10 replies to this topic

[nbanjogal]

Sometime before midnight (whatever time zone you are in) this Sunday, 3 May 2015, post the best photo you have taken this week. Any subject, any style--just give us your best shot.

 

If you can, list your EXIF info and any special lighting setups you may have used.

 

 

 

And come join us in the editing exercise…Open to anyone, and a great place to learn.

 

[alden]

 

D610

ISO 1250

Focal Length 85mm (85mm in 35mm)

Aperture f/1.6

Exposure Time 0.004s (1/250

[greatscott94]

Big Data:

 

 

For EXIF just click on the photo.

 

Cheers

[nbanjogal]

I made my first real attempt at an HDR image this week…heh. Hope it doesn't hurt anyone's eyes. (I've bracketed before, but I usually end up liking one of the bracketed images and manipulating it in Lightroom rather than stacking.)

 

My husband and I are taking an astrophotography class at the University of Utah--last week we spent a good chunk of one night up on the roof of the physics building in the observatory getting a telescope and camera set (we shot M51, AKA the Whirlpool Galaxy…hoping to have it processed and ready to show in a few days). We had a great view of the valley up there, so I was glad to have my regular old DSLR with me. I didn't have my tripod with me, and I was bracketing manually, so I wasn't sure how well the stack would work. I used Nik's HDR Efex, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it aligned!

 

This is three images stacked…you can see the Great Salt Lake off in the distance, as well as the Salt Lake International Airport and the Utah Capitol Building. 

 

Salt Lake City in HDR by nbanjogal, on Flickr

 

D600, Nikkor 24–70 (yep, I cropped), ISO 100, f2.8, and varying shutter speeds.

[Jerry_]

Nica capture Nicole and excellent processing.

[Merco_61]

Nice and subtle HDR, Nicole. It is refreshing to see a HDR image that doesn't look like a 3-D render. Getting the higher dynamic range is the easy part, the hard part is tonemapping it into the restricted sRGB gamut for the web.

[Merco_61]

A cactus flower in stacked HDR. It is sort of the antithesis to Nicole's subtle HDR above.

 

Body: D300

Lens: 55/3.5 MicroNikkor with a 52.5 mm extension

Aperture: f/22

Time: 1/6 to 10 s

 

7 exposures in each layer, 1EV apart

HDR processed in Photomatix

 

5 layers in the stack, 0.8 mm separation

Stack processed in Helicon Focus

 

Available light with a muslin scrim/windscreen.

[Jerry_]

As for the previous years, this Week-End has been the annual event of the "Masques de Venise".

Here is one of the captures taken there.

This time I also took the Tamron 150-600 along with me, as I had realized that this lens also performs very well for taking close-ups during events, especially when crowded.

Masques de Venise, Jardins d'Annevoie, 2015

Nikon D610 Tamron 150-600/5-6.3 260mm f5.6 1/320@ISO200

[nbanjogal]

Jerry, you make that 150-600mm look good! I need to get mine out more often.

 

One more for the week…from a bridal portrait session I shot yesterday. I used the Tamron 70-200 for the whole session. The autofocus seems a bit slow, but I think I came away with some decent shots.

 

Mandy, bridal portrait by nbanjogal, on Flickr

[dcbear78]

My effort.... I did a TFP shoot with a young model yesterday. The brief from the agency was to make it fun, not serious and to reflect her age. She wanted to do a nerdy/preppy kind of theme. This is the first image that really stood out to me.

 

Brittney Shenae by Crew One Photography, on Flickr

[TBonz]

So, great weekend in the mountains...very busy...Saturday they honored the seniors who were playing their last weekend of games for the college - one of the things each of them received was a photo of them playing that I posted in last week's best shot...they were nicely framed 11x14s in a 16x20 black frame with a two color mat.  They also had a small brass plaque on the mat under the image with the college name, the player's name and number.  I was happy with the way they turned out.  Many more seniors next year (including my son) and they are already telling me to plan ahead!  

 

After Sunday's games, we were preparing to drive part of the way home so we could be back fairly early on Monday.  The leveling jacks on the RV wouldn't retract, so we couldn't go anywhere!  It is a fairly rural area where it would be hard to find a mechanic at any time, but even harder on a Sunday night.  We did get a Monday appointment and finally got back to the house about 9PM Monday night...In rushing to hit the road, I also managed to leave the battery turned on in our Jeep Wrangler tow vehicle, so spent most of yesterday dealing with that!  In any case, I haven't even dumped the photos from the weekend yet, so they'll be next week's images...I did take one iPhone photo that I'll share for this week at around midnight on Saturday night...We were parked in a parking lot that looks down on the baseball field (makes it easy for my 87 year old mother-in-law to watch her grandson play) and this was the view from the lot when I took the dogs out for one last break before bed...

 

 

...not nearly as pretty as it really looked, but I was too tired to grab the good gear...