POW Sunday July 19 2009

<p>Howard, I think I see s dust spot on your sensor?</p>

<p>Hi Javier,<br>

In the last picture, right? In the sky on the left. How come I couldn't see that? Well, I did check unmanipulated when I uploaded to my portfolio. Well, time to use a swab and PSE. Thanks for the heads up. Embarassing!<br>

Howard</p>

<p>Thanks for the comments on 'On Queen Street, Auckland' (the green umbrella girl). I often go out for street shots but this was one of those occasions where I just happened to have my camera in case I spotted a good scene.</p>

<p>I just took this one, interested on what you think:</p><div></div>

<p>Excellent Camus.. I like it even better than the green umbrella girl.. and that was pretty darn good.</p>

<p>Ok, I don't post a lot these days, but here is my newest stress relief mechanism - yes, I have more pets ... it was my b-day gift to myself.<br>

The idea was to create a natural planted tank - yes, indoor underwater gardening - but then I got sucked into buying 5 betta girls. I added 3 of them to the newly created garden last night and enjoyed watching the interaction between them - although, I had to seperate one of the bullies before leaving this morning... <br>

These both were taken with my k10d and the DA 21mm. </p><div></div>

<p>and the second one -</p><div></div>

<p>Camus,<br>

Outstanding shot. The lines tracking with the clouds at that moment is extraordinary and it says a lot that you captured it with the woman no less! My only improvement might be to trim the bottom another 10%. Kudos.</p>

<p>ME</p>

<p>Thank you all for contributing and looking and Javier and Michael for the comments on my "Cheese ad". Javier, the dog loves the girl but would love the piece of cheese in her hands even more ;-)</p>

<p>Thanks for the feedback, I cropped a little from the bottom right (and lightened it slightly), for this version:</p>

<p> </p>

<p>second try</p><div></div>

<p>I'm not normally a fan of macros but Haig your green macro shot is one of my favourites this week. Michael Elenko, your first pond shot just has a really nice colour. You can see the great contrast of black and white film in Justin's shot nice shot, and Dorus I like the angled triangles of your second shot but the photoshopping is too much for my taste. John Behrends, I think the lines in the hills are a really good opportunity to contrast them with vertical lines in the foreground. I can see a very vertical tree contasting nicely in a black and white shot, if anything like that is available?</p>

<p>My two cents this week.</p>

<p>2 fungi.</p>

<p>White Worm Coral, K20 + 50-135mm.</p>

<p><a title="White Worm Coral by manual crank, on Flickr" href=" title="White Worm Coral by manual crank, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2637/3745467206_5bc8ba7a36_o.jpg" alt="White Worm Coral" width="800" height="640" /> </a></p>

<p>Painted Bolete, Canon SD880.</p>

<p><a title="Painted Bolete by manual crank, on Flickr" href=" title="Painted Bolete by manual crank, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3171/3745501322_f292b37e33_o.jpg" alt="Painted Bolete" width="1024" height="768" /> </a></p>

<p>Many (most?) plants and fungi I've photographed in the field show tenants, upon review in LR, lurking, feeding, boinking, or whatever. Here's a closeup of the slug, above. Also SD880, crop.</p>

<p><a title="IMG_0038 by manual crank, on Flickr" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/manualcrank/3745501352/" title="IMG_0038 by manual crank, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2567/3745501352_b26503b26b_o.jpg" alt="IMG_0038" width="500" height="375" /> </a></p>

<p>Weird, the images are scaled improperly in Microsoft's IE. Firefox displays correctly, and is color managed, too.</p>

<p>Rose, I like the beta fish shots especially the second. My daughter had a male beta that lived about 4 years until we found him quite still at the bottom of the bowl. 8~( We planted him in a flower bed.</p>