POW 24/5/2009

<p>And the surprise</p>

<p>This guy is not lost. Owner sitting on bench a few feet away.</p><div></div>

<p>ME:<br>

Thanks for the explanation. You definitely give a lot of thought for your lens use. I wish I had that experience to evaluate which lens to use. I stick to my VL 90mm, my Pentax 50, and some times the 18-55.<br>

I'll try to upload the third image. It's weird that it cannot be displayed... grr</p>

<p>and again...</p><div></div>

<p>Some cutsie suburban wildlife. Walking the kids to the library this week, I had the feeling that I was being watched.</p><div></div>

<p>This one was in my backyard an hour ago. Both shots are with a K200D. The raccoon with the 18-55 II kit lens and the rabbit with a Soligor 70-150 manual zoom.</p><div></div>

<p>Nice work again, folks !<br>

I've been very busy organising a members' day for a web-photoclub I'm with. Here's one of the posters I made for it (the major theme was modern architecture)<br>

<img src="http://static.zoom.nl/9974321E939C140F9F88A2C6E0254A6F.jpg" alt="" width="612" height="900" /></p>

<p>Myself I was just fooling around, that saturday<br>

<img src="http://static.zoom.nl/9401eb0528f445da0a22e35b39ce78aa.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="422" /></p>

<p><img src="http://static.zoom.nl/481d645d4e96cef269cb590a2d37dd86.jpg" alt="" width="700" height="452" /><br>

(this last one being heavily altered, ofcourse)</p>

<p>Lots of great shots, as usual. I really like the critter shots, Sigmar's racoon and rabbit sure caught my eye.</p>

<p>Spent 9 hours motorcycling the back roads of western Wisconsin today. Found an old, abandoned farm house. Not an unusual sight. K20D, Sigma 10-20mm at 20mm, polarizing filter. Light editing.<br>

<img src="http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p26/stevet_010/K20D2384edit1.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>From my backyard, a flowering shrub. K20D, Tamron 90mm macro lens, no editing.<br>

<img src="http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p26/stevet_010/K20D2471.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>Excellent start John-Paul.. Love the first, and I can see you will make good use of the level function in the new k7.. lol. I must admit I like that shot :-)<br>

Justin your HDR is pretty impressive.. and what's the matter with Caney?<br>

I'll try and come back for some comments later.. but the photos so far are all quite impressive, some really nice work by everyone!<br>

I got a chance to go up to lake Pleasant on Saturday..</p><div></div>

<p>#2</p><div></div>

<p>#3</p><div></div>

<p>My favorites this week is Moose from Ian Forsyth, and Justin's HDR. Haig, Piece de resistance is a nice picture except I can't see the pupil of her eye for all the reflected light around it. Great Picture though.</p>

<p>Well, I tried another HDR without really knowing what I was doing. I read up on it before I processed this picture, so this is really new for me.<br /> Pentax K10d, pentax 18-55mm @ F/11, used auto bracket w/ 5 exposures, +/- 0.7. tripod.</p><div></div>

<p>This next one, I used the Tamron 75-300mm. In my viewing, that lens is almost as sharp as my 50mm f/1.7, and on the k10d, the focus is just a hair slower than the kit lens. I tried a Sigma 70-200mm F/2.8 and the focus was so slow and inaccurate that I went back to my 'cheap' lens.</p><div></div>

<p>Comments for this POW:<br>

Justin, the HDR is nice. I've never made it to Taughannock, but I've burned many a brain cell out at Letchworth north of there.<br>

Leo P, Wintercress has great color and form. The PP was a little overbaked and the noise if visible, but I like the shot.<br>

J. Behrends, you have the frames down for that fountain and the textures are wonderful. I'd use that baseline for some fun Photoshop experimenting.<br>

Andrew H, The "frozen" water on Thattaway looks very jelly-like.<br>

Robert C. The fog shot has an excellent tone.<br>

Arkadly, your third shot is my favorite of the week. Very sensuous.</p>

<p>ME</p>

<p>Another fun bunch of photograph this week! Favorites:<br>

Markus' Strange and whatever that flower is.<br>

Justin's falls--immaculate!<br>

Robert Buck's flowers: maybe a but murky but inspired (foam flower, especially!)<br>

Interesting stuff, Leo: the night shot works<br>

I like that first shot of the fountain John-the tree helps.<br>

Nice sandpiper Ian, maybe a bit dark?<br>

Pretty brookie Bob!<br>

Wonderful water shots, Andrew!<br>

Interesting night shot Robert. "Foggy lately" is <em>really </em> nice! <br>

I haven't fiogured out that dogwood, ME, but I lioke it a lot.<br>

Nice, Arkadiy--Bogart works for me.<br>

I like that tattered iris and the columbine maybe needs a bit of brightening?<br>

Heavily altered is my favorite of the three oshiva--nice!<br>

Interesting perspective on the old farm house, the weigelia is well done, too.<br>

Man, that portrait is nice, Haig!<br>

The sunset us really nicely, done, Jon, The duck, too, but it looks a little cramped in the frame.</p>

<p>As a general comment, it seemed to me--as I occasionally noted--that a number of submissions this week were a bit dark and lacking contrast. I'm wondering whether that was intentional (breaking away from the "Disney" aesthetic) or whether--as I sometimes experience--some brightness and contrast is lost in the re-sizing and posting.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Jon, good job with the HDR, you haven't over done it, but without it I imagine the foreground would be almost all silhouette, instead of the fine detail you have captured.</p>

<p>Dave, the reason it looks cramped is, I had to crop about an inch from the left of the picture because part of another duck got in the frame. I thought about cloneing it out, but I haven't taken the time yet.<br>

I also noticed the lack of contrast this time around. Sometimes when I post, the pictures look a little darker, but lately they basically stay the same. I think the reason they stay the same now is because I change the color space to sRGB, add some contrast, and then save.<br>

Yes Peter the foreground was all black. Actually, I wouldn't be doing <em>any</em> sunsets except that doing an HDR was the last resort. I have tried many times to get a decent sunset without success until just recently with the HDR's. I figured if the HDR didn't work, I would be off to the camera store to find one of those GND filters and buy one of each kind. Then try different combinations on a sunset until I found what I was looking for.<br>

Seeing that I only posted two images, here is another HDR that I was only using for a test to see how good it actually works.<br>

Pentax K10d, pentax 18-55mm, this time auto bracket using +/-2.0, tripod.</p><div></div>

<blockquote>

<p>As a general comment, it seemed to me--as I occasionally noted--that a number of submissions this week were a bit dark and lacking contrast. I'm wondering whether that was intentional (breaking away from the "Disney" aesthetic) or whether--as I sometimes experience--some brightness and contrast is lost in the re-sizing and posting.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Dave,</p>

<p>I think a lot is lost at 500-700 pixels. Sure small images usually appear sharper, but the tones are lost. For instance my bridge shot is a bit dark on top on the full size shot, but I didn't even think to dodge the rafters till I was looking at it at only 500px on this site, now I'm going back to open up the foreground shadows a bit. That said, the full size image shows decent tone (that is it's not 100% blocked out) in the shadows.</p>

<p>Jon: The HDRs look good although they look more like averaged exposures than tone mapped HDR. That isn't a bad thing, it's more natural. But if you were going for an HDR painted effect (and you might not have been as I sort of don't care for it myself), you need to bracket a bigger intervals. You noted .7...You need at least 1 stop intervals at 5 images, or better 1.5 to 2.0 stops.</p>

<p>Haig: I love the sunset and the model!</p>

<p>Steve: Like the ground level perspective of the abandoned farm shot, I always like getting low for a different perspective.</p>

<p>Dorus: As usual a nice crop of images. The last one is my favorite.</p>

<p>Howard: I'm not much for flower shots (I take em to, and have gigs worth on my hard drive, I just can't get into them!), but I love the bird!</p>

<p>John Dawson: The dragon fly is pretty cool but I think the first one is my fav!</p>

<p>Sigmar: Nice collection of urban wildlife!</p>

<p>Ark: Like the stuff you've put up the last few weeks. Not sure if I commented but I really liked your iguana (???) from a few weeks ago. Think I missed out on commenting that week.</p>

<p>Robert C: The second one is great. I hate to ask, but is the fog in these shots always real, or do you add it? I love foggy atmospheric shots so of course I had to ask!</p>

<p>John OO: I love that cascade but I'd have cropped out that little sliver of sky, and or cropped in tigher on the cascade in the first place. Beautiful cascade!</p>

<p>Andrew: Love both the water shots!</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Very interesting images this week. I went in for colonoscopies last week and this week so these are from my 5th trip to Yellowstone this year 3 weeks ago. I'm headed back in 2 weeks for a Yellowstone Association digital nature photography workshop hoping to bump my skills up to the next level.<br>

Barrow's Goldeneye<br>

<img src="http://wtlwdwgn.smugmug.com/photos/545656309_Xnznz-O.jpg" alt="" width="720" height="556" /><br>

White Pelicans<br>

<img src="http://wtlwdwgn.smugmug.com/photos/542584972_aiRpm-O.jpg" alt="" width="720" height="557" /><br>

Great Blue Heron<br>

<img src="http://wtlwdwgn.smugmug.com/photos/542582860_NsYzJ-O.jpg" alt="" width="557" height="720" /><br>

Osprey returning to the nest<br>

<img src="http://wtlwdwgn.smugmug.com/photos/542545442_gWstt-O.jpg" alt="" width="556" height="720" /></p>

<p>Justin, glad you asked. I can assure you the fog is real. I am not sure how to add it if I wanted to. We have had a lot of rain this spring and thus a lot of foggy days. I almost always go out pre-dawn to shoot so I often catch the fog. I play around with the white balance a little, but the fog is quite real.<br>

Bob</p>

<p>Justin,<br>

I know what you mean about flowers. I have lots of them because of the colors and the light. I decided about a year ago that I was taking "portraits" of flowers and decided to take portraits of people in the wild i.e. streets, parks, etc. Not the same esthetic but more interesting to shoot.<br>

The parrot was amazing - whistling, talking and gathering a crowd.<br>

Howard</p>