'm not that good at cloning, and it took me a while to sort it out, the tablet really did help. Must remember that little trick in case for the future ;)... It is taken from the Greenwich observatory, wonderful view from the top of the hill. I was there last Thursday evening. I kept going back to it and looking, cos I thought the same thing... I've tweaked it a bit, and I think this is better (Although I did adjust the angle before I posted it in the first place :bang: but obviously not enough... I should have used my hotshoe spirit level it's in the bag... just forgot it... :bang::bang:)

IMG_63752.jpg
 
I had this idea from when I saw the theme... I wasn't quite able to get the image to be my vision of it.. why is that :thinking::bang: oh I know... I'm useless :LOL:...

Anyway, I was looking to get something like one of those awards on a velvet pillow type thing... The colours were too strong in the film itself, and mono worked nicely, but then, I tried to two tone it, and the process defeated me and it looked utter rubbish as opposed to just averagely rubbish :D...

anyway... here's the pic.

IMG_6398.jpg


Lit by the 360afd, camera right (I don't recall the power, about 1/2 I think), reflector camera left to pull back some of the shadows. I was aiming to include the shadow from the film diagonally off to the rear left.
 
Nice shot John, i'd like to see a touch more film coming out of the reel, for the sake of loosing a few frames off it i think it would give it more impact. I like the edit of project, it looks much better without the laser and worth the effort of cloning. Graphics tablets are a real bonus for these issues.
 
I like the concept and the lighting. I think it would be improved with the canister larger in the frame and the rest of the frame pure black negative space.

Phil
 
As Phil says above John good concept, perhaps more black negative space would work, I find the bright part front left a little distracting. The composition works well. Iain
 
I like the composition but find myself looking at the surface infront of the flim. I like the lighting.
 
Thanks for the comments all... hmmm... I'll have a look at burning that bright area in later... perhaps flagging the flash would have worked to stop it hitting the material... :thinking:
 
Hows this ??

IMG_6398-Version6.jpg
 
Why does everyone have so many reels of film still? :)

Why did you choose to use flash instead of natural light John? I think you might have had more success using a window to the right to get the shadow you wanted. Shooting from a slightly lower angle too and keeping the reel slightly smaller in the frame :) I'm not sure about the surface you've used either, second version is much better for this though.
 
I like the composition and dramatic lighting but on my monitor some of the canister and the actual film are getting lost in the black background. Partly my monitor, I know.
 
Thanks Darren, I chose flash as I wanted that spotlight sort of feel to it, I don't think the window light would have produced that. I probably should have flagged the flash to prevent the downward spill...

As for the reels of film... not sure really... I need to get my film camera looked at, but no idea where... there's some gunge in the viewfinder... mould I reckon...

Thanks Tracer, I think it might be a little
 
I keep scrolling between the two versions, but I think I actually prefer the first. I feel like it needs that bright patch to give it some depth and to break up some of the black.

Lighting does exactly what you wanted it to do, and I feel like you've achieved some good separation of the canister from the b/g - definitely better than I managed to do with mine.

As for Darren's question about reels of film - mine was left over from my old P&S . . . remember when you used to send film off for processing and get a free reel back with your photos? Mine was the one I never used after I upgraded to a digital P&S.
 
Thanks very much (y)

Having read through the comments and been thinking on this, I think, I'm going to stick with my first entry, it was more what I envisaged, although perhaps with a bit of a tone down on the bright patch. I have to be honest, I wasn't actually pleased with the result anyway, but I couldn't get it to exactly what I wanted.
 
Another one I'm not very happy with. They just never seem to come out how I want them to. Ho Hum.... another rush job also...

IMG_6445.jpg
 
had to look twice to decide what it was :) ... all that dirt around the gem settings on a ring certainly looks as if it could do with a good clean. I like the detail and the dof.
 
I looked at this this morning but only just came back to it and I think it does the job admirably. The colour, light and dof all seem spot on and I always appreciate a good abstract.
 
That's an interesting one, John. When you figure out what it is, you realise that it is indeed very "dirty". Good take on the theme. It is interesting that you don't realise how dirty things are until you see them in close up.

I like the colours, DOF and the light reflections.

Jenny
 
good and an interesting take on the "Dirty" theme, I did however have to keep scrolling up and looking, i like it.
 
Film: I like the lighting on the film cannister - it works really well. (y) I'm not so sure about the b/g - in either version. I think I'd have liked to see a smooth, slightly reflective b/g or something like the reel of a developing tank, but there's no doubt it's bang on theme, John. :D

Ditry: It took me ages to work out what this is, but when I did I found lots to look at - different shapes and colours, and I liked the dof. There's quite a lot of space on the left and I think cropping to square would give more impact - that's just personal preference, though. A really original choice of subject, though - full marks for that. (y)

Jean
 
I like dirty - it makes a interesting abstract shot as has been mentioned. I think a fraction more dof may improve it further, but it's good as is.

Phil
 
Took me a while to work this out too, but now that I've got it it definitely works.
In fact the more I look at it the more I like it (y)

That's a serious close up and the dirt is clearly visible.
I wonder if rotating it to portrait would make it more identifiable as a ring . . . although I like the abstract feel of it the way it is.
 
I like this John, as has been said above, a creative abstract take on the theme which makes the viewer work it out. As Phil said a little more dof might help but it does work well. The composition and lighting work well to create an interesting image. Iain
 
justlooking said:
had to look twice to decide what it was :) ... all that dirt around the gem settings on a ring certainly looks as if it could do with a good clean. I like the detail and the dof.
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Thanks very much, it sure could ;)

dlh said:
I looked at this this morning but only just came back to it and I think it does the job admirably. The colour, light and dof all seem spot on and I always appreciate a good abstract.
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Thanks Darren

jennyb said:
That's an interesting one, John. When you figure out what it is, you realise that it is indeed very "dirty". Good take on the theme. It is interesting that you don't realise how dirty things are until you see them in close up.

I like the colours, DOF and the light reflections.

Jenny
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Thanks Jenny, and the camera is so good at revealing all the mess of dirt in there too... Especially when you get into about 2.5x life size...

davidh6781 said:
good and an interesting take on the "Dirty" theme, I did however have to keep scrolling up and looking, i like it.
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Thanks very much David

clud17 said:
It took me a while to figure it out too, its an interesting image and one i keep looking back at. Nicely fits the theme too.
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Thanks very much Chris

jeangenie said:
Film: I like the lighting on the film cannister - it works really well. (y) I'm not so sure about the b/g - in either version. I think I'd have liked to see a smooth, slightly reflective b/g or something like the reel of a developing tank, but there's no doubt it's bang on theme, John. :D

Ditry: It took me ages to work out what this is, but when I did I found lots to look at - different shapes and colours, and I liked the dof. There's quite a lot of space on the left and I think cropping to square would give more impact - that's just personal preference, though. A really original choice of subject, though - full marks for that. (y)

Jean
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Thanks Jean,

The backdround in film was always going to be the bugbear on it... I'm very short on backgrounds, I agree that a slightly reflective one would have been great... I'll have to look into it.

Square crop.. that might work, I did look at moving the gems further left in shot, but that just caused other issues on the right...

philthejuggler said:
I like dirty - it makes a interesting abstract shot as has been mentioned. I think a fraction more dof may improve it further, but it's good as is.

Phil
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Thanks very much Phil... Not sure about more dof, nor how to get any... This was shot at f/14 as it is, and bordering on diffraction issues. I've not really got the kit (macro rails) to do any form of decent job with focus stacking as yet.

SarahLee said:
Took me a while to work this out too, but now that I've got it it definitely works.
In fact the more I look at it the more I like it (y)

That's a serious close up and the dirt is clearly visible.
I wonder if rotating it to portrait would make it more identifiable as a ring . . . although I like the abstract feel of it the way it is.
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Thanks very much Sarah... I did try a number of angles, but this produced what I thought was the best image, I didn't want to make it too obvious as to what it is.

blakester said:
I like this John, as has been said above, a creative abstract take on the theme which makes the viewer work it out. As Phil said a little more dof might help but it does work well. The composition and lighting work well to create an interesting image. Iain
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Thanks very much Iain, the dof is always a problem... perhaps when I have some rails, I can try some focus stacking on it... Even if I'd stopped the lens down to f/32 I wouldn't have got a heapload more dof.

I missed a few things about it in the post... too busy again...

it was lit with natural light from shot left, I'm not overly happy with the background colour, I wanted white, but ended up having to under expose it a bit to stop the flare from the gems and gold.

I'm glad it took a while to work out what it is ;)... that was part of the intent.
 
Worth having a crack at focus stacking with the freebie software. I tried it once and it worked well.
 
It took me a while to identify this one! It's an interesting take on the theme that works well, though there is a bit too much empty space on the left for my taste. Good lighting and colours, however, and the DOF feels right to me.
 
philthejuggler said:
Worth having a crack at focus stacking with the freebie software. I tried it once and it worked well.
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My several efforts to date have looked utter rubbish, I think I need to get some rails to do it properly...

Tracer said:
It took me a while to identify this one! It's an interesting take on the theme that works well, though there is a bit too much empty space on the left for my taste. Good lighting and colours, however, and the DOF feels right to me.
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Thanks Tracer.. I'll look at the square crop Jean suggest that should deal with the space on the left.

ladysue said:
Thats an interesting take on the theme and one I dont think anyone else would have thought of. I think I would rotate it, but then you might not be able to see the dirt as well.
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Thanks Sue... I did try other angles, and to me it either just looked dull/boring or totally missed the dirt altogether...
 
What a horrible theme...

I've been madly busy again this week... added to which I've been shooting some more AmDram.. I've had a couple of ideas, and no time to try and set them up. I know I won't get any over the weekend.

Anyway...

I had thought about posting this one, it really doesn't show Rage as such, although I think he looks angry. This is one of the rehearsal pics... school halls are not setup for photography in mind (the background stuff was used as markers for the rehearsals and the lighting is horrible.

5040469314_256da72f47_b.jpg


I did get a change to get a shot of the moon and sun earlier in the week. Not much of a window, but enough. So, this being far closer to the them...

Here we have, activity on the face the raging atomic furnace that lies at the heart of our Solar System... This is also becoming "all the rage" (sort of ;)) as we move more into the Solar cycle.

IMG_6733-Version2.jpg


and for context...

IMG_6733.jpg


the first image is a crop of the spots in the upper section. Bear in mind this is 149,598,000 kilometres away from us. I don't know the size of this particular patch, but each spot can be up to 80,000Km across, making it bigger than the earth by up to about 8 times. The spots are much cooler than the surrounding surface, something in the order of 1000˚, but that's all relative really, the spot is still very very hot. The sun's surface is made up of areas that look like granules and that's coming through in this image a bit.

Warning : Do not attempt solar imaging or viewing without properly fitted, suitable objective filtering, otherwise you will end up with badly damaged equipment and possibly eyes.
 
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The first is a good pose and expression - I realise you can't do much about the background. I hope you are having fun with the AmDram and that we will see the results some time - the last lot were really good.

The sun shots are amazing, and a perfectly acceptable interpretation of a horrible theme (y). I can't imagine how you have done it and would love to see your set-up.
 
The sun shots get my vote too John (y). Like Tracer, I don't know how you done it but I am impressed with the level of detail in there. Well done. iain
 
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