Photos Photo of the Day

Thanks! The originals are 3008x2000 or thereabouts - it has been straightened a tiny bit.

Btw, jpearcey1000 - they're all broken links. You need to go to share, then grab the bbcode (where the twitter facebook logos are).

 

Don't worry Dwarfer, people always bitch about the dA watermark in this thread.

 

Phoenix by angad84, on Flickr


Maserati in Motion by angad84, on Flickr

 

Those photos are awesome but with 2mins of editing you can really get them going:

 

Lonely tree, near Nettleden, Hertfordshire by TimSmalley, on Flickr

I had a window of about 2 minutes after waiting for four hours for a momentary break in the clouds. Enough time to expose one sheet of film - I'd run out of light by the time I tried to make a backup image.

 

That streak of light cutting across the middle is just sublime, Tim. Overall it seems a bit on the dark side, but I'm undecided if that's actually a bad thing.

It looks like it was well worth the wait.

 

Nice shot Tim. I do like it, it is dark but it adds to the character. Immediately draws you attention to the tree.

 

Thanks for the kind words - I used a red filter for the black and white conversion as there was a heavy green cast in the bottom left of the transparency (not sure what happened there, as I really liked the colour version!). The red filter darkens down the blue coloured clouds and also adds a bit of contrast to greens and yellows in the crops.

It was a very windy and cloudy evening, with lots of threatening dark blue clouds coming over as part of a new weather front which started coming down about 20 minutes before sunset. As a result, I felt the red filter worked best - it conveyed the mood and the only light in the scene is just hitting the tree's back side (the shadow is still just about there, going across the image) and the hill behind the tree.

Everything else, including the clouds above, were actually relatively dark - the tree was the darkest point and I placed the majority of that -2EV below midtone, with the darkest areas going down to -3EV. The sky ranged from about +2EV to +5EV above midtone, so I added a 3 stop grad to hold the highlights (Velvia 100F has a textural dynamic range of about +2EV to -5EV around midtone - higher/lower than that and you lose texture, but retain colour as there isn't really a cliff). I placed the sunlit hill 1/2 a stop above midtone and that formed the basis of the exposure calculation.

 

Thanks, they really do look a lot better after a little processing. Just out of interest what processes did you use to clean them up? white balance adjust and a sharpen mask?

I'm going to have to start using GIMP or buy a newer update of Paint Shop Pro (the last version I had of that didn't play nice with windows 7s' colour pallete).

 

Ever thought of Photoshop Elements? It's not that much money and it's quite an amazing package. Also is quite cool pixelmator.

I just messed with the curves, and blurred the background a bit (especially where you could see the fence)

 

Trying out a bokeh panorama/the brenizer method. Not perfect, but I like it. Shot with the D700, 85 1.8D at f2.

 

Nice! I've never been able to get a Brenizer shot done right. Did you get the lady in one frame? That's my biggest issue.

 

Yeah, one shot of my sister, then the rest, around that. Didn't seem to have a problem there. I think it makes a big difference if the subject moves, and then in what sequence you do the images, because I tried another one, and it just couldn't get it right. I also forgot to set my camera to manual, so yeah. The red line on the top of the building didn't align right, but nevermind.

 

how many shots to make the final one?

great photo btw!

 

must have been between 8 and 12, I can't recall It was crashing my photoshop, till I opened 64 bit version of it and then it was using 94% of my ram. (I've got 6gb). I imagine this was because each RAW file is around 12mb or so and during this process, it is making layers, etc etc etc.

 

how do you line them up (if you don't mind me asking). Apologies if this is too much off-topic chatter.

 

Photoshop will autostitch.


Dinner by angad84, on Flickr


Porsche Cayman by angad84, on Flickr


ACM by angad84, on Flickr

 

A very good image... my only annoyance with it is incredibly picky, but I feel it's worth pointing out - the tuft of hair that crosses into the red part of the building is actually quite off-putting. I keep being drawn to that. A slightly higher camera position would correct it in-camera, but you could always get the clone brush out post capture.

 

Thanks, I can easily shop that out. I don't think there are many photographer who could notice a bit of hair in the red at the time

 

Yep, very difficult to notice through the viewfinder