Nathaniel Alpert
Member
I am working my way through my flowers from Hawaii and Kauai. Nothing fancy here, just a straight forward closeup.
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Aonther in my series from Kauai
- Thread starter Nathaniel Alpert
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Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
A Photograph of "One Thing": A unit of art, perhaps!
This is such a clean and inviting picture with sweeps of movement and artful balance. The asymmetrically
elongated right petal is balanced by the green bud pushing upwards to the left of the frame.
So Daniel, what's the story getting this wonderfully water Lilly to be so 3 dimensional and inviting ?
I presume this is a wide open aperture and a long lens throwing the background buds and leaves OOF. What other tricks did you employ. Is the flower itself selectively sharpened and did you process more than one exposure from RAW to get the final almost HDR version?
Asher
P.S., this picture is an example of what I'd refer to as a "unit" of art. This is a photograph that appears to be complete, a whole description sufficient for us to add our own ideas, joys, issues and imperatives as we appreciate it. We should not attempt to make abstract art until we have proven to ourselves we have mastered making such a picture which is able to describe one object.
This is such a clean and inviting picture with sweeps of movement and artful balance. The asymmetrically
elongated right petal is balanced by the green bud pushing upwards to the left of the frame.
So Daniel, what's the story getting this wonderfully water Lilly to be so 3 dimensional and inviting ?
I presume this is a wide open aperture and a long lens throwing the background buds and leaves OOF. What other tricks did you employ. Is the flower itself selectively sharpened and did you process more than one exposure from RAW to get the final almost HDR version?
Asher
P.S., this picture is an example of what I'd refer to as a "unit" of art. This is a photograph that appears to be complete, a whole description sufficient for us to add our own ideas, joys, issues and imperatives as we appreciate it. We should not attempt to make abstract art until we have proven to ourselves we have mastered making such a picture which is able to describe one object.
Nathaniel Alpert
Member
Asher,
I appreciate your comments, as usual. To answer your questions, I'll provide some technical details. This was shot in RAW mode with the Canon 5D at ISO 400. I used a 25 mm extension tube on the 24-105 F4.5 L lens, which was set at f11. It was processed in Light Room, where I reduced the blue and orange luminance channels; I also boosted the red saturation to give the out of focus bud more prominence. The rest of the post processing was in photoshop CS3, where I did capture sharpening and some local midtone enhancement on the petals.
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
What extension tube do you use? Does it retain electronics control of the lens and feedback to the camera for focus? Did you have the camera on a tripod or is this handheld?
I'm surprised that there is not something to immediately explain the bluish rim around the petals. Is this a sharpening artifact or is there some petal edge structure like a ridge of blue hairs? I happen to like it, but would like to know the origin!
What's your capture sharpening scheme?
Asher
Nathaniel Alpert
Member
Hi Asher,
So many questions! This was a simple exercise, handheld. When shooting flowers in the field, I find that a tripod has somedisadvatages, including difficulty in getting to the right position and it affords little help with the wind. In this case, I used a Kenko extension tube which has complete electronic control. As a practical matter, these featuers make little difference. I rely on, first, the in-camera histogram for exposure confrimation and, second, review with the cameras display to check for depth of field.
I am surprised too. I checked the RAW and the blue is evident at the earliest point in pp. In fact, I originally thought it was chromatic aberation, not.
I am setting sharpening to zero in Lightroom. In photoshop I used the PKsharpener plugin to effect the capture sharpening, followed by use of the haze brush to increase the local contrast on the petals.
Advice and suggestions for improvements are always welcome
Best,
-Nat
So many questions! This was a simple exercise, handheld. When shooting flowers in the field, I find that a tripod has somedisadvatages, including difficulty in getting to the right position and it affords little help with the wind. In this case, I used a Kenko extension tube which has complete electronic control. As a practical matter, these featuers make little difference. I rely on, first, the in-camera histogram for exposure confrimation and, second, review with the cameras display to check for depth of field.
I'm surprised that there is not something to immediately explain the bluish rim around the petals. Is this a sharpening artifact or is there some petal edge structure like a ridge of blue hairs? I happen to like it, but would like to know the origin!
I am surprised too. I checked the RAW and the blue is evident at the earliest point in pp. In fact, I originally thought it was chromatic aberation, not.
I am setting sharpening to zero in Lightroom. In photoshop I used the PKsharpener plugin to effect the capture sharpening, followed by use of the haze brush to increase the local contrast on the petals.
Advice and suggestions for improvements are always welcome
Best,
-Nat
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nat,
The many questions come from the impression that your picture provides: one great water lilly with a personality!
I ask about the tubes as I don't use them for my Eos, (I used them for my Pentax film camera) and I wondered about maintaining AF. It might be that when you use more tubes then the motor will be too fast for the progressively narrower depth of sharp focus. Anyway, were you able to use AF or are these manual?
The blue line is another issue. It might well be what Chuck Westfall of Canon USA calls birefringence. (This actually is something more generally known as an effect of light in which rays of light with different polarization, give rise to two diffractions, such that, for example a crystal of CaF would give two copies of a letter it overlies). The Canon lens-effect appears to be related not to the exposure but to the particular lens-sensor combination. It is markedly obvious at high contrast junctions. So this could be such a case. To examine this further, if it's of interest to you, one might look at the pixels on the edge of the petals at 100%. If this is part of the flower structure, then it would show blue-purple hairs or a rim of colored edge structure with veins and markings continuous with the rest of the petal.
There's a plugin for photoshop called Shay's purple fringe reducer. It's simple to use and costs $10!
Anyway, the flower is impressive! Thanks again for sharing!
Asher
The many questions come from the impression that your picture provides: one great water lilly with a personality!
I ask about the tubes as I don't use them for my Eos, (I used them for my Pentax film camera) and I wondered about maintaining AF. It might be that when you use more tubes then the motor will be too fast for the progressively narrower depth of sharp focus. Anyway, were you able to use AF or are these manual?
The blue line is another issue. It might well be what Chuck Westfall of Canon USA calls birefringence. (This actually is something more generally known as an effect of light in which rays of light with different polarization, give rise to two diffractions, such that, for example a crystal of CaF would give two copies of a letter it overlies). The Canon lens-effect appears to be related not to the exposure but to the particular lens-sensor combination. It is markedly obvious at high contrast junctions. So this could be such a case. To examine this further, if it's of interest to you, one might look at the pixels on the edge of the petals at 100%. If this is part of the flower structure, then it would show blue-purple hairs or a rim of colored edge structure with veins and markings continuous with the rest of the petal.
There's a plugin for photoshop called Shay's purple fringe reducer. It's simple to use and costs $10!
Anyway, the flower is impressive! Thanks again for sharing!
Asher