Vespers

Although I took the photo in Italy, Pompeii to be precise, this is nothing at all to do with scooters. It is instead a final offering for this month’s “Wild Things”

Here is the start of a wasp colony, with the nest being constructed in the eaves of a small metal shelter protecting a Roman mosaic from the weather.

Nikon D300s
Nikkor 18-200 at 200mm
F/6.3 and 1/50s
ISO 200

This was as close as I could get and still have the subject in focus. I was not about to fit the macro lens and get within a mere few centimetres! I cropped the image, but left in some of the metalwork in order to give the subject a sense of scale, and invoked the Rule of Thirds instead of sticking the nest smack in the middle of the frame.

There’s a little Photoshoppery too: in addition to cropping and reducing to 800 pixels, I trimmed the histogram because there was no data at either end, and this really brought up the wasps’ yellow colouring.

Miniature: Arachnophilia

Flower power

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/6.7
1/350s

Just a shot to lure the readers of this august blog into a false sense of security. This is the flower that produces a curious green fruit; the fruit that Richard thinks is a tomato, but which isn't.

Ant on Deck

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4.8
1/250s

I only posted the least bad attempt because of the way the image so clearly illustrates the minimal depth of field available when getting really up close with a macro lens. The ant, which is horribly blurred and therefore not really appropriate for this blog, is one of the tiny termite-sized ones. It was running down the twig at an industrious nineteen to the dozen. I'm amazed I captured it at all.

Hairy Beast 01

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4.2
1/180s

Found in my bathroom, this is one of those tiny jumping spiders. I first encountered it on the window frame, so there's lots of natural light coming from the left side of the frame. As with all the spider shots, I used the technique of getting the eyes in focus. And with a spider, that leaves plenty of choice. This one is my favourite of the three.

Hairy Beast 02

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/13
1/20s

The same spider got alarmed by my lens and moved on to the glass. So lit from beneath is perhaps a little unusual. To be honest, this is my least favourite of the three because the creature's head is so dark. I did try to burn it in (or is that dodge it in?) by lightening the head alone, but it just made the whole image look really weird. The picture makes the cut because the pedipalps and forelegs are pin-sharp, at least in the original.

Hairy Beast 03

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/13
1/20s

Same as above, only approached from a slightly different angle. Inexplicably, the lighting is better on this picture compared with No.2 above. Check out the beast's red fangs: claws under the head and between the pedipalps. Aren't you glad that the whole creature is less than 10mm across, legs included?

"Whooo!" not "Whooom!"

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 28-200 @ 170mm, F/5.6
1/160 sec
Built-in flash

I promise this is the last of my 'Animals'.

Camera-mounted flash produced all kinds of red-eye problems, so I did the dirty deed with that Adobe software. Cropping, and shrinking aside, I also took Richard's earlier tip to boost the colours, just to see what would happen.

Off-camera flash might have been the way forward, but I didn't have the kit with me. It was a day trip to a theme park, falconry centre and petting zoo. The birds of prey were not part of the latter.

Actually, when zoomed into the original the detail isn't particularly sharp. I'm hoping that by reducing the resolution in an 800x600 no-one will notice.

Get your animals in and lets have some more critques please folks ;-)

Hi All,

A reminder that the end of the month is fast approaching so get snapping.
I know some of you have done it just not posted so come one get the cable out and download of the camera. (If you got time to download the latest eddition of Grays Anatomiy you can download your shots !)

Also on a personal note I'd also ask a everyone to join in the critique ;-)
I'd much rather have 20 hard critique comments than one "nice shot".

You don’t have to know all the technicalities but we all know some of the basics and more importanly what we like.
For example I posted an underwater shot this month, you don’t have to know about diving or underwater housings and strobes but is it sharp ? Is it a bulls eye ? or does the diaganal line off set that ? what are the colours like ? negative space ? aspect ratio ? etc..

Here is a good guide if anybody wants pointers.
http://news.deviantart.com/article/70348/

The opposite also works as well if somebody likes a shot and wants to know how it was done etc the idea is to share and learn.

p.s. I know sometimes people just post snaps because they want to so if anybody doesn’t want critque on a certain image just add a note in the post.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Animals - Richards efforts II

Hi All,



While the whales were submitted this month they weren't quite shot this month so here is one taken this month.

Clowning around in Musandam

EXIF :-

Canon 350D

Sigma 17-70mm Macro at 70mm

f5.6 (full open for this lense at that length)

1/200 (Max sync speed as lot of water movement)

2xDS125 strobes in eTTL

Not much PP, almost none by my standards ;-)

and in Honor of Steven's aspect ratio's I've not gone 4x6 but I do feel dirty.

Coment, Critque and abuse welcome.

Cheers,

Richard B.

Animals: Cows week II

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @ 29mm F/16
1/180 sec

I took some of Richard's comments and redid the image. This time you can see the whole of the tree's shadow, emphasising its isolation. I tweaked the cows' brightness using the Mask tool in PS Elephants 2.0 so that the cows were rendered a little brighter without blowing out the detail of the sand and the blue sky.

Less tweaking of the palette this time. See how the sand is redder?

Animals: Cows week

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 @150mm and F/16
1/125 sec

There were plenty of animals out and about during last Friday's Gulf News Fun Drive rehearsal. Unfortunately most were camels, and I cannot in all conscience post a picture of a camel here, no matter how cute the young might allegedly be. There was also one sheep; someone had clearly got the flock out of there.

Anyway, here it is: two cows on the roadside, sharing what little shade is available. I have tried to tweak up the brightness so that the animals aren't in silhouette, but the background tends to blow out when I do that. I messed with the colour palette too. In the original the sand is redder, but I think this one is more pleasing to the eye. Oh, and I cropped the background crap out of the image and, as usual, reduced it to 800x600 for the InterTubes.

Animals - Richards efforts

Hi All,

Not quite back catalogue but taken JUST before new topic and I've only just done the post production so I'm going to claim them.
If I take anymore and I'll try and post them as well.

Generally this is the EXIF :-
Canon 350D
Canon 28-300mm 3.5-5.6 IS L, about 250-300mm no mutiplier
AP mode at f5.6, give a bit of DOF but also all maximum light.
1/2500sec, nice and fast, moving subject, moving boat and moving water drops.
ISO 100, as pleanty of light.
-1.33 EV, to keep water darker and avoid "splash" blowing out.
Servo Focus mode (posted copies may be a bit soft but originals are all in focus)
All shot in burst mode.












Don't you just love motor drive....

If anybody wants to see hi res film strip 16 MB Jpeg and 168 MB in photoshop jsut shout and I'll mail.

Comments, Critque and abuse welcome :-)

Cheers,
Richard B.