Shutterbug showcase

[PetrifiedWood]

You got him with the wings folded!

[TACSAR]

Nice!  They don't stay still long.

PW, how bout 'fast' for settings?  Haha


Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

[PetrifiedWood]

Yeah, sounds about right.

[Old Philosopher]

Nice!  They don't stay still long.

PW, how bout 'fast' for settings?  Haha


Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

My setting was <AUTO>.
My sitting was about 1/2 an hour. 

IIRC, I used to be able to freeze a hummingbirds' wings at anything over 1/1,000th sec.

[wolfy]

That's the first time I ever saw one 'perched'!  I scared a hen out of her nest once, but I didn't even know they had feet 'til now

[Old Philosopher]

That's the first time I ever saw one 'perched'!  I scared a hen out of her nest once, but I didn't even know they had feet 'til now

I have several shots of ones perched, but none worth showing other than that one.
On two different occasions, both my wife and myself have rescued hummingbirds caught by out cats. Both played dead until we had them in the palm of our hands, and the "came to life" to fly off safely. Amazing birds.

[Bearhunter]

Yeah, those damned cats...
That's why we don't have any feeders around here. We still see some from time to time though.

[Old Philosopher]

Yeah, those damned cats...
That's why we don't have any feeders around here. We still see some from time to time though.

Our feeders are too high for the cats. The one hunter cat has only caught 2 in 2 years, and that was because of them visiting our various flowers.

[Bearhunter]

Yeah, those damned cats...
That's why we don't have any feeders around here. We still see some from time to time though.

Our feeders are too high for the cats. The one hunter cat has only caught 2 in 2 years, and that was because of them visiting our various flowers.

I don't want to clutter up the 'shutterbug, thread but...
We use to have a cat that would climb up onto the roof and snag birds out of the air... Swear to god! I saw it!!
It did the same thing in town too. It would climb on the neighbors roof and 'snag' the pigeons off there perch...
That was the only cat that I ever really cared for. A true hunter It killed all kinds of critters around here too, but we went on vacation once, came back, and we never saw her again. Something got her I guess we called her 'chubby chicken'
The 6 toed calico cat that we have now is worthless!

[TACSAR]

So, got a new camera the other day and had to do some testing with it.  The resolution of it is fantastic.


1/125@f5.6 I think.  Single 100ws light off camera right with shoot through umbrella.

My pooch.  He's a pup and my other dog just died a month or so ago.  Still miss him.  This little guy misses him too and seems lost without him.

[PetrifiedWood]

You really captured the mood with that picture. Is the new camera a full frame sensor?

[TACSAR]

Little foggy in my backyard this morning.  New Nikon D600 does very well at high ISO.  I think this was ISO2000 or something. 

[TACSAR]

You really captured the mood with that picture. Is the new camera a full frame sensor?

Yeah, I've had to make the full frame move in the past year or so.  Studio work is demanding for a DX sized sensor.  This is a D600 full frame at 24MP

[TACSAR]

The fog sucked up so much of the natural saturation the images became monochrome by itself

[PetrifiedWood]

I love those forest shots, particularly the second one. It's fun when the image is from a unique perspective.

As for the sensor size, yeah it makes a difference in more ways than one. I like the crop sensor for wildlife shots because it's like having a 1.6x teleconverter without losing 2 stops of exposure. But you have to compromise elsewhere.

Been fooling with a home made light box this evening.



Took some pictures of a macro extension tube set to test out the box. Still needs some light coming from the front.





These pics were taken with a "bridge" camera, a Canon SX40HS. f8, and not sure the speed.  I think they came out ok, but the chrome in the second pic should have had a white reflection aimed at it, and both pics could have used some light coming from the front to eliminate the remaining shadows. I used auto white balance and it worked ok.

[TACSAR]

Nice man. Yeah I still have a crop sensor camera for wildlife and it can be nice to have that 1.5x in Nikons case for a bit of extra reach.

Light boxes are neat. I don't have one but setup soft boxes for product shoots with a long white background. Fill that box with light from the top.


Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

[Old Philosopher]

PW, Tacsar beat me to it. Yeah, add a top light. That will give you more front fill than you imagine.

[PetrifiedWood]

Thanks for the tips guys! I will just have to cut one more hole in the box and tape some more parchment paper in there. Should be easy enough. And the kit I have is one of those "portrait studio in a box" deals that has three lights so I have another light I can use.

Sent from my GT-P3113 using Tapatalk 2

[TACSAR]

Right on! Lets see some results soon.


Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

[Old Philosopher]

For shooting shadowless photos of coins, I had a frosted plexiglass bowl with a 48mm hole cut in the base for the camera lens. My lights were two remote slave flash units at 60^o from each other. Worked quite well.

[PetrifiedWood]

Well I tried it with a third light from above today. The light coming from above seemed to cast harder shadows below, if that makes any sense. But I used a different subject this time.

[PetrifiedWood]

And here's more messing around with the light box.

In order to use the f8 aperture the shutter speed was just slow enough to blur the tip of the second hand. I was using ISO 100. I think moving up to ISO 200 would have frozen the second hand. And, I need to get a good lump of wax to use as a prop to hold small items at a better angle for shooting. Also, a black "absorber" positioned to help avoid glare on the watch crystal might have helped as well.

What I have learned from all this is that I think I might want to spend the $35 or so for an actual light tent. I like taking macros and "product pictures".

[Old Philosopher]

Yeah, you're getting a lot of reflection, and shadow.
If you still want to play some before the $35 light tent, check out some thrift stores, or Wally-Mart for translucent plastic mixing bowl. Cut dead center in the bottom to fit your objective lens so you are shooting straight down on your subject. Then hit it with three lights spaced equidistant around the bowl. Put one light at table top level, and another at ~45^o angle above the bowl. Elevate the third one to a height between the first two. The lights need to be the same intensity, and distance from the subject. Shoot on a surface that's the same color temperature as they bowl. If it all comes together right, you have zero shadows, and the subject looks like it's floating in mid air.

A bowl something like this one. Heck, I even saw a light box made out of a white lampshade once.

[TACSAR]

I think what might be happening here is the balance of light may be off. So, two lights at 45o apart side to side and shooting down at about 45o as well will give you the even light you need at f/8. The too light should be set at about mmmmm I'd say f/4-5.6 in order to just 'pop' the highlights and not cast a shadow. I only say that because the back of the watch where the bracelet is has near perfect light absorption. If you're using the light tent if any config you should need a gobo for absorption unless you're bottom lighting a very complex bottle of delicious scotch. .

Hope that helps a tad



Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

[PetrifiedWood]

I think I get what you're saying. I might have the lights too close to the box and they aren't getting diffused enough, right? By backing them off a bit it could help prevent the shadows?

One difficulty I have is the top light doesn't have a boom or any way to get it positioned more towards the front of the box.  It is more angled from the back to the front. With it turned off the shadows were not as harsh. But again, that might be because I have all of them too close to the box.

I will try backing them away a bit and see if that makes the difference.

[PetrifiedWood]

The shadows aren't as hard on these two. They have their problems though, mainly glare and soft focus. I shot at f8 on these as well, but probably should have positioned them closer to the front of the box. I wasn't able to get the camera close enough to use macro mode and was using "manual" focus. (Turning the dial on the camera back to tune focus using live view and a magnified focus area on the screen.) So the focus problem can be solved. Sharpening the image in post helped. Also I cropped them and bumped up the saturation, brightness and contrast to get the red dial to look on the screen like it does to my eyes. These were still shot in ISO 100 because I forgot to bump it up a little.

I turned off the image stabilizer because it is tripod mounted, but I think I got better results with the IS turned on. (It's a lightweight travel tripod so it might actually benefit from the stabilization.)

[Old Philosopher]

The brightness of the lights could be an issue. It doesn't seem like you're getting a lot of diffusion. Rather than move the lights farther away, how about doubling the paper walls to the tent? One sheet of paper may not scatter the light enough. Or use heavier paper, like butcher paper?

I'd stick with the 100 ISO, or even drop down to 64 if you can. Even on a kick-a$$ camera like yours, the higher the ISO setting the more "grain" (pixelation) you are going to get.

[TACSAR]

Common misconception about the distance PW. The further the light source is from the subject the harsher the light will be. Softer light comes from light sources that are closer to the subject. It may seem backwards but the further away the source is the straighter the rays of light become and they create harder shadows.

Moving them close but adding paper as OP says will work better. Never move lights back for softer light though.  It will do the exact opposite.



Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

[PetrifiedWood]

Ah, that makes sense. I will give it another layer of paper and see what happens. Thanks!

[Buckskin]

"Meza Pole Cat!"

[PetrifiedWood]

Lol! Funny kitty Buckskin. Yours?

I tried my light box out with one of my daughter's "Cutie" oranges.

This was also at f8, ISO 100.



It could stand to be cropped a bit, and needs a bit more brightness and contrast.

[Buckskin]

PW, he is one of the many feral felines I have around here.  We call him marble.

[PetrifiedWood]

Yeah, I think cats are pretty cool animals. I am deathly allergic to them or we'd have cats instead of dogs for pets most likely. I love the dogs too. But cats are relatively low maintenance and hell on the mice.

[TACSAR]

Thought I'd test out the dynamic range and colour of the new camera yesterday.  Saw this sunset on my way home and had to stop. 
ISO450 24mm f/8 1/25s.
Handheld!

[PetrifiedWood]

Looks nice! No blown out highlights and good detail in the darker parts. I love the way the clouds are illuminated.

[PetrifiedWood]

Sun came out so I took 3 shots and stitched together using canon photostitch to create a panorama.



Unfortunately, the lens distortion makes the horizons look "scoopy'.

This was taken using an in-camera feature called "stitch assist" with my bridge camera. I think they should have programmed the camera to zoom out to a focal length that didn't cause distortion when using the stitch assist feature. the feature is great, but manually zooming out to about 28mm equivalent is probably a good idea before shooting the pics.

[Old Philosopher]

Actually, that horizon on the left center just looks like a normal saddle to anyone who hasn't seen it in person.
Nice shot! There's another banner photo for the Saint!

My daughter just turned me on to a new camera. I'm secretly hoping she's teasing me, and I find one under the yule tree.
This little compact has automatic image stabilization for the zoom, and after comparing many cameras, she calls it "epic" regarding how clear the 20x zoom is.
The camera also has a boat load of other features, like a Color/Subject Picker, so you can do those shots with part of the subject colorized, and the rest of the photo in grayscale...all as the picture is being taken.
The other cool features are Slow Motion HD video, and a Super Slow Shutter speed that would enable me to get those water shots I've been whining about.
I'm looking for a smilie for this post that shows someone with their fingers, eyes and legs crossed in anticipation.

[PetrifiedWood]

Good luck OP! I hope you find it under the tree or in the toe of a stocking.

[PetrifiedWood]

Here's a gently tweaked HDR taken from the same position.

[TACSAR]

Very nice. Good saturation and contrast.


Sent from my iPhone whilst punch dancing in the woods.

[Old Philosopher]

Some of the HDR photos remind me of the old 'laser print' photos from back in the 70s. Anybody remember those, or am I dating myself?

[PetrifiedWood]

Thanks TACSAR! 

OP, I am not quite 40 yet but I remember coin operated TV tube testers in the drugstore, if that makes a difference.

[wolfy]

Thanks TACSAR! 

OP, I am not quite 40 yet but I remember coin operated TV tube testers in the drugstore, if that makes a difference.

Then you don't remember the X-RAY machines in shoe stores, either!  Very handy, we could view are feet right through our new Buster Brown shoes to check the fit.......I recall the eerie green tinted light that the Kryptonite rays gave off

[Old Philosopher]

LOL, Wolfy! I thought those were SO cool!!! I stood in those things so many times, it's no wonder my kids all came out weird....

Okay, this is NOT one of my photos, but it's an example I found months ago of the old Laser Print technology, posted here just for conversation's sake. The resolution on this website, and all the coding/decoding that goes on to post a picture doesn't do justice to the original product.
Full credit goes to Mr. John Meadows.

[TACSAR]

Thats great OP.  Love it.

Now, although not bushcrafty, I did a shoot for Run for Your Lives when they came to Canada.  Here's a few selected shots.  The makeup was awesome.

[TACSAR]

Some shots of the Vietnam war memorial from this past memorial day.

[Old Philosopher]

Very nice work, Tacsar. The b/w treatment of the Memorial was most fitting! 

Now...aside from the fact that the makeup discourages any inappropriate thoughts about the subject, I have to ask...
Are those her real eyes, or is she wearing theatrical contacts? 

[TACSAR]

Haha, contacts OP.  Thanks on the memorial pics.  It was incredible to be there on memorial day.

[Buckskin]

Outside my back door this morning.

[PetrifiedWood]

Looks chilly! Reminds me I want a cup of coffee.