Tybugs1 0 Report post Posted August 29, 2010 Still learning the Macro stuff. Thought I would share a few. Comments are always welcome Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Al Beatty 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Hi Lynn, Your pictures are beautiful. I consider myself a fairly good macro shooter but I look like an amateur compared to your work. Keep posting, I for one really enjoy it! Take care & ... Tight Lines - Gretchen & Al Beatty www.btsflyfishing.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fred H. 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Hi Lynn , your photos are awesome . What equipment and settings were you using? Very , very nice,. Magazine quality. Fred Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kirk Dietrich 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Ty, those are some beautiful dragons, the focus and dof are very well done. One thing though and I'm not sure if it is my monitor or not but they seem a touch overexposed causing some areas on the branch and the yellow part of the dragon to be lacking some detail from being washed a little. However, that is easily fixed in a post processing software such as Lightroom or Photoshop and probably some others. In Lightroom, there is a tool called "Recovery" that recovers the detail in bright areas unless they are totally blown. These pics of yours are not totally blown highlights, there is detail there I can tell it just needs to be pulled out. I'm certainly no expert. I do like your compositions, you are doing good. Kirk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tybugs1 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Al---thanks a bunch and glad you enjoyed them! I have been working at it and trying to get my macro's "right". I'm really having fun with the Macro stuff and turning into a bug man The "DoF is so hard to play with in this stuff. Brett has been a big help getting me to this point. I will keep posting now that things have settled back down a little. I have Water Skeeters I will post today. Fred---I appreciate it! I'm using a Tamron 180mm. It gives me some good distance to work with in getting close to the bugs that are a little skittish. These Dragons almost seemed to enjoy posing and was easy to get close. I was trying to work on different settings so I could get the detail and appropriate DoF. I think on these I was able to get to in that f14 and some into that f22 or so. It's hard to get there due to light issues when working with F12 and higher. Kirk---thanks for your comments too. I'm a work in progress. You are right on some of the detail. Not sure it's the overexposed as much as it is the DoF. It's so hard to get the appropriate detail with the limited Dof and enough light to get to that appropriate DoF. I need to work on my lighting a little more. I will post some water skeeters that I think I'm closer on both with lighting and DoF. The detail is a little better although I'm still a little soft in a few areas. Work in progress Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kirk Dietrich 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Ty, if you don't mind me saving one of your pics and doing a little post processing to show you what I mean, I'd be glad to give it a shot. Kirk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tybugs1 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Ty, if you don't mind me saving one of your pics and doing a little post processing to show you what I mean, I'd be glad to give it a shot. Kirk I don't mind. Always willing to learn Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kirk Dietrich 0 Report post Posted August 31, 2010 Thanks Ty. This is what I came up with rather quickly and with the small file size available. I adjusted several things, they are not very obvious but some changes can be seen in the branch. I applied some Highlight Recovery, Clarity, applied a medium contrast, and applied a small amount of sharpening. This is kind of uncomfortable doing this as post processing allows you to tweak your own images how you want them to be seen. So, it is kind of hard for one person to make exposure and contrast adjustments on someone else's images. Remember that the famous Ansel Adams' images rose above the rest due to his attention in the developing dark room, which is now our computer and the post processing software available. Anyway, you may or may not like how I've processed them and again, it could be my monitor. Kirk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tybugs1 0 Report post Posted September 1, 2010 Kirk I can see some changes and especially in the wood they are perched on. I'm unsure on the Highlight recovery piece and how your doing this. Certainly would be helpful to know more about that. It did bring out more detail on the branches for sure. Any hints on what you did? Don't be uncomfortable---lots of people see things differently and want to present things/photos differently. No worries here. I'm always willing to learn different techniqes. I could put the pictures on different forums and get several different takes on it. Some like heavy contrast some don't etc etc. No worries and glad you showed me a few things. Lynn Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kirk Dietrich 0 Report post Posted September 1, 2010 I have been using Adobe Lightroom for a couple of years now after having used Adobe Photoshop for five or six. Almost any normal photo processing I did in Photoshop, I can do more effeciently and accurately in Lightroom. Now, when it comes to removing powerlines and dust spots close to the subject as well as correcting lens distortion and some other things, Photoshop can't be beat. In Lightroom, there is a Tone Curve tool that has a medium and high contrast preset which I almost always click on the medium - almost any image I've gotten out of a digital camera, from a P&S to my D300, tends to be flat so, that medium contrast preset alone will make your image pop pretty well. Granted, there are different contrast settings in camera but I prefer to do it in the software. Then, Lightroom has this fantastic Hue/Saturation/Luminance tool that has a slider for eight different colors (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Aqua, Blue, Purple, Magenta). I never fool with the Hue but I often use the Luminance to brighten or darken certain colors and sometimes I'll use the Saturation to increase or decrease saturation of certain colors. Another handy tool is the Color Correction tool that fixes the White Balance. Then there are the Recover, Fill Light sliders that allow to recover some detail in bright areas and to brighten or fill in some light in the to dark shadow areas. Also, I like the Clarity slider which seems to do something to the edges of the imagery to make it more clear. There are other tools also and while this sounds, complicated, I applied all of these tools including a little sharpening except for the White Balance in a few minutes to the three images I posted. I'm not sure what other software out there is good to use. Kirk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tybugs1 0 Report post Posted September 2, 2010 Hi Kirk Guess I better invest in the Newest Lightroom! Have to try it on some of my other bugs thanks again Kirk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Al Beatty 0 Report post Posted September 2, 2010 Hi Lynn, I have to echo what Kirk said about Lightroom. I just got version 3 and in addition to the great tools Kirk reviewed it also has a slider to remove noise that is quite good. I don't use the noise slider much with the D300 but find it useful with files from my point & shoot cameras. In low light they can generate a bunch of noise when I increase the ISO but I don't worry about that as much with Lightroon because the noise slider does a really good job on the noise OR you can accomplish something similar with Photoshop using Layers with Gausian <sp> Blur (one of the filters). Take care & ... Tight Lines - Gretchen & Al Beatty www.btsflyfishing.com Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
