Steve'sDigicams

CyberCoyote · Jul 10, 2007, 8:48 PM

Caught this colorful fellow on my lunch break today. He wasn't that big or too close and all I had with me was the 18-55 kit lens. The lesson learned? Focus with your eye to the camera then slowly extend the body from you and stare into the viewfinder. You can still see the image a bit. Refocus and see if the red dot seems to be in the right place. I have pretty poor vision but I think the focus came out fairly well. Cropped, sharpened, and neat imaged..

Also tried a technique from illuminated landscapes today with the sunset. Unfortunately it was quite windy so the flailing trees and motoring clouds made it a bit harder to get a good pair of exposures to use together. Still a very neat method to use two exposures, here's the best I could do with what I collected.

The underexposed image..

The overexposed image

and the merged product

Far from perfect, but a good start. Turns out the sun is moving MUCH faster than I was giving it credit for and I wasn't being as gentle with the camera on the tripod while adjusting exposure between shots as I thought. All lessons learned..

Rodney9 · Jul 10, 2007, 11:35 PM

Great dragon and you seem to be learning very quickly, well done.

bigdawg · Jul 10, 2007, 11:58 PM

Loved the Dragon fly. When you can get some sun reflections on the clouds the second one will be better. But nice try.

Dawg

CyberCoyote · Jul 11, 2007, 6:02 AM

bigdawg wrote:

Quote:

Loved the Dragon fly. When you can get some sun reflections on the clouds the second one will be better. But nice try.

Dawg

Yeah, no clouds this week, just oppressive haze and humidity

rhermans · Jul 11, 2007, 1:50 PM

Ok, the first is a double wow.

The sunset doesn't do it for me, the way you got to the result not withstanding.

As bigdawg said, some clouds will make it more attractive.

All in all nice shots

Ronny

CyberCoyote · Jul 11, 2007, 2:37 PM

Clouds'll definitely help. The trick is pretty easy in p-shop. Take two exposures. Use the lighter exposure as your first layer, the second darker exposure as the second. Create a mask for the second layer (click the mask icon on the layers pallette), now highlight the first layer, copy it, alt-click on the mask and paste the first layer into it. The tutorial claimed you should gaussian blur the mask first, but it's something to toy with.

When you're done (the mask will turn all white when you alt-click select it, then a B&W version of layer 1 appears) click on the bottom layer and viola.. I tried just taking an underexposed pic and making a lighter layer using curves/contrast, and it works BUT you add a lot of noise and other artifacts to the image.

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Jul 10, 2007, 8:48 PM	#1
CyberCoyote Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 257	Caught this colorful fellow on my lunch break today. He wasn't that big or too close and all I had with me was the 18-55 kit lens. The lesson learned? Focus with your eye to the camera then slowly extend the body from you and stare into the viewfinder. You can still see the image a bit. Refocus and see if the red dot seems to be in the right place. I have pretty poor vision but I think the focus came out fairly well. Cropped, sharpened, and neat imaged.. Also tried a technique from illuminated landscapes today with the sunset. Unfortunately it was quite windy so the flailing trees and motoring clouds made it a bit harder to get a good pair of exposures to use together. Still a very neat method to use two exposures, here's the best I could do with what I collected. The underexposed image.. The overexposed image and the merged product Far from perfect, but a good start. Turns out the sun is moving MUCH faster than I was giving it credit for and I wasn't being as gentle with the camera on the tripod while adjusting exposure between shots as I thought. All lessons learned..

Jul 10, 2007, 11:35 PM	#2
Rodney9 Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Yeronga, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia Posts: 3,518	Great dragon and you seem to be learning very quickly, well done.

Jul 10, 2007, 11:58 PM	#3
bigdawg Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Thach Alabama Posts: 14,981	Loved the Dragon fly. When you can get some sun reflections on the clouds the second one will be better. But nice try. Dawg

Jul 11, 2007, 1:50 PM	#5
rhermans Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Antwerp - Belgium Posts: 3,454	Ok, the first is a double wow. The sunset doesn't do it for me, the way you got to the result not withstanding. As bigdawg said, some clouds will make it more attractive. All in all nice shots Ronny

Jul 11, 2007, 2:37 PM	#6
CyberCoyote Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 257	Clouds'll definitely help. The trick is pretty easy in p-shop. Take two exposures. Use the lighter exposure as your first layer, the second darker exposure as the second. Create a mask for the second layer (click the mask icon on the layers pallette), now highlight the first layer, copy it, alt-click on the mask and paste the first layer into it. The tutorial claimed you should gaussian blur the mask first, but it's something to toy with. When you're done (the mask will turn all white when you alt-click select it, then a B&W version of layer 1 appears) click on the bottom layer and viola.. I tried just taking an underexposed pic and making a lighter layer using curves/contrast, and it works BUT you add a lot of noise and other artifacts to the image.