Experiments

[Nike]

I though it can't hurt to start a thread for my experiments. Experiments with cameras, new lenses, filters, motives, techniques - whatsoever. Finally I have some time at my hand for learning and experimenting.

Yesterday I spotted a wonderful second hand makro lens - an old 105 Nikkor AF Micro that I could afford - and I also found a tripod. - and so I've started experimenting with it... here are a few of the results:

[purplerose]

Oooh, nice moods!

Nice work on the macros. I think the first one could be sharper, the second one is nice. The third one has a nice painterly feel to it. I think the last 2 macros would fare better as an abstract for the challenge though. Just play around some more with the cropping.

The landscape with the lights is really cool.

Reflecting my first thoughts, I really love the mood in the last one, the specks of light really add to an inherent loneliness. I think the highlights in the sky could be pushed a bit brighter to help the contrast. Attaching an edit I did. I also cropped out the little light that was on the left edge.

[Nike]

Thanks for your comment and the suggestions! I'll keep that in mind. I'll definatley play a bit more with the last one, as far as I have my monitor calibrated.

Here are two I took doday... again with the 105 lens.

[purplerose]

Nice ones, keep at it!

[Jason Manley]

yep...some nice shots.

I wonder if there is a way to get a few shapes of fill light to show up in your dark dark shapes of the night scenes. Another option that might be interesting to try is amplifying the flat shapes to focus on the graphic quality of the composition. Right now they are sort of inbetween those qualities, compositionally. Is that on purpose? However..I did enjoy the pics a lot. Thanks for showing.

Jason

[Nike]

purplerose: thanks, still a lot to work on though

Jason - thanks a lot for your input and suggestions. I'll both options. Was this on purpose - well, I've tried to shoot it the way I saw this that night - to get the same impression - I actually made a couple of different shots here. But as so often, I didn't really think about it, but worked it out with intuition, which isn't always the best way to go. I'll try to work out both your suggestions soon

Thanks for showing.

Thank you for providing us this great places for sharing and learning


I have tried something different today. I have tons of old raws on my disk that I haven't even looked at since I've downloaded them, because I've been lacking the time. I've started to dig out my Turkey fotos from last summer.
Some of them, I thought, might work better in b/w - and since I've never spent much time with b/w convertion in capture.nx, I thought that might be a good exercise.

innocent preparations for games wih guns


2 am


oh, well, this one. This man came by the museum I was working with his horse every day, screaming Merhaba or Salam aleikum. I'm working at this place for three summers now, and he was always there. Most time I've only heard him and his horse from the inside. Only once I've got a chance for a quick foto, but I was in a hurry, so this was more like a snapshot. I tried to make an a bit at least more decent picture out of that to keep him visually in my memory, who knows if he'll still be there next summer.



Fortress of communication - the three towers


And to add some contrast - another macro I did yesterday.

[Gentile]

I really like the one of the guy on his horse.
Looks like he's looking straight at you :]

[Nike]

He did, he was actually quite fond of the idea that I was taking a photo of him. I hope I'll see him again this summer. He's quite an original.

I've been to the local zoo last Friday because I wanted to try animal photography again...
didn't have much time to look through my photos this weekend, but here are a few of the results. I've cropped the duck shots a bit,but I'm not sure if I like the crops.Might ork on these two next week.

Tristan


this was a challenge - they came out to play in the water in the evening - and they are soo quick! Funny fellows, though. They're so curious. They are obviously used to cameras, but they were quite intrigued by my sketchbook.


and a duck, enjoying the water

[purplerose]

"Fortress of communication - the three towers" is a brilliant and graphic photo.

Nice work with the animals too.

[Nike]

thanks a lot, purplerose!

Today I've tried to work on the nightshots again - having yours and Jason's suggestions in mind.
Above they were straight out of cam (cause I couldn't wait)...
that's what they look now after some capture.nx "developement... Actually I didn't do all that much. Color contrast, a little sharpening, a little noise removal.

I've come to this now - I'm not sure - too "polished"?
#a


and tried both amplifying the dark areas and the idea with more fill light (for that version though (#c), I took another photograph with longer exposion.

#b - looks a bit too artificial, maybe? I've looked at it for too long now, don't really like it anymore.


#c

[Nike]

some new from today, all animals again (captive)

bearded vulture. They bath in orange mud that contains ironoxyd to dye their feathers. It's not yet known why. Anyways, I love these birds. They're so huge.


common mergaser catchig a fish


... and... after 15 minutes fight with many escapes...


his female partner was diving a lot, too.


a fresh water blenny.


little bittern tipping it's piece of fish into the water before eating it


and a bear, playing with water.

[purplerose]

#a is a great revisit to the photo.

I like the picture of the Blenny, I think a little more work with contrast and maybe B/W would make it really great.

[darkchild]

Your macros are amazing! I want to do more of those type of photography but I don't have any add on macro lens yet.

[Gentile]

Nike you take REALLY good animal pictures. I'm quite jealous. :]

[Nike]

purplerose - I'm glad you like it, I'm more satisfied with this one now, too. Thanks again for your input - it's really appreciated!
And you're right about the contrast in the blenny - I'll revisit that again, soon.

darkchild - thanks! I didn't have a makro les for a long time, too - actually I had very few lenses. I've discovered the second hand market for me now, sometimes there are pretty nice things to get for a very moderate price.
I enjoy the makro experiments more than I though I would - I'm a bit blemished, because I had to take thousands of makro photos of sherds, sherds, and sherds for my work - but with all this freedom to experiment I've really come to like it.

Gentile - thanks a lot I like animals and I like to take pictures of them. I'm still practicing, though. I've had some troubles with animal photography before I had a SLR camera, because my bridge cam was way too slow. The DSLR helped me a lot to improve with animal photography, because it reacts so much quicker.

Here's a small update. I've been on holidays for the last few days and had time to go outside a lot. I've only converted very few pics from there yet - the one for the photochallenge and these two - I took too many and now I don't know where to start.

#1 - I liked the dark athmosphere that evening and the odd color of the sky.


#2 - sky on fire


and here are some from today - experiments with pol-filter and narrow apertures.

#3a


#3b


#4


#5

[Nike]

Well, now I know where that lack of contrast and that pale colors in my web-jpges comes from.
Silly me, I've always forgotten to convert them to sRGB before saving for web.
I hope that'll work better now.

Another update:

when you start to see yourself double...
self portrait (reflection in a window)


ice


frozen


I was asked to take a foto of my blue neon fish, par. simulans, for an aquarium fish database:


a more creative attempt (I know, the background needs some more love)-
movement

[darkchild]

Wow, thats some nice fish. I like that "Sky on Fire" photo. I wish the reds were a bit richer. I still love it!

[WoodstocK]

Hey, very nice photos here...
love the B/W snow landscape... wish we have some snow here too but what the heck can´t complain that much.. hehe

nice work

[Mr. Mu]

your #c version of the night shot mountain ridge is a great remix!

#5 mountain landscape has a great Ansel-Adamsy feel about it.

I really like the pic with the duck half under water and that last fish shot ("movement").

Out of curiosity: Are the mountain shots from the Alps? They looks so... un-bavarian somehow.

[purplerose]

I really like #1 and #5 from the mountain update. They both could use some play with levels to get the contrast on the snow just right though.

I love the first blue neon fish one. The second one would make a great abstract with the right crop.

[Nike]

Darkchild - thanks! And yes... as all the others until the post with the fish fotos I forgot to convert it into the right color profile - that's why the colors get paler and the contrast lower.

Woodstock - thanks! And snow is fun sometimes, but cold winters can be a pain, too

Mu - thanks a lot for your comments! The mountains are in Austria and Northern Italy (Südtirol). The night shot close to Innsbruck, the one above sky on fire is Osttirol (Hohe Tauern), and the last ones from the very North of Italy - it's actually 15 minutes drive from Innsbruck.

purplerose - thanks, and you're right about the contrasts. They look different in Capture.nx - I will convert all these photos into sRGB and upload them again... slowly - I'll start tomorrow.

Not much to offer today -
my 1st attempt for the still life challenge:


And another fish foto

These critters are very little, 1,2 cm long (the neon fish are about 2,5-3 cm), iuvenile Corydoras habrosus. Funny, very social fish

[kawaiku]

Good pictures there. My fav is the bearded vulture. That's a great shot. And the old man on the horse and the fortress of communications are also very nice.

[purplerose]

Lovin the fish photo.

[Mr. Mu]

hey,

and the last ones from the very North of Italy - it's actually 15 minutes drive from Innsbruck.

that is actually quite stunning. Must be nice to be able to travel between the two countries...

About your still life:
I very much like the choice of subject matter. It looks both like a commercial shot and tells a story of what you can do with this stuff (shoes are very talkative like that, in my opinion).
It is too dark, though. I have trouble keeping the background and the dark parts of the gear and shoes apart and it's kinda tiring to the eyes.

As my monitor is not properly hardware calibrated, however, it might be that it's just on my part.

[carolupus]

wow, i really like the bearded vulture pic! it would be perfect if you couldn't see the net of the cage in the background...

I also love the 'polished' pic of the rangger köpfl (it is that mountain, right? I used to go skiing there). I really miss the mountains...

and how do you get such good shots of your fish? I'm really having a hard time with these, cause they're so fast!

[Nike]

kawaiku - thanks!

rose - thanks! I've converted the 2 b/w snowmountain photos again and also converted them into sRGB this time. I think the contrast is a bit better than before now? I've also played with some other shots I've shown here before (results below).

Mu - well, the travel between 2 countries feeling is not that evident, however, because there isn't that much of a cultural difference between the very North of Italy (Südtirol) and Nordtirol
And thank you very much for the crit on my still life. I thinkyou are right, it is to dark. I've "remixed" it, not sure if it's not too light now?

carolupus - thanks! And yes, heh, the cage in the background kind of destroys that wow - stones and grass and vulture feeling. I've concidered blurring the background, but concluded that would be cheeting. I'd give a lot to see a bearded vulture in wildlife context. They're such awesome birds. Some live in the Hohe Tauern National Park, but I've never seen one, unfortunatley. Regarding the fish photos, I've answered in your thread

so, here are the remixes:









and here's some new stuff: I got some shrimps for my fishtank! They're very small (fortunatley, because when I look at the macros I wouldn't like the to be bigger )

shrimp #1


shrimp #2 - not sure if I like it - not too good framing with the cut-off end, but I think I like the colors.


Now you know every species living in my tank, besides the bigger catfish - they hate DSLRs. They smell it when the lens is focussing them and disappear in a second. I have an old photo of them, though (looking at these they have grown quite a bit in this 2 years). They didn't really mind my bridge cam:


Well, the aqua experiment is closed for now, I'll move on to new things with my next post

[purplerose]

I like the Blenny update. The mountain one feels like it could still use a highlight push.

I really like the composition and use of negative space in the second shrimp photo. Would play around with contrast on it though.

[WoodstocK]

i agree with purplerose bout the montain one...
huhuhuhu... funny little shrimp!!

[darkchild]

That shrimp photo is very nice!!! Shrimp #1 is my favorite. I love that rich green underneath the transparency of the creature.

[Nike]

purplerose - thank you a lot for the crits! I'm not happy with that mountain shot, either, and you're right about the highlights not being satisfying... but I think I'll put that aside for a while. When I push the highlights more, I either get a daylight-eeling or the noise is getting awful. Here's my last attempt:


The second shrip photo - I'm trying to reshoot this one. The cut off end is bugging me, and they look much less pale now. I think they feel more comfortable now than on the first day in their new home.

woodstock - thanks for your comment! Yes, these are funny little creatures... when they move, they remind me of spaceships

darkchild - thanks! I like the green of that moss a lot, too. I hope I'll be able to make more interesting shrimp photos, though, with more action and/or interacting.


little update:

little princess in the wind (experiment with wide - open aperture)


wild flowe meadow (this is an experiment. wind wind wind and high aperture and shaking the cam. Mum said not to delete it )


a gaze in the crystal ball


Looking at the evening clouds, the old woman said, tomorrow it's going to snow (and of course, she was right.)


Innsbruck - old town and the brand new train, when the weather was still nice.