Macros
- Thread starter Blzebub
- Start date
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
they look pretty good Bub, although obviously the last one isn't a macro.
Here is one taken with a 645 film camera earlier today
Orchid by cliffpatte, on Flickr
Blad H2, 80/2.8, 26mm Extension tube, Fuji Neopan 400, XTOL 1:1, F2.8 at 1/30th handheld.
Here is one taken with a 645 film camera earlier today
Orchid by cliffpatte, on Flickr
Blad H2, 80/2.8, 26mm Extension tube, Fuji Neopan 400, XTOL 1:1, F2.8 at 1/30th handheld.
Cleansound
pfm Member
Cheers Cliff. My first few attempts came out blurred because I didn't use the self-timer. Duh! The facial portrait was to demo the (improved?) bokeh of my new lens. vuk can be the judge of that.
Thanks. A half-second exposure to show the 4 Hz movement of that watch.
Cleansound
pfm Member
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
bub.
the bokeh is indeed considerably better, but you still still have the slight digital mush factor to contend with and there is no easy way around that apart from shooting film.
btw--i value your opinion on the failure of obese people to discipline themselves and natalie portman.
vuk.
the bokeh is indeed considerably better, but you still still have the slight digital mush factor to contend with and there is no easy way around that apart from shooting film.
btw--i value your opinion on the failure of obese people to discipline themselves and natalie portman.
vuk.
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
vuk
\o/ choose anarchy
next steps you need to work on...
1) composition: too many things in your pic and you should avoid centering the subject (i know i do it often, but there has to be a good aesthetic argument for it)--i have cropped the pic to illustrate, but i am not advising cropping, just getting the framing right at shooting time
2) curving: a picture straight out of a non-point-anad-shoot camera is going to be rather bland: you need to master it (ideally with curves) in photoshop to arrive at a proper/convincing final presentation
3) when you resize a shot, you have to apply a sharpening filter--i use unsharp mask and have posted my secret settings here a while back (an important note: cliff does not agree with me)
vuk.
1) composition: too many things in your pic and you should avoid centering the subject (i know i do it often, but there has to be a good aesthetic argument for it)--i have cropped the pic to illustrate, but i am not advising cropping, just getting the framing right at shooting time
2) curving: a picture straight out of a non-point-anad-shoot camera is going to be rather bland: you need to master it (ideally with curves) in photoshop to arrive at a proper/convincing final presentation
3) when you resize a shot, you have to apply a sharpening filter--i use unsharp mask and have posted my secret settings here a while back (an important note: cliff does not agree with me)
vuk.
cliffpatte
Speed camera anarchist
When it comes to sharpening a resized shot, to an extent it depends on what your image looks like as to how much and how you might want to sharpen it. I don't think there is a one size fits all Ninja USM setting. I use a variety of different bits of software anyway (CS4, CS5, Lightroom 2, Lightroom 3, Nikon Capture NX2, Phocus) and the way you input the parameters differs too. So I have many different settings for different situations. Sometimes I don't bother at all, and sometimes I just use smart sharpen in CS5.
There are similar personal preferences to the use of curves. For instance, I wouldn't use a big contrast increasing curve on something like a Macro shot of a flower, nor would I use it on a High key portrait.
Where I do agree with Vuk is about framing. Its pretty rare for a portrait to look good with the subject dead centre, although I can think of some famous examples where it did work well.
If I was going to attempt to mod the portrait above, I think I would want to go back to the RAW image and maybe look at the exposure. My little play with the 3100 the other week suggested that in default mode it is going to look a little bit overexposed most of the time as Active D Lighting is set to Normal by default. I would probably take the RAW into NX2 and turn D-lighting off for this shot as there isn't a big dynamic range on the shot anyway.
cheers
Cliff
Tony L
Administrator
Any chance of posting what you recommend for typical flickr / website usage, e.g. 800x533 or similar image size? I managed to wipe my settings out the other day and I can't remember either what I was using or what the photoshop defaults were! It would be good to have a starting point to work from.
Tony.
