first Flower Macro with Kit lens

[albreca]

Hi all,
as my wife is an absolute fan of roses in the garden, i'll have to take since 3 years now pics of her roses in our garden.
The weather is bad here (foggy, rainy) and no flowers so far (ok, it's winter :-) ).
So i started to see, if a macro shot of some of our indoor flowers would work with the kit lens.

I think it turned out really nice, although i normally don't like flash on flower pics.

Lets see, how such flower pics would be, when i hold the 70-300 Tamron/Sigma in my hand.

Maybe i'll need a special macro lens( a 1:1), too.

Ouch, just have my cam 2 days and haven't even seen all menu items but need new lenses.

[robar]

alex,
this is pretty good. yellow is a difficult color for many.. it usually over exposes.. about all i can offer is to maybe try it with a -1ez or -2ev to bring out a little more shadow detail..
i think your tamron will do 1:2(half lifesize) macros.
don't worry about lenses yet. you have the kit lens and the 70-300.. they cover just about every thing.. learn them first and in a couple of months you'll know what primes you would be likely to use..
what software are you using?? i ask because the exif is missing in the shot.

roy

[robar]

and maybe a little unsharp mask..

[albreca]

Hi Roy,
thanks for your comment and on the hints on EV.

Unfortunately i don't have the Tamron 70-300 so far. At the shop were i bought the cam, it was 200 € and online i can get it for about 130 €. Yes i know it is only 1:2, i am just dreaming.

For the software: i am using since 2 years now gimp ( i am linux and opensource fan).
It works really great, i am just tring to figure out a profile for the unsharp mask for the K100D.
Since last week i am experimenting with a color split into HSV layers and then applying the unsharp mask (5, 50, 0) on the Value layer only. after that the three layers will be combined back.

This process prevents of that 'glare', if i am 'overprocessing' the unsharp mask, and it is not as timeconsuming like other processes.

What i did before using this HSV stuff, was normal PP , like levels, contrast if necessary, resizing and then duplicating the layer and unsharp mask on the top layer, and combined them back to one layer with an overlay of 70 - 80 % of the top layer.


bye alex

[albreca]

Here is a comparison between the two processes of sharpening i use.
left split into HSV unsharp mask on the value layer and combined back from HSV

right duplicate layers, unsharp mask on the top layer only and Value overlay 80%

No levels and any other stuff, only resized

[robar]

for a final usm i usually use 20,60,0.. it's really more of a contrast boost than a sharpening. i'll take a look at 5,50,0.... i'll bet it real similar to mine.. hope you don't mind but here's your flower after a 30sec edit. probably over saturated tho..

roy

[albreca]

he Roy thats great, i like it, it brings out much more details.
i wouldn't have tried it that high.

bye alex
btw i made a mistake in gimp it is 5... 0,50...0 and not 5...50...0

[robar]

just to make sure that we're talking the same language. in PS it's'' amount,radius,threshold''.. the same for gimp???
another good one is 250-300, 0.02-0.05, 0

on your pic i did a dup layer, changed the blending mode to ''multiply'', cut opacity to 50%, flattened it, and hit it twice with usm @ 20,60,0

[albreca]

ok, here it is for gimp, sorry i tought it is the same in PS, did ´n't work with PS or PSE a while.
in Gimp it is: radius 0-120, amount 0 to 10.00 and threshhold 0 to 255.

i tried it with a modifaction of your settings r 20 ,a 0.60,t 0 and it worked.
i tried it as well with an amount of 6 but that was crap.
bye alex

[bigdawg]

albreca wrote:

Hi all,
as my wife is an absolute fan of roses in the garden, i'll have to take since 3 years now pics of her roses in our garden.
The weather is bad here (foggy, rainy) and no flowers so far (ok, it's winter :-) ).
So i started to see, if a macro shot of some of our indoor flowers would work with the kit lens.

I think it turned out really nice, although i normally don't like flash on flower pics.

Lets see, how such flower pics would be, when i hold the 70-300 Tamron/Sigma in my hand.

Maybe i'll need a special macro lens( a 1:1), too.

Ouch, just have my cam 2 days and haven't even seen all menu items but need new lenses.

I had about ten lenses before I got my camera...Not unusual at all around here! LOL I don't like the flash on my macros either but some folks keep pushing me to use one...Guess I will have try it this year. Nice photos too BTW!



Dawg