Photo Contest - I'm Ready For My Closeup, Mr. DeMille (8/23-8/30)

[ZapperZ]

I'm Ready For My Closeup, Mr. DeMille!

This week's theme is all about close-up pictures. If you've used the close-up macro on your camera, then that picture qualifies. However, your picture need not be taken only using this function. Any picture that is a closeup of, or up close to, an object or a subject is accepted. The close-up subject must be the main focus and occupies the majority of your picture.

Contest Rules:

1. Any digital photo or digitally-scanned photo relevant to the theme will be accepted within the contest period. In case there's a grey area, or you're not sure if the picture is suitable, check with me first.

2. Please resize your digital photo to no more than 650 x 490 pixels. You may also crop your picture if you wish. But other than that, any form of picture editing or modification is not allowed. This is a photo contest, not a picture editing/special effect contest. You may add a watermark or your name/nickname to the photo for identification purposes.

3. Upload your photos to any of the photo servers such as imageshack. Then post it the relevant contest thread and link your picture using the img command. PM me if you do not know how.

4. Only ONE picture per member per contest.

5. At the end of the contest period, I will open a poll and every PF member can vote for the picture they like best.

6. Note that in case we have a large number of entries, I will do the polling in more than one thread. If that's the case, you can vote in each of the polling threads. The photos will be assigned in the the polling threads in the order they were submitted.

7. These pictures must be something that you took, not something taken off someone else's photo albums or taken by someone else. I have no way of checking if you did this, so we'll go by the honor system.

8. You can use a picture only once. Once it is used in a contest, it cannot be reused in another contest.

9. Please post only pictures meant for submission in this thread.

Zz.

 

[nazzard]

"e' string" (standard tuning)

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/5780/guitaroa4.jpg

 

[Integral]

Alright, I have learned my lesson, my bridge pic, which I choose because it was "different" turned out to be like its subject.. a loser... so... Think cute.
http://home.comcast.net/~Integral50/Ricochet/Meja.JPG

Sleepy pup.

 

[GeoMike]

http://www.mcschell.com/rose_small.jpg

-GeoMike-

 

[larkspur]

Bumble bee in Morning Glory

http://home.comcast.net/~larkspur2020/beebutt2.jpg

 

[TuviaDaCat]

cat's curiosity.

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/5483/p1010006md2.jpg

cat's curiosity.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

http://www.mcschell.com/rose_small.jpg

-GeoMike-

Beautiful shot! GeoMike is tough competition.

 

[Moonbear]

I too have learned that when all else fails, cute kittens always get at least a few votes!

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/8344/emberun2.jpg

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a close up photo of a moving kitten?!

 

[larkspur]

I too have learned that when all else fails, cute kittens always get at least a few votes!

http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/8344/emberun2.jpg

Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a close up photo of a moving kitten?!

Which was harder, holding her down to put on that eye liner or taking the picture?
What a pretty kitten!

 

[Moonbear]

Considering the eyeliner is only on one eye, I'll let you decide.

If I could reach the camera now, I could get one of her lying still...she's stretched out in my arm sleeping. Tough typing one handed!

 

[Janus]

My daughter Danielle at age 2 (She turns 19 and starts college next month.)

http://home.earthlink.net/~parvey/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/dani.jpg

 

[hypnagogue]

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7107/gas1ik1.jpg

gas puddle

 

[Kurdt]

Here is a Waspy thing on some plant I have in my garden I took 5 minutes ago for this very competition. Excuse my lack of knowledge about natury things but perhaps all the guys and gals on here would have fun working out what the little flying thing is and what plant its sitting on is
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/9569/waspything3lj9.jpg

 

[Andre]

Hover-fly aka wasp-fly. Not a wasp

 

[Kurdt]

Hover-fly aka wasp-fly. Not a wasp

Theres the animal now anybody any guesses about the plant? (Astronuc I'm looking at you.)

 

[0TheSwerve0]

http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/7107/gas1ik1.jpg

gas puddle

cannot compete with that!

 

[FredGarvin]

Theres the animal now anybody any guesses about the plant? (Astronuc I'm looking at you.)

Some form of Allium?

 

[Molydood]

Fly sitting on my pond

 

[Molydood]

Swerve... did you intentionally post that pic thinking that this was a physics forum and that the oil looked a little like the mandlebrot set? Very well done if you did, nice picture if you didn't :)

 

[Kurdt]

I wish I had a pond.

 

[ZapperZ]

Fly sitting on my pond

Please read the contest rules, especially #2. Please modify the size or it will not appear in the voting thread.

2. Please resize your digital photo to no more than 650 x 490 pixels. You may also crop your picture if you wish. But other than that, any form of picture editing or modification is not allowed. This is a photo contest, not a picture editing/special effect contest. You may add a watermark or your name/nickname to the photo for identification purposes.

Zz.

 

[TuviaDaCat]

the gas puddle owns. heh, it looks like that "yin and yeng" sign.

 

[Pythagorean]

cannot compete with that!

yeah, I know where my votes going so far, fluid dynamics induce erotica

 

[turbo]

Taken through an open window from a distance of about a foot. This guy is the alpha male of this year's brood of ruby-throated hummingbirds, and he won't have adult coloration until next year's visit. Nevertheless, he acts the bully and aggressively defends this feeder. MINE!

These guys are so fast that I got about 40 pictures of an empty feeder and only 3-4 decent shots of the birds. Their stops at the feeder are very brief, and my Olympus C-3040 has an unacceptably long delay after pushing the shutter before it takes a shot. Don't get one of these cameras if you want to do action photography.

http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/4464/hummingbirdpe7.jpg

 

[rocketboy]

Taken through an open window from a distance of about a foot. This guy is the alpha male of this year's brood of ruby-throated hummingbirds, and he won't have adult coloration until next year's visit. Nevertheless, he acts the bully and aggressively defends this feeder. MINE!

These guys are so fast that I got about 40 pictures of an empty feeder and only 3-4 decent shots of the birds. Their stops at the feeder are very brief, and my Olympus C-3040 has an unacceptably long delay after pushing the shutter before it takes a shot. Don't get one of these cameras if you want to do action photography.

http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/4464/hummingbirdpe7.jpg

excellent photo!

I like the fly on a pond too.

 

[turbo]

excellent photo!

Thanks. Since the background was very bright and the feeder is in shade, I had to use flash to fill in the shadows. These brave little guys didn't care - they acted like it was no problem. I got a couple of good shots of this guy because it's HIS feeder. The other birds are tougher to photograph because they make brief hit-and-run raids on the feeder until he chases them off. He's the only one that actually perches and takes his time drinking the sugar-water, except for one mature female that he tolerates - I think it's his mother.

 

[Molydood]

Please read the contest rules, especially #2. Please modify the size or it will not appear in the voting thread.



Zz.

apologies; now corrected.

 

[detta]

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6479/plantnf3.jpg

 

[turbo]

Nice shot, detta. I don't know the fname of that stuff, but it is VERY fragrant when you crush it in your fingers.

 

[FredGarvin]

Turbo...We have a few feeders in our yard including one on a window. I have been trying for a couple of years to get that shot. Nice pic indeed. My Nikon has the same problems with shutter delay as well.

 

[Moonbear]

Are there any digital cameras that don't suffer from that shutter delay problem? Or do you have to go into the exhorbitant, professional level price ranges to get them? I haven't encountered any that didn't have some delay, and it really is a pain when you're trying to capture an action shot.

 

[chroot]

Most digital cameras above $500 or so generally have little or no shutter delay if used properly. One thing many people don't realize is that any camera will have significant shutter delay if you're using the auto-exposure, auto-focus, red-eye reduction, etc. features, all of which occur in sequence before the picture is actually taken.

You need to set the camera to manual, focus it, select your exposure, and compose your shot. Once all that's done, sit and wait until just the right instant -- press the shutter, and your camera will take the picture nearly instantly.

- Warren

 

[Moonbear]

You need to set the camera to manual, focus it, select your exposure, and compose your shot. Once all that's done, sit and wait until just the right instant -- press the shutter, and your camera will take the picture nearly instantly.

- Warren

Well, when you put it in perspective like that, I guess it's not such a delay. Gosh, it's been so long since I've known anyone to use a manual focus camera that I forgot how long it can take them to focus while you're sitting there trying to freeze the smile on your face.

 

[chroot]

Well, when you put it in perspective like that, I guess it's not such a delay. Gosh, it's been so long since I've known anyone to use a manual focus camera that I forgot how long it can take them to focus while you're sitting there trying to freeze the smile on your face.

Pretty much all professional photographers use either manual focus, or have cameras with auto-focus mechanisms triggered by a half-press of the shutter button. After the first auto-focus for their scene, they lock the focus and don't touch it anymore. Bye bye, shutter delay. Your kitten picture, for example, would have benefitted from this. As it is, your camera focused the wire mesh behind the kitten, rather than the kitten itself. As usual, auto-focus got it wrong anyway, so why use it at all?

Auto-focus is, in fact, the bane of photography these days. I've had to sit still for minutes while some novice photographer takes picture after picture with a full-auto digital camera, throwing out several in a row because the focus isn't quite right on any of them.

And how about those people who take home movies with camcorders, but don't have the foresight to use its focus lock? The kid's chasing a ball or something else with a lot of motion, and the camera is constantly changing focus. You end up with one frame every two seconds that's actually in good focus.

- Warren

 

[Moonbear]

Pretty much all professional photographers use either manual focus, or have cameras with auto-focus mechanisms triggered by a half-press of the shutter button.

I still find that useless for action shots, because until something is in the frame to focus on, even the half-press of the button locks the focus on something other than what you want to take a photo of. I can't seem to convince my camera to ever lock onto anything I want it to lock on. Of course, with the kitten photo, that's because she wandered in from the side (I just cropped out the dirty windowsill). I had other in-focus shots of her, but they weren't as cute. Then again, I had some that were a complete blur of orange and black as she zoomed past the camera. I did get a few better ones yesterday when I focused on a toy I had placed out for her, and then snapped the picture the moment she came up to the toy. Bleh, I prefer photographing things on microscopes. At least then I can adjust the focus exactly where I want it and nothing moves once I get it all set right!

Then again, there was no way I was going to spend over $500 for a digital camera, and the ones that have complete manual focus are huge! I'd never use it because I'd never lug it around. I'd rather have blurry photos than none at all.

 

[chroot]

It sounds like a common experience: you attempted to use auto-focus, but actually took a whole sequence of pictures none of which were focused as you intended.

That's pretty much why many people still prefer manual focus -- or, at least, auto-focus that can be used only on demand. I typically use spot auto-focus one time, then switch to manual focus to leave the focus locked for the remainder of my photos of a given scene.

Auto-focus rarely, if ever, does what you really intend for it do, with the exception of vacation pics of sunsets, and pics of your friends at a dinner table. For pretty much every other kind of photography, auto-focus is a hindrance. You'd spend less time, overall, and get more shots worth keeping with manual focus.

</rant>

And you're right, most teeny tiny point-and-shoot cameras often have pretty lousy manual controls, but not all. I have a $250 Canon SD-450, which is a tiny little camera that actually takes remarkably good photos. It has half-shutter auto-focus, which helps a bunch. You can also turn off auto-focus altogether, but it requires a couple of button pushes, and is hard to do while holding the camera still.

- Warren

 

[Moonbear]

And you're right, most teeny tiny point-and-shoot cameras often have pretty lousy manual controls, but not all. I have a $250 Canon SD-450, which is a tiny little camera that actually takes remarkably good photos. It has half-shutter auto-focus, which helps a bunch. You can also turn off auto-focus altogether, but it requires a couple of button pushes, and is hard to do while holding the camera still.

- Warren

I have the SD400, which I thought was pretty much the same thing. There's some sort of manual setting, but I don't see how there's a way to manually adjust focus, just all the other settings, like white balance and exposure. Maybe I just haven't figured out how to use it yet.

 

[shmoe]

I have the SD400, which I thought was pretty much the same thing. There's some sort of manual setting, but I don't see how there's a way to manually adjust focus, just all the other settings, like white balance and exposure. Maybe I just haven't figured out how to use it yet.

I have a canon A510, I downloaded your manual though pg 89-91 has all the focusing stuff. You don't have a manual focus, but you do have a focus lock. Press the shutter down half way it does the focusing at what you are aimed at, then push the flower/mountain button and it will lock the focus.

You can change how it auto focuses as well, either something in the box in the middle or some kind of evaluative version that looks at 9 areas seperately. It's in the menu called AiAF, off means it aims just at the middle, I find this is the way to go for more control.

Mine does have manual focus, but honestly it's pretty lousy for anything but macro stuff where I have a hard time getting the AF to hit what I want. It's not at all fast, you hold down the button while the bar slowly moves across the screen and it's not at all easy to tell if you're in focus or not. It blows up a small portion of the screen and I have a hard time telling when my enlarged pixelated image is sharp.

Also handy for moving stuff is the continuous shooting mode. Even with the focus lock and manual settings some cameras might have some shutter lag plus your own slowness to react so snapping a bunch of pictures can be nice.

(your kitten is very cute by the way, but you probably know that)

 

[Moonbear]

Thanks shmoe! I'll have to find that thing that turns off that AiAF so I can just focus on what's in the middle instead of being surprised every time.

And, yes, the kitten is cute, and I think she knows it too, because she sure thinks she can get away with a lot. She's gotten a bit too comfortable around here and thinks everything is fair game for chewing and scratching. I'm working on redirecting her to allowable areas for both, and at least she's finally gotten the idea that the scratching post is for scratching rather than being ignored (mostly, I just had to wait to find places where she was going to scratch and then move the scratching post and scratching mats to those places). We may be trying those "soft paws" things soon if I can't get her directed away from carpets and furniture, so at least she doesn't damage them, though they look an awful lot like fake fingernails (I'd give her the dignity of the clear ones at least)...not exactly sure if the instructions for those will include how one gets them onto a moving target, but I'm sure it can be accomplished with only minor caterwalling and bloodshed.

 

[shmoe]

You AiAF appears to be in roughly the same place as mine. Put the camera in shooting mode, the one you use to take pictures with normally, then hit the "menu" button (the playback mode + menu button gets a different menu). AiAF should be at the top of the list, and you should get a rectangle in the middle of your preview screen.

My cats always completely ignored scratching posts unless stocked with catnip. We built them one of those cat homes that's covered in carpet and they took to tearing it apart in no time (they sleep on/in it as well). I guess it looks enough like furniture. They pretty much leave everything else alone now.

 

[FredGarvin]

The AiAF has helped on mine (Nikon CoolPix). It unfortunately doesn't have a manual focus. I have had to adapt to having the button half pressed long before the shot I am looking for and waiting. With my camera, it seems that the major part of the delay is from the display viewfinder getting updated (at least that's what it says in the book). Unfortunately, both viewports are CCDs and there's not much one can do about it. I'll know better on my next camera.

 

[GeoMike]

The AiAF has helped on mine (Nikon CoolPix). It unfortunately doesn't have a manual focus.

In many cases the manual focus feature on a digital camera is largely useless because of the small size and limited resolution of the LCD viewscreen. (excluding DSLR's and studio setups with external monitors)
So you aren't missing much!

-GeoMike-

 

[FredGarvin]

In many cases the manual focus feature on a digital camera is largely useless because of the small size and limited resolution of the LCD viewscreen. (excluding DSLR's and studio setups with external monitors)
So you aren't missing much!

-GeoMike-

I hadn't thought about that aspect of it. What I was thinking is that it would be nice because I could act, usually, quicker than the AF and I could set it and leave it. As it stands, the best option I have is to set the focus using the AF and then hold the AF lock. It kinda stinks. It's cases like this that I do miss my old film SLR.

 

[Moonbear]

My cats always completely ignored scratching posts unless stocked with catnip. We built them one of those cat homes that's covered in carpet and they took to tearing it apart in no time (they sleep on/in it as well). I guess it looks enough like furniture. They pretty much leave everything else alone now.

She's a bit too young to care about catnip yet. She's taken quite well to the scratching post I made her...she loves climbing it, but she hasn't given up on finding other places to scratch yet. She seems okay with the cheap, cardboard scratching pads too, so I'm going to go out and get a few more of those and strategically place them throughout the house. At least, so far she's only tearing up things that aren't visible, like pulling loose stuffing from the underside of the sofa (but I'm trying to stop that before she gets to the visible side!) But, then, how can I be mad at her for that when she sits on my shoulder purring? Once she starts to get excited about catnip, I'll start bribing her over to her scratching spots more.

 

[larkspur]

A squirt gun works very well at discouraging bad scratching habits. It is amazing how quickly they learn that sinking claws into certain objects produces rain!

 

[Moonbear]

A squirt gun works very well at discouraging bad scratching habits. It is amazing how quickly they learn that sinking claws into certain objects produces rain!

Past experience tells me they learn quickly that they shouldn't scratch when someone is holding the squirt gun. I'm trying putting double-sided tape on the places she's not supposed to scratch and leaving scratching pads close by. Oh, and more toys! If she has enough toys, she shouldn't have any time left for scratching. She was purring like mad when I brought home her latest batch of toys.

 

[Mk]

A squirt gun works very well at discouraging bad scratching habits. It is amazing how quickly they learn that sinking claws into certain objects produces rain!

Great idea, I just got a puppy who hasn't been housetrained yet. How many hundred psi?

 

[Ouabache]

Nice shot, detta. I don't know the fname of that stuff, but it is VERY fragrant when you crush it in your fingers.

http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6479/plantnf3.jpg

[/URL]

Great photo, detta!
Yes turbo-1. I've always enjoyed this one too, it is called http://www.ppws.vt.edu/scott/weed_id/matmt.htm that describes other ways we may enjoy pineapple weed.

 

[larkspur]

Great idea, I just got a puppy who hasn't been housetrained yet. How many hundred psi?

I think a SuperSoaker would be about right!

http://www.hasbro.com/common/images/products/5269336b43fa_main400.jpg

 

[ZapperZ]

OK, I'm going to buck the trend here of cute pictures of pets and gorgeous pictures of flowers. Instead, I'm going to do a closeup of a very large object! :)

Zz.