The "Post your pictures here" thread.

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James J said:
Was cloudy but its more of my processing style than natural light.
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Yeah I had a look through some of the other stuff on your Flickr and the processing style works on a lot of the other pics but on that Bee macro it just seems to suck the life and colour out of it for me... Unless that was the desired effect? lol

Some good shots in there! I liked the pigeon
 
Phal said:
Yeah I had a look through some of the other stuff on your Flickr and the processing style works on a lot of the other pics but on that Bee macro it just seems to suck the life and colour out of it for me... Unless that was the desired effect? lol

Some good shots in there! I liked the pigeon
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The bee itself hasn't changed that much in colour from the original, even with my processing style over it :D I wanted to try and flatten the colours on it (so sucking the life out of it is probably a good way of putting it lol) to make sure my attention was right on the bee and not on the vibrant flowers it was sat on and which sit in the foreground.

Thanks for the critique!
 
Skynet-T800 said:
Dobbo.jpg
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Love this, Iv got one just like him!
 
James J said:
The bee itself hasn't changed that much in colour from the original, even with my processing style over it :D I wanted to try and flatten the colours on it (so sucking the life out of it is probably a good way of putting it lol) to make sure my attention was right on the bee and not on the vibrant flowers it was sat on and which sit in the foreground.

Thanks for the critique!
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Oddly enough I did think that I liked the way the bee looked liked that but that the loss of colour in the surroundings wasn't worth it.

I was out in the garden again after work for a few more pics despite the crap light due to this cloud/mist

I'm finding that the exceptionally shallow DOF can be weird to deal with! It can be fun since you kinda 'disect' the subject with such a shallow DOF like this:


Dandelion by Phal44, on Flickr

Just shows a sliver of the flower in focus but sometimes it can be a pain in the ass like this next one where some parts stick out and end up blurred


Charred by Phal44, on Flickr


Then there's the rear end of this spider which looks kinda cool :D


Spiderassface by Phal44, on Flickr





A tripod is definitely on my shopping list though! It's nice being able to do handheld macro shots with this IS lens but it's definitely not easy!
 
I rarely use my tripod for macro unless I'm using extension tubes or some sort of magnification adapter (raynox etc). The DOF is quite easy to counteract but its vastly different to everyday photography as even f6.3 at the MFD of a macro lens won't have a decent sized flower head in complete focus. Thats where the tripod comes in as you have to use F8-11 to really start to get everything in focus, but you can use the DOF to your advantage if you can utilise the axis it falls on. The flower picture you posted is a nice example as you can basically slice the subject apart just using your aperture setting, which can give some nice artistic effects.

I usually shoot between 2.8 and 6.3 for most of my macro stuff as I'm very familiar with my camera and lens combination and how to get the best out of it whilst destroying the background with lovely bokeh effects!

Tripod techniques rely heavily on live view quality on camera's and ideally needs a macro rail as well to allow you to use manual focus properly and easily to really push the MFD on the lens you have to its limits. The caterpillar pictures I took (about 20 in total) are a mixture of MF and AF techniques, depending on where the subject was and where it was heading to. If you can plan the shot, MF really comes into its own but can only really be used for slow moving subjects.
 
It's definitely nice having the option to do handheld without having perfectly steady bionic arms!

Think a lot of the pics have been at f2.8 so I guess I'll start upping that a bit to see what the differences are :)
 
Phal said:
It's definitely nice having the option to do handheld without having perfectly steady bionic arms!

Think a lot of the pics have been at f2.8 so I guess I'll start upping that a bit to see what the differences are :)
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I don't even have the luxury of the IS :O

:D
 
Nice picture Exception but for me personally, I feel the flowers are in the way.

Anyway, one of mine. I think the sky is a bit too purple:

DSC_1326editCropped.jpg
 
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