Azalea Buds - D700, 85mm PC
Some azalea buds that I shot earlier in the spring. Processed with Topaz Simplify and additional color work in CS5 using the Dan Margulis, “Man From Mars” move in the Lab Colorspace to get some additional color separation.
Catching Minnows - D200, IR converted, 18-35mm
Went for a walk along the creek today with my IR converted D200. Some young boys were in the creek catching minnows in a net for fishing. Brings back memories of my youth when I spent the summer days in the creek catching minnows and went fishing all day long…
Processed this in CS5 using some Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 filters, the high contrast effect seemed to work well for this image. Click on image to view larger.
Clematis Take 3, Texture - D700, 85mm PC
Some really nice light in the morning produced this image. I added some texture with the Totally Rad, Dirty Pictures plug-in using one of their included textures. Here’s a version without any texture added so you can see what it adds (or detracts, depending on your taste)… Continue reading
St Mary & St Finnian Church - CS5 HDR
Well I made the jump to CS5 after having skipped CS4, just don’t see the need to do the upgrade thing for every version. I read a lot about the improved HDR in CS5 and wanted to see if it lived up to the hype…soooo here’s my first experiment with HDR in CS5.
I have to say that it’s not too shabby, to steal one of Tony Sweet’s lines. The reduced noise and the ability to select one image for ghost removal worked pretty good. The tone mapping will take some time to get use to what the sliders do. This is NOT a review of the new HDR features in CS5, just some of my initial observations.
The image above is a 5 image HDR, using 1 stop EV with a D700 and a 24-70mm lens. I tonemapped in CS5 and did a lot of additional processing in CS5. Some processing included, Nik Color Efex Pro plug-in filters, Nik’s Viveza, Topaz Adjust and Simplify and the sky was dropped back in without any of the above filters and worked separately.
Click on image to view larger…
This is an image of St. Mary & St. Finnian Church along the Road to the Isles in Scotland. Somewhere I would surely like to visit again…we’ll see.
Orange Poppy - D700, Lensbaby Composer
The light was really good this morning for shooting flowers in the garden, especially with the Lensbaby Composer. Nice semi-bright overcast skies work well with the Lensbaby, not too much contrast. I used an extention tube and the tele converter to compress the scene to get just the depth of field I was looking for. More things are starting to bloom in the garden, soooo more things to explore…
Here’s a version using the Totally Rad, Dirty Pictures texture plug-in…
Orange Poppy Texturized - D700, Lensbaby Composer
Lily of the Valley, blue-violet - D700, 85mm PC
We have a pretty good sized patch of Lily of the Valley outside our back door and every year I like to take images, still searching for the quintessential image…this is my first take on them this year. Continue reading
Dogwood Fractalius - D700, 85mm PC
OK, I lied…one more dogwood with an “over the top” fractalius filter treatment and some additional CS3 tweaks. Should be the last of the dogwoods…but you never know?
I was playing around this morning with this same image and some textures I shot at the same time I took the dogwood image. Well this is the result using Totally Rad to do the texture. Now I don’t know which one I like better…good thing I don’t have to choose.
Click on images for a larger view…
Dogwood & Texture - D700, 85mm PC
Pink Dogwood No. 1 - D700, 85mm PC
More images from my rain session with the pink dogwood…first one is using my 85mm PC lens and some Topaz Simplify. Next two are using my Lensbaby Composer and the Soft Focus Optic with a little fine tuning in CS3.
Click to view images larger…
Pink Dogwood No. 2 - D700, Lensbaby Composer, Soft Focus Optic
Pink Dogwood No. 3 - D700, Lensbaby Composer, SF Optic
Pink Dogwood in the Rain - D700, 85mm f/2.8 PC
We had a spring shower pass through the other day…one of the best times to grab your camera and get outside. It wasn’t raining very hard and the rain was intermittent near the end of the front. The light glows in a light rain and right after is just the BEST. I was out in the yard for an hour or so…long enough to start thinking about getting some gloves to keep my hands warm. Here’s one of the images I got using my 85mm f/2.8 PC lens. Love the way you can blow the background out with it and that tilt can give you some extra depth of field even at f/2.8. A little Topaz Simplify and some fractalius filter finish this image…
Blue Abstract
OK we’re going on a journey today to somewhere in my imagination…this is a mirrored abstract of a flower I shot the other day. Well that is where I started and just went with whatever felt right in PS. No real concept, just having some fun…
Click on image to view larger.
