Ben Cochran
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Hey Zach, you might want to check out Genuine Fractals by OnOne. Best image enlargement software on the market, IMO. be a shame to limit that great shot due to small file size, I think that you would really enjoy this plugin as it fits perfectly into CS3, and is also in mac format. 400-500 % file size increases are very crisp and I have seen some up to 700% that are crystal sharp.
Yes, they are great looking kids David!
I was studying the balance of contrast and saturation between the shadow~vs~direct sunlight and was to impressed with the amount of data in both. No wonder that lens (damned thing :)) is so sharp! I don’t really put a lot of energy into all of the technical details but I do like to study the MTF charts before I drop a good sum into the lenses. The Nikon version of the 200mm 2.0 is crystal sharp as well but I was very impressed with the amount of contrast/saturation that you were able to maintain in both the highlights and shadows, that was the reason that I was hoping, so badly, that you had used a reflector panel lol. The Nikon version does seem to slightly bend the frequencies more and it is enough to make a difference on the soft ends of the Nikon 200mm f2 lens. I have to admit… Canon really put some amazing engineering into that 200 f2.0 L glass. Your Canon has 17 elements in 12 groups compared to Nikons 13 elements in 9 groups. It’s bad enough that you get to shoot 28mp FX, and I get a little over 12 (with great ISO potential I must add), and now you get this kind of an awesome lens available to the Canon folks too. Feel the rocks my friend, I just tossed a few. I see the Cool Aide but I’m just not ready to drink the loss on all of this Nikon gear yet.
Really love everything about that last shot Zach! We get a heavy and tall fog during the sumer months, on our river up here, due to extremely cold tail water. Seldom does the fog lay low enough to get really good shots like your last one, the fog at fly line level is a very cool look!
I really wish that I knew of some good film processing centers for you Zach but I think that Wolf did a bit of a favor for you. Wolf and Ritz are both the same company and the thing that I really don’t like about their processing is the fact that they use automated proprietary software. Te are so used to processing the everyday snapshots that your images could loose the artistic flare that you put into them. I recently went there to use their 7880 plotter for a large print and after 4 terrible prints, I talked them into letting me download the drivers and print directly from my own macbook, all of the difference in the world and printed great. They adjust off of the history data and this can ruin a well-planned and executed shot.
Wow David, your biggest female music artists are much thinner than ours lol. Yea, I know it was corny but what the heck.
I love the gradient that you have in that photograph! I don’t think a lot of people understand just how difficult that shot is to get with a ring flash and you really did a GREAT job of it. I take it that you used peanut oil on the model? You really should get an assistant and my bags are eagerly packed lol.
Also David, I was at JFK recently and was talking with the art director from one of the large US pharmaceutical companies. You probably already know this but he was explaining to me that more and more advertising work is shifting to the Australian and New Zealand market. Said that little, enough to just satisfy the unions, are being shot stateside these days. I tried to shift him, which he seemed very interested, to the Eastern European market and lower model scale rates but the recent events over there have changed that. So, back to you needing an assistant, I will bring a case of Peanut Oil with me too lol…
Fresher eye’s today and I can see exactly what you guy’s are talking about, clearly. I have been putting far to much time and focus on the fly and sacrificed the background due to it, (I know better than this but let myself get blind to it for a bit). I still want to stay with the look and enormous amounts of strobes for lighting approach, on the fly’s, but I also need to get back to the basics of background. I could very easily just shot a strobe onto the fly and bounce light back into to the shadows but I really want to try something different. It’s a learning curve but with time and trying a lot of different things, change happens:)
I like the idea of morning light but I could spend a small fortune on 1/4 CTO gels so, I am going to try a different manual Kelvin setting and see what else I can come up with. As always. I will post the progression and THANKS again for taking the time and posting :).
Yes, they will get better and better but I think the direction is wrong, in my own opinion only. The attention seems to be more on creating smaller pixels but then they turn around and cram the sensor with as many as possible. I think that the consumer has become obsessed with the marketing campaign of pixel count and dismissed the fact that this also has a direct effect on heat in the sensor. Granted a Hasselblad H3D offers a total of 39 mp and that a newer model is due out with around 50mp, which is great for larger print campaigns but at least Hassleblad was more honest about the heat/noise limitations by only having a max of ISO400 on the body.
I know that you know this as well, 10 -12 mp works out great for ½ – ¼ page high fashion spreads but more mp works far better for full page and larger spreads, where crisp detail is far more apparent. I feel that the backs will start feeling more and more pressure with the DSLR body’s and the amount of mp that they are cramming into these new sensors but the present consumer market may slow the process down as the limitations on the ISO will also have a direct relationship. Even though I have grown sick and tired of the heavy light washed out look, if I have to shoot this way, I will rent the equipment before I drop the $40,000.00 for a more limited cookie look cutter assignment. Now, if they were to start working on sensor cooling elements, I might rethink this but in the mean time, I believe the near future holds a justifiable surrogate from digital backs to DSLR body’s with newer prime lenses.
These age great David! Love the DOF and yes, it is crystal sharp. Same thing with the Nikon lens, very sharp through out. Please tell me that you also used a reflector panel so that I don’t have to throw all of my gear away. 🙂
I said it before and will say it again, I don’t give all of the internet reviews a lot of weight as your shots prove that setting the camera properly maximizes the potential of a given lens. Love the shots and really like the effect on the hair. Great looking kids, take it that these are your gun totting boy’s?
Thanks for the help Aaron, I am kind of swaying in that direction too. As normal though, I am over analyzing everything and the extra eyes help a lot.
Good luck on your shoot as well, I know that you will do great!!
Thanks Aaron O, yes the yellow is a bit tweaked, as the flash will wash out the saturation some but the lighting/shading is 100% out of camera. The green is more to the original though, I bounced the background with a green shaded gel :).
Thanks Aaron C. Yes that was aquarian rock LOL I thought of underwater but I have a good sized investment tied up in all of these hot shoe strobes and just don’t want to take the chance on them. I will be swinging in a new direction on the next few and hopefully I can get some good shots on the route. 🙂
Thanks Eric, I was actually starting to think that same thing but I wanted to stay with something a bit different and try to stay true with out-of-camera as opposed to the customary PSed process. Funny as the thing that made the difference to using all of these strobes was, adding 2 more LOL Total of 5 grids on the fly, one diffused to balance the background shadow and one gel/bounced off of a black foam core for slight fill. Yep, I know this is excessive @ 7 hotshoe strobes but bounce cards and reflectors would not come close to giving me the same look.
Now all I need to do is take out a small loan for all of these darned dead batteries LOL
Kodak came out with a 50MP sensor recently and I would not be surprised if there are more 50MP backs on the market soon. It would be cool to see it in a Mamiya back soon, as well. I don’t know about putting them in DSLR’s as you can forget about anything over ISO400-600 and that kind of defeats the versatility of having DLSR body’s. IMO
Great shot David!
I can’t really add much additional help in this Zach, but I can add a small bit about the B&W conversion process. The one thing that I don’t like about BW conversion, from digital camera’s, is the fact that the blacks seem to be extremely pristine and sterile. I found that after the conversion to BW, as a final step, add a new fill layer with 50% gray. Change it to hue mode and adjust the opacity level until the blacks have more of the old film look. It is the closet that I have been able to achieve and in a lot of cases, it is hard to tell the difference. Hope that helps some…
Oh yes, also; most of the SLR BW shots are not extremely sharp so a slight bit more to the blur side helps some too.
Cool shots Kevin! Neon lights are extremely difficult to shoot and I think that you did a great job with it. I don’t shoot neon that often but decided to do some night shots of the Mouline Rouge. Wanted to try and do something different because it is one of the most over photographed landmarks in Paris but my hotel was not far from there and I decided, why not? LOL Let’s just say that they are no deeply archived as they look like every other photograph of the Rouge
Thanks again for the extra eye’s and critiques. This is the new direction that I am headed in. Still needs a bit of work but I have to be careful and consider the text on the top section and keep the final print balanced. I know that it is not a great looking fly but it will make sense later. 🙂
Nice shots and a lot of great composition in them, I love the first one the most!!!
Some of the others seem to be to soft in focus but again, the composition is great, well done!!
Aaron, I am still a bit confused, what are these shots going to be for and what are they suppose to accomplish?
The first thing that a commercial photographer “MUST” do is, capture images that not anyone else could shoot. The other consideration is the fee structure as this is the point of decline or take the job and how much time and energy will be put into it. I don’t need to know your fee but thought that I would throw that in for you. If we knew what the clients wants the images to do, for them, then we could better critique. A good picture is not always enough.
Now I am getting confused, as well; common thing for me so I am ok with it lol
I have to go back to my original argument about light frequencies, as I firmly believe that is where the true comparison is better measured. If we were in an evenly lit room and one half of the wall was painted red with black designs in it and the other half was painted green with black designs in it, it would take our eyes longer to adjust from one section to the other. It isn’t because one side is darker than the other as much is it is the fact they absorb light and reflect it back differently, each of the backgrounds reflect a different frequency wave length and our pupil has to adjust to better capture the image. A camera sensor cannot do that near as well so the 3 major frequencies, that we deal with, have to be better controlled and transferred by the lens.
Consider the Nikon 17-55 2,8 and the Nikon 18-55 3.5-5.6 The 17-55 has 14 elements in 10 groups with 3ED glass elements and 3 aspherical lenses. The 18-55 has 11 elements in 8 groups with 1 aspherical lens element. The 17-55 cost a whole lot more than the 18-55 with more elements but works far better in lower light but there is a reason for the extra elements: They better consolidate, balance and transfer the different frequencies of light to the back end of the lens. In the case of these 2 lenses, the 17-55 has a 30% increase in light wave length transfer to the back end of the lens, this supports the findings that David Anderson observed in the studio; better tonal range and contrast due to better engineering inside of the lens. The MTF charts also support this finding.
So, most often the prime lenses have more elements, higher quality of elements and element groups designed for best transfer of color frequency, as compared to the less expensive consumer lenses. Most important” This is not just due to the f stop potential of the lens, it is the quality of the elements inside of the lens so, not all f 2.8 lenses are better than, lets say, an f4 and this is also the reason why not all 17-55 2.8 lenses are equally the same.
Anything else is over my head, but these are some of the main things that I look into before I purchase new lenses.
Thanks Scott and Aaron, you both hit the nail on the head for me. I like the wood but you are right that it is to simple and does not work its way into justifying itself into the composition. I have some new ideas that I think I will be happier with now. I will need to use more small strobes and ordered them today so, hopefully I can get back on this by sometime Wed.
Thanks again everyone, for the opinions, eyes and help!!
You do know that it is but a small bit of steps before the neighbors get concerned about this man crawling on the ground taking pictures of mushrooms through out the neighborhood. Bet they figure it is just a matter of time before he has a guitar strapped to his back and drives a psychedelic VW van with flowers painted on it LOL. But hey, I think it is groovy 😎
Nice shots in the mix! One thing that I might add, morning, evening and cloudy days are great for defused light but remember that the morning sun and evening sun create the new challenge of WB and hue matching for you, don’t forget to use the gels. Also, some great shroom shots can be created at night.
Love the last spider shot, I love the dark side myself and would be happy if I could do it all of the time. Depending on the insect, darker backgrounds are good as they can add a bit of creepy mystery to the image. Come on over to the dark side my friend, we have plenty of room for you 😉
Keep up the great work!!!
WOW Neal, there are some really good shots in there!
Hope you don’t mind, in order to answer your question, about removing the hook holder, I down loaded the image and removed it myself first. There are many ways to skin this cat but the easiest was: Cut the hook holder out of the image. Place a fill layer underneath and flatten the image. Duplicate the new image and start blending the empty space back in with the clone brush. Change the hardness when you are on the hook, fibers or close to them as you want to keep the natural feathered look alive with no hard edges. After you have the empty space filled back in and the shade blending close, use the healing brush sampled from the clean areas.
You can also get into masking layers and painting but I think this might be the easiest solution for web posted images 🙂
This is a very good shot!!
P.S. I almost forgot, instead of using the Radio Shack hackle pliers :), a small twig cut at a 45 degree angle makes for a very pleasing holder for fly photography.
