Mini me

I have got my first couple of 'Miniature' photos in early. There were some plans involving Grand Stores and some macro extension tubes, but these plans went awry after visiting the shop. In brief, a Nikon D70 won't talk to its lens through the tubes, no matter what the catalogue might say to the contrary. Neither will a D40, D60 or D80. They work fine with a D300s, but this seems like a very expensive solution to a simple problem.

Options for macro lenses do not necessarily involve buying macro lenses. An adaptor ring enables a normal lens to be turned around so that the light flows backwards and the lens focuses on a very close subject. Extension tubes push the lens further away from the camera's focal plane, again decreasing the distance between subject and lens. Neither of these worked for me and my antediluvian camera, so I ended up going more expensive.

I now own a nifty fifty F2.8 with a macro facility. Two birds crushed to death under the same oversized boulder.

So this morning I wandered around the back garden, snapping at anything that didn't fly or run away.

Flower

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F/4
1/3000s

The shallow depth of field on a macro lens means that it's impossible to get the entire surface of one of these flowers in focus without aiming straight down at it, or else stopping down the aperture and having a long blurring shutter speed. So I shot from further away and got some bokeh background.

Fruit

Nikon D70s
Sigma 50mm macro
F6.7
1/180s

Shot looking upwards at these mysterious fruit. The tree is in the back garden, but I haven't the foggiest idea of its species. Regarding the photo, this one is the best of several attempts. Sign of the amateur: confessing to getting duff pics!

Mini mall

Nikon D70s
Nikkor 18-200 at 32mm
F4.2
1/45s

Heavily photoshopped with successive bands of Gaussian blur to fake the minuscule depth of field normally provided by macro lenses. The effect is, I hope, to make this aisle in the Mall of the Emirates look like a detailed model.

BUMP! Paul's efforts

Ladies and Gentlemen...

I have taken photographs, and attempted to upload the same. Unfortunately the intertubes are currently completely clogged, and I can't get my pictures uploaded. This serves me right for only having a cheapskate GBP40/month 1Mbps broadband connection that currently and habitually runs at less than a tenth of the advertised speed.

The pictures, the EXIF, and my commentary will be available for your C&C once uploaded. I hope for tomorrow morning at the crack of sparrow-fart.

Edited 20th January.
Sunday night is absolutely the wrong time to visit a funfair. At least, it is if you want to see activity and bustling crowds; to drink in the all-pervasive smell of candy floss and toffee. It's a good night if you want to be guaranteed no queues for any of the rides.

The first shot was one of many. I tried lots of combinations of flash, shutter and aperture, different flash modes, and this one came out nicely exposed without losing the coloured funfair lights. At least as a 'still life' something wasn't changing. It is, unfortunately, a bit on the boring side.

Eventually three shabab turned up, so I got plenty of pictures of these boyz. Presented are the best two. This sort of photography is something that is so difficult to get right I'm very chuffed to get a good one. None of these are particularly stunning. Perhaps they're more of a demonstration of the principles (excuse for crap pictures).

It's interesting to note that rear synch (where the flash fires at the end of a long exposure) produces a ghostly effect. The camera has already picked up the background before reinforcing the main subject with a blitz of white light.

Slow synch is, I believe, firing the flash at the start of a long exposure. This reduces the ghost effect, but doesn't produce light trails.

Personally I like the trails on the third picture best.


Nikon D70s on tripod
Nikkor 18-200 at 31mm
1/6 sec F/4.8
SB800 flash on hotshoe



Nikon D70s on tripod
Nikkor 18-200 at 48mm
1/6 sec F/4.8
SB800 flash on hotshoe
Slow sync.


Nikon D70s on tripod
Nikkor 18-200 at 34mm
1/4 sec F/6.7
SB800 flash on hotshoe
Rear sync.

Nothing to be afraid of, COME ON + Febuary Subject

Hi All,

Time for a Nag, we have even had TWO entries from "Its in my camera but not downloaded" Dodd so COME ON the rest of you !
And as I'm about to depart for a couple of weeks to "Sunny" Rotterdam and then Ulsan I thought I get out the topic for next moth.

Its "Minature / Small world", due 1st March so get snapping.


p.s. if anybody wants to see more on how I took the psycho shots there is more info, lighting diagram and behind the scenes pictures on my blog :-
tp://www.images-underwater.net/blog1/

Cheers,
Richard B.

Spooky Ghosties

How's that for spooky.

If I actually knew what I was doing with this photo shop thingy then I would have got rid of the stringy bit. I don't so I didn't.

Things that go bump in the night

This is back catalog stuff from Haloween this year.

Will try and think of something a bit more creative rather than just trigger happy but in the mean time may as well get the ball rolling.

Next Assignemet - "Things that go bump in the night" due 31/1/2010

Hi All,

I guess its TIME to call TIME on the last last topic, however always TIME to squeeze in a few more. For those who want to start on the next one Paul kindly picked the number 6 which gave :-



"THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT"

A nice creative topic, from ghosts to cars I guess.

Get snapping, deadline 31/1/2010, however never to late to post anything.

Please all those quiet masses out there, we know who you are, please join in. Post something, add to the critique, doesn't even have to be on topic. The best way to learn is to play, share and get critique.

Cheers,
Richard B.

Am i upto date now sir???

Is that me up to date now????