petemillis

Tony, I don't see any loss of highlight info here. I've just checked highlights in some software as well, and nothing seems to be blown.

Are you a singer from Spandau Ballet? ;))

This is an intriguing photograph and has me looking deeper and deeper into it. It reminds me of getting wrecked in a nightclub!

For me, this is by far the best of your photographs in this set. It's something a bit different - sort of a bit weird and surreal. I like this one. I like the tones and lighting and composition.

Fred, I agree wholeheartedly on the water! One of my daughters just looked over my shoulder and said "what's that?". When I said "water" her immediate response was "it doesn't look like water" and it looked to her as if the water had just been painted onto the picture. Different tastes and all that - and fashions come and go - like pine furniture was all the rage here, and now it's oak!

Fred, I did do this one a bit too much. It was only after posting that I noticed a bit of a loss of detail in the top of the acorn and the wood a bit too warm. I'm also not a fan of over-saturated images and all I had intended to do was lift it a bit as it looked a bit while I had nothing better to do :)

 

Keith Henson is here: www.northscape.co.uk He does have some very highly saturated images, but also some beautiful (in my eyes) monochrome ones as well.

ahhh what the hell....here's my remix!

David, this image works well. I think just having the two states - the seed of the tree, and the final product of the tree - missing out the tree bit in the middle is actually a good idea. It gives the viewer more to imagine - i.e. the life cycle of the tree - without this information being fed to them, which would be the case if the tree was also incorporated in the image. For me, you have done the right thing. One thing I would be tempted to do is to just fiddle with the histogram curve slightly in post processing (yeah - here I go again after doing this to a couple of Rachel's this morning!!) to slightly darken the dark areas, lift the highlights and accentuate the warmth of the wood..... Just a little bit of tweaking (as Keith Henson does with his landscapes!) is enough to give a slightly better contrast between acorn and wood so the acorn stands out a bit more.

 

Now for your next trick - I'd like you to do pine cone and pine furniture!

Super shot - love the sharpness of the Kingfisher against the blur of the background. Very well executed.

 

Pnina, this is good too - I like the way it is hard to tell which side of the glass the woman and the chairs are. Can the woman sit on either of the chairs, or is the glass between them? Great capture.

Pnina, well spotted reflection here. I like the mysterious hovering blue reflection, and the dress that looks like it's going to float across the image. Also, there is interesting similarity between the table reflection and the shape of the buildings. This image works really well.

This just goes to show - that shots we intended to take, but turn out not as intended, should always be kept as there often seems to be a reason for them turning out the way they did. There are always lessons to be learned through experimenting, and this one has worked a treat. I'm glad Micki spotted this as well :))

Cheers

Pete

I love Buckfast Abbey, and so this image really caught my attention as well. The colour tones here are excellent. One thing I have noticed when viewing large is a green dot toward top left of image - a dead pixel that has shown up because of high ISO setting that was required to enable you to use a small aperture to get good depth of field I should think. Which brings me to my second point - I notice that a lot of your pictures are of buildings and industrial type and countryside type settings....I bet you would enjoy playing with a lens that gave you tilt capability........it's fun ;))

Beautiful - I love pictures that show the world dancing through the use of slower shutter speeds. Wonderful lively colours with so much warmth yet I can feel the cold of the wind _ I love the outdoors!

Dave, I know this isn't one of your most recent submissions, but it's one that caught my attention while browsing through your work. It's really drawn me in and I've spent the last 10 minutes trying to figure out whereabouts in London it is. The reflections seem so familiar yet I can't place them - please put me out of my misery otherwise I'll be having trouble sleeping!

 

You've caught an image here that is very engaging. Good stuff.

 

Pete

The aim here has been to recreate that old feel. This is photograph

of Stanmer Church that has been taken using the Mir 26B medium

format lens attached to Canon 10D via tilt adapter to soften focus

toward left and right of frame. The photograph was taken in near

pitch black, at ISO 3200, f3.5, with an exposure time of 1.5

seconds - HAND HELD. The only post processing has been BW

conversion, sepia tint, slight adjustment of levels, small amount of

noise reduction and then slight sharpen - all in free Canon DPP.

 

There's a fine balance between lightening the image too much and

making it look almost like a really "grainy" daytime shot, and not

lightening enough which leaves the image looking really dull. On my

monitor, and when I print, I have an image that I think works, but

I'd be interested in your thoughts as well. Do you feel the exposure

level is about right so it still looks like night but without being

too dull? Also thoughts on the softening of focus to left and right

using lens tilt would be appreciated. I have a similar photo taken

straight without tilt but I seem to have cocked that one up by not

having sharper focus anywhere - oh the perils of manual focus in the

dark!

 

Thanks very much.

 

Pete

Hi Gord. Many thanks for your input on this picture - much appreciated as always.

 

I agree with you about the lighter area at top left and will have a go at toning it down a bit. I think I'll have to do this using the stamp tool in Canon DPP as that's all I have. Hopefully doing a brush clone thingummyjig around that area will do the trick.

 

I'll have a go at recropping as well. The original image has quite a lot of spare to the right and his ear is there, but I wanted to go for a 4:5 ratio and couldn't pull the framing further to the right without chopping off the shoulder and pushing the face even further to the left in the frame. I'll fiddle around though and see what I can come up with. This might actually work ok in square frame.

 

Cheers again....

Taken using Canon 10D fitted with Arax tilt adapter and Mir 26B

3.5/45 medium format lens. Lens was tilted (swung) to the right to

throw focus and to selectively focus on one side of face. Lighting

is just from window. Only post processing has been crop, BW

conversion, levels, sepia tint and sharpen. I would appreciate any

thoughts on feelings toward using the tilt lens for portraits like

this, and also on overall impressions of this photographs.

 

Many thanks.

 

Pete

David, for me, this one works really really well and is by far best of the three. The leaves really seem to pop from the background as if they are leaves actually stuck on my screen. I love the detail in the twig too. Can't think of any improvements as this iteration already has those that have been discussed.

 

Pete

L..., it's interesting that you mention blacks not being black enough, and the lack of contrast. I've only just recently realised (like a few days ago) how I can work on the shadows and highlights in Canon DPP for post processing. Up until now, all I'd been doing was a brightness/exposure and contrast adjustment using two sliders in the software, and that was the extent of processing. At the moment I'm working through a load of pictures and seeing what I can do to better them.

 

As for this particular picture - well, the composition....agreed, the crop does show a lot of background just hanging there, but that's the way it is, and the positioning of the crosses in the frame - well that's just what I saw and this image reflects that. Personally, I don't feel that the main subject (in this case the crosses) always needs to occupy the greatest part of the frame. I could have cropped close in on the crosses, but then they're taken out of context (and some people might then see them as some KKK symbolism ;) )

 

And the visual discomfort and the unnatural feel - again, that's something that I am happy with. I could have taken this photograph straight with a sharp band of focus going straight across the image, but then it wouldn't be the same photograph, and we wouldn't be talking about it now I guess. Would you have even noticed it if it wasn't as sh*tty as it is? Sometimes....I think sh*tty works (well, it does for me, although I can fully understand how this won't appeal to most people).

 

Lens, by the way, is a Mir 26B 3.5/45 medium format lens attached to the Canon 10D with an Arax tilt adapter - that's how the plane of focus is altered. It's really hard to set the focus where I want it, and I'm pleased in this case that it came out exactly as I planned. What made it harder was hand holding the camera with a shutter speed of 1/10sec.

 

Lastly, I've just twiddled the shadow and highlights a bit in this one, and wonder if the darks look darker now? I don't think it's possible to get black black with a sepia tint though.

L, ROFLMAO, I'm really pumped that this picture has produced such a strong response in someone :)) Out of interest, what exactly don't you like about it? And I wonder what could be done to improve it? I'm all ears....PP

L, I'm pleased you find it gloomy - just the way it's meant to be :))

Very interesting and engaging image. Well executed!

Beautifully presented colours and great use of small DOF - this image caught my eye immediately.

Micki, I have this in colour too - here one can enjoy the redness of the poppy wreaths without them distracting from the sharpness of the crosses. I wonder what you think of this?

Micki, thanks for looking. I'm glad what I did worked - as the idea was to NOT be able to see the wreaths, and you couldn't - so that's good ;) Lots of people take pictures of this monument after Remembrance Day as the poppy wreaths are so red and colourful, and go well with the stone of the monument. But I love all the little crosses that are placed in the ground, and they seem to get missed!