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Even though this isn't a very interesting picture, it's the first one that I've played with using DPP. Since it's winter, everything here is dead, and this was taken on a cloudy day around noon.

Original:
Close-up of dried, golden-brown thistle-like flower head on a thin grey stem, with pale snow patches and a blurred brown ground behind it.


Edited with DPP:
Close-up of dried, golden-brown flower head on a thin grey stem, with frost or snow patches and reddish-brown soil blurred in the background.


I think I may have gone a bit too far with the color saturation. I'm also making this post to make sure I'm converting, resizing, and uploading pictures correctly.
 
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You have to start with something :smile:

You could try to take the picture from slightly different angle, to change the background to less noisy. I would try as a background either the white patch of snow or soil without sticks - it doesn't have to help, but it is just always an option to consider. You already have low DoF - that's good for this type of picture.
 
Andy Resnick said:
Personally, I've decided not to use zoom lenses. I'm not happy with the amount of aberration that results from the design constraints. To be sure, there are zooms that are simply amazing- but a good prime lens will beat a zoom lens, every time.
..

This sounds like one generation back. The standard work horse for the modern professional photographers is the 70-200mm nowadays (Canon, Nikon) and not a prime. Not sure if there are primes beating their performance.
 
Andy Resnick said:
I'm having problems with yellow/orange/red- the printer output is completely oversaturated, even when the image looks ok on my monitor. I've tried to adjust the monitor by calibration- I printed out a color test page, took pictures of it, and tried to get the display to look like the printout. That helped, but in the end I just can't trust my eyes.

BTW- your submitted photo is *fantastic*. Did you happen to get a close-up shot of one of those ice 'flakes'?

Sorry to hear Andy. That's a nasty handicap, maybe it helps if you can find somebody to judge the editting. Maybe you can also learn to interpret the color histograms and work with that.

For the submitted picture, unfortunately I was unable to bring my gear and I had only my point and shoot available. This is a life size crop, showing that you should never leave home without DSLR and macro lens.

Tinypic logo with the text "THIS IMAGE OR VIDEO HAS BEEN MOVED OR DELETED" on a light blue background.
 
Andre said:
This sounds like one generation back. The standard work horse for the modern professional photographers is the 70-200mm nowadays (Canon, Nikon) and not a prime. Not sure if there are primes beating their performance.

Those are nice lenses- but I don't use long focal lengths.
 
Andre said:
Sorry to hear Andy. That's a nasty handicap, maybe it helps if you can find somebody to judge the editting. Maybe you can also learn to interpret the color histograms and work with that.

For the submitted picture, unfortunately I was unable to bring my gear and I had only my point and shoot available. This is a life size crop, showing that you should never leave home without DSLR and macro lens.

Heh... I'm not sure it's a handicap. After all, I don't get fooled by camouflage either :)

But yes- I *must* work directly with the histograms.

Those ice flakes really astound me- gigantic dendritic crystals. Fantastic.
 
Borek said:
You have to start with something :smile:

You could try to take the picture from slightly different angle, to change the background to less noisy. I would try as a background either the white patch of snow or soil without sticks - it doesn't have to help, but it is just always an option to consider. You already have low DoF - that's good for this type of picture.

Thanks, Borek. That's a good idea (getting rid of the busy background). I'm going to try and find something more pleasing to the eye for my next shot.
 
The melting in my backyard pond looks similar to an area of the original Mandelbrot set. And there are smaller copies near the back of the pond.

Small woodland pond with partly melted grey ice, dead branches and reeds at the edges, surrounded by dense evergreen and bare deciduous trees, with patches of snow on the ground.
 
Hey turbo, there's a deer in your pic! :biggrin:

Nice pics Andre, how old is the young Arabian? 1.5?
 
Ah, drizzle, I think 2.5 actually, her dad traded it recently for another horse.
 
Andre said:
girl can be hired as a model, I made that portefolio.
Very nice, Andre. At 5'7" with a fairly athletic build, she could get work here modeling for LL Bean, Woolrich, Cabela's, Patagonia, etc. A good friend of mine in college did just that. Average height with a curvy figure wouldn't get her any fashion modeling jobs, but she was a shoo-in for modeling outdoor clothing, etc. It's an area that was called "sports modeling" back then, and I don't know if that has evolved in the past 40 years, but she did a lot of shoots as the catalog companies changed their clothing lines.

Her portfolio was not large, but was well-done, and her scrapbook was very impressive, even by the time I met her at 18. She got lots of work as a teen. She'd cut out the pictures from the catalogs, mount them and label them with captions like "XXX outfitting company, Spring 1968" etc. Pretty good sales pitch if she went on an open call. Just show them the scrap-book, so they know how long she has been working and how often she had been featured in print ads. Smart girl.
 
I think the pic I submitted for the current photo contest looks very unreal and photoshopped maybe.

Andre said:
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But it's definitely natural. It was taken at Montcru this summer. In a clear night quite a lot of fog can accumulate in the valley below. This shot was taken at 8:02 AM:

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So eventually when the sun warms up the fog it starts to lift and drift up on the hill side and when those little fog patches pass along the bright sun, you get this extreme effect. The shot in the contest was taken at 8:28am only half an hour later from the tree group on the left.
 
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A few more pix taken that same morning during those magical blinded-by-the-light moments:

Sunlight streams through a large tree at left onto a misty grassy hillside, with rays fanning across the green lawn and shrubs in the distance.


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Sunlight streaming through dense tree canopy, with bright crepuscular rays radiating outward from a dark tree trunk at the center of the image.


Sunlight streaming through dense green tree canopy, forming bright golden rays that fan down across a large tree trunk and branches.


Close-up photo of a dew-covered spider web with a central hub, backlit by bright sunlight with lens flare and a blurred green background.


Also to convince Borek, Marzena and other enthousiast photographers or enjoyers of nature, that Montcru is the place to be for that.
 
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I have no doubts it is an interesting place to visit. From what I read lately (in Vanished Kingdoms by Norman Davies) it is also an area with interesting history.
 
I've seen similar effects too, and almost always under somewhat (but not overly) foggy conditions.

Here's one I took in the late fall that shows a similar behavior:

Dark silhouettes of tall conifer trunks and bare branches in a hazy forest, with shafts of sunlight breaking through the fog between the trees.
 
Nice, Gokul! The chromatic dispersion is my favorite part.
 
Here are a few more from a very wet / foggy / sunny morning on Montcru in August.

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Tobias -just as black as Gizmo- checking out the fog below.

Close-up of many dew drops covering a dark green leaf, each drop reflecting sunlight and blue sky.


Accumulating dew drops on a leaf.

Sunlight streaming through morning fog and bare branches onto a tree with clusters of bright pink flowers in the foreground and green leaves on the right.


just a few steps away from the first tree.

Close-up of a spider web strung between evergreen branches, with many dew droplets beaded along the silk threads against a blue sky.


just above the pond

Close-up of a spider web covered in dew drops, backlit by sunlight, with green grass blades running through it.


Very wet dandelion

Close-up of a dandelion-like seed head covered in dew drops, with bright sunlight glinting off the water droplets on the white bristles against a blurred green background.
 
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Gizmooooo :faints:
Really nice. It'll definitely be my phone's background.

Love these pics Andre.

PS, I can't see some of these pics, they appear gray! :(
 
Sorry, drizzly Actually, that's Tobias,

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All pix seem fine for me. Maybe you can copy the url and try the pix to open in separate windows or tabs.
 
drizzle said:
I can't see some of these pics, they appear gray! :(

That's OK, haven't you read? It was foggy.
 
Thanks,

I uploaded most of those pix http://rapidshare.com/files/435863500/aaapix.zip in their original uncropped size (5184 x 3456 pixels). It's a big file, but high quality and you could print it on poster size.

So by my guest and get them. I think the downloads are limited, so if it doesn't work, please let me know.
 
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So I saw this photo contest, colorful abstract on another site. So I looked around me in da house and made a couple of piX and I submitted this one:

Close-up photo of a tangle of multicolored fibers in red, orange, yellow, green, teal and purple, with looped and frayed strands against a dark background.
 
Cool Andre! Lovely. I'm just trying to guess what could this be part of, an art work?
 
Sort of, drizzle, it's creative embroidery with a sewing machine.
 
Andre said:
So I saw this photo contest, colorful abstract on another site. So I looked around me in da house and made a couple of piX and I submitted this one:

Like!

I dig how the yellow cuts upward, like a flame... were you 'going' for anything in particular?
 
My wife says "Cool! I want a blouse covered with that!" I asked if she wanted it so that she would fit in at hippie weddings at the South Solon Meeting House, and she said "No. It would only be for dress-up on special occasions."