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Cut from a plastic binder and made to fit in the camera's hot shoe, in this case on a D80.
Full instructions are on instructables.com.
Strobist blurb: OK, so it's still an on-camera flash but it is improving on what's provided. Besides, it could be used for Nikon's off-camera CLS.
Experimenting with window light and a flowering cactus. This one always reminds me of Callum even though it is grown from a leaf of Mike's plant. I remember Callum saying his one always flowered in June. Two years since he left us. Still thinking of you my dear old mate.
It is however a pity I forgot to remove the makeshift base of cardboard before photographing. A timely reminder to pay great attention to detail :)
Fun though seeing how much light could be cut out and still have the flowers pop. Hopefully this is just the beginning, once I have myself a black box I shall be taking many more.
Re the segue I thought the pinks matched nicely :) Next up railway tracks at the delightful Paekakariki station in golden hour. Woo hoo!
Always a lovely smell from this glass diffuser ... and lovely little arty flowers painted on the glass bottle/jar!
Our Daily Challenge ~ In A Glass Bottle or Jar ...
Stay Safe and Healthy Everyone!
Thanks to everyone who views this photo, adds a note, leaves a comment and of course BIG thanks to anyone who chooses to favourite my photo .... Thanks to you all!
Had a nice foggy morning while in Edmonton last weekend so I got up early and looked for a shot like this. There were a few opportunities for it but this one had the light post under it that I liked. Not an easy shot to get.... took a TON of different exposures and settled on this one. A little bit of saturation and contrast boost on PS and here we are!
Beetles in the family Chrysomelidae are commonly known as leaf beetles. This is a family of over 35,000 species in more than 2,500 genera, one of the largest and most commonly-encountered of all beetle families.
They are distinguished with difficulty from long-horned beetles (family Cerambycidae) by the antennae not arising from frontal tubercles. Adult and larval leaf beetles feed on all sorts of plant tissue.
best viewed LARGE:
Slight revisit to an older shot seeing as the rain is refusing to let up...
Diffused slightly in Photoshop then soft brush and quick mask to bring back the centre, Upped the saturation probably about 30-40 points cranked up the contrast slightly, Raised gamma and tone a little unsharp mask and to finish neat image noise reduction.
Viola over cooked but i like it :o)
I always wanted a diffusor that would give me nice roundish reflections in jumping spider eyes but I couldn't think of a practicable solution. Then I stumbled over this instruction:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-f1KLrBADk
I basically created the front of my diffusor as shown in the video. I used a white, transparent plastic place mat (the thin sheets you use for your breakfast table to place your dishes on) for the diffusing surface in the front of the construction. I just didn't use liquid glue for the surface itself since it creates parts on the surface where the light doesn't pass as well resulting in dark spots (see the example below of my first attempt, viewable large by clicking). Instead I used transparent sticky tape to tape the white sheet of paper to the plastic cover. The plastic is exterior and the paper interior. I just folded the edges of the paper around the plastic and taped it there.
Then I used a short part of a Pringles can as kind of an adapter for the flash head. Now I only had to bridge the gap between the Pringles can part and the frontal diffusor surface which was already in place at the front of the lens. For this purpose I just cut milk boxes that are covered with reflective material on the inside into thin stripes which I then attached with duct tape to the Pringles can and the frontal diffusor surface. To make everything a bit more robust and rigid I then covered the whole construction with another layer of thicker duct tape (the silver stuff). It makes the whole thing more stable but also more resilient against water. I already got caught in a rain shower with this diffusor and only had place for my cameras in my backpack. The diffusor survived very well.
I also added a second layer of diffusion already at the end of the Pringles can. I taped a piece of transparent paper at the end of the can. I don't know if it actually really helps in diffusing the light even more, though.
Also I attached a string at the end that faces the flash head, so that the whole thing will be held in place. I really don't have to worry how I carry this thing. I can hold the camera with the diffusor attached vertically or horizontally in one hand... nothing slips off or falls down.
Having the plastic sheet as your first layer in the front also makes it very sturdy against vegetation that might otherwise poke holes in your surface.
The curved surface allows light from different directions to hit your subject which eliminates harsh shadows!
I hope that was slightly comprehensible. You can also always ask if something is unclear or when I forgot to mention something.
Sony just announced two new lenses, one of which was a 100mm f/2.8 STF, which stands for "Smooth Trans Focus". This is an interesting lens design that diffuses sharp edges in the bokeh into softer transitions, which creates an overall smoother and more silky rendering of the background.
This would be especially nice for portraits, but also for any kind of close up shots, like flowers. The cost of achieving this effect is about 1.5 to 2 f-stops. So the 100mm f/2.8 is really a 100mm T/5.6 in terms of light transmission.
I don't know if I will get the 100mm lens, but I discovered that Sony also made a 135mm f/2.8 STF lens in the A-mount. This is a manual focus lens, something I am eminently comfortable with. I figured if the 100mm f/2.8 was any good for portraits and bokeh, then surely 135mm f/2.8 ought to be at least as good, if not even better.
I also discovered that the 135mm f/2.8 lens has been around for some time, and nobody is paying attention to it. So it can be bought for around $800-850 brand new, almost half the cost of the new 100mm f/2.8. Of course, it needs a Sony LA-EA3 adapter to work, which could be bought on eBay for about $130 brand new, less for used.
Long preamble, but the net of it was, I got myself a brand new Sony 135mm f/2.8 STF A-mount version for about $800, and it arrived today. The lens looks great, is made very well, and feels well-balanced and comfortable to use with a nice focus throw.
The only negative is, the focusing is not internal. So over time, it could suck in dust. Oh, well. It is not a disaster – I just need to be careful with how I use the lens.
With all that out of the way, this is a very interesting lens. I’ve been taking some test shots comparing this with the Sony 70-200 f/2.8 GM. There is no question that the STF renders a much smoother bokeh, if you prefer not to see sharp edges to OOF points of light.
Below are some comps, with the 70-200 the top image (pretty obvious), and the 135 STF the bottom image. The effect is less noticeable, as expected, when the camera-to-subject distance is large compared to the subject-to-background distance, as in Comp-1. It’s a lot more dramatic when the subject is much closer to the camera. See Comp-2 and Comp-3.
One ugly secret about the otherwise excellent Sony 70-200 f/2.8: Sony is cheating, as Nikon did for years. When you’re close to the subject, the real focal length is considerably less than expected. See Comp-4, and see how the magnification drops quite dramatically compared to the 135 prime, with the same sensor-to-subject distance for both lenses. I’m surprised that no one has yet thrown a flag on Sony for this.
DSC04091
A morning with a massive cloud on the field.
And inside that massive diffuser something beautiful was hiding.
A Mantis with an amazing camouflage ability.
Iphone 5s panorama
Just for fun, the results were not too bad actually!
Nikon D800 + Kenko 36mm Extension Tube + Tamron 90mm + Raynox DCR250