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#MacroMondays
#Eye
#Lensbaby
For the "Eye" theme I've photographed an item that has been on my Macro Mondays "to do" list for a very long time: an Eye of Fatima pendant my mother brought along for me from a trip to Israel in April 1999. It's a handcrafted silver beauty made by Shimshon Ben-Yeheskiel of The Cardo Charm silversmith's in Jerusalem. To this day, my mother gets a Jewish New Year card by Shimshon's daughter Galit who is The Cardo Charm's artist in resident. The Eye of Fatima, also known as Hamsa, The Eye of Miriam (or Mary), or The Eye of the Goddess is a common symbol and talisman in North Africa and the Middle East, and it's believed to ward off the evil eye and jinns.
The "Eye" on my pendant is a round turquoise gemstone with a diameter of 0,7 cm / 0,27 inches (after all it's Monday and size matters ;) ). I've used my new Lensbaby SOL 22 to photograph the pendant. While this tiltable lens with a fixed aperture of F/3.5 isn't a native macro lens, I was very pleased to find out that I can turn it into a decent macro lens when I use the 16 mm extension tube which brings you very close to the subject. The SOL 22 has two inbuilt, flame-shaped (sort of) bokeh filters which you can push in front of the lens (only one, both of them, or none at all) and also rotate. These filters create a kind of stripy (difficult to describe) bokeh effect. Here, I hadn't pushed them fully in front of the lens, just a wee tiny bit, which created a nice 3D bokeh. Processed in DXO FilmLab and Analog Efex (for a slightly matte look).
HMM, Everyone, and stay safe and healthy!
Für das "Eye"-Thema habe ich ein Objekt fotografiert, das schon sehr lange auf meiner Macro-Mondays-To-do-Liste steht: Einen silbernen "Hand der Fatima"-Anhänger, den mir meine Mutter von einer Israel-Reise im Jahr 1999 mitgebracht hat. Das wunderschöne Stück wurde von Shimshon Ben-Yeheskiel von der Silberschmiede "The Cardo Charm" in Jersusalem handgefertigt. Bis heute erhält meine Mutter jedes Jahr zum jüdischen Neujahrsfest eine Karte von Shimshons Tochter Galit, die das Handwerk ihres Vaters fortführt.
Die "Hand der Fatima" ist ein in Nordafrika und im Mittleren Osten weit verbreitetes Symbol, das als Talisman zur Abwehr von Dschinns und des bösen Blicks verwendet wird. Bei meinem Anhänger ist das "Auge" ein kleiner runder Türkis, der von aufwendigen Verzierungen aus Silberband umgeben ist. Fotografiert habe ich den Anhänger mal nicht mit meinem Makroobjektiv, sondern mit meinem neuen Lensbaby SOL 22. Das mit einer festen Blende von F/3.5 ausgestattete und schwenkbare Objektiv ist zwar nicht als Makro ausgelegt, mit einem 16mm-Zwischenring kann man es aber als Makro nutzen und ist damit schon sehr nah am Motiv dran. Fest eingebaut im vorderen Element sind zwei flammenförmige Bokehfilter, die man wahlweise einzeln oder auch beide vor die Linse schieben und auch drehen kann, was einen streifigen Bokeh-Effekt ergibt. Hier habe ich beide Filter nur ganz wenig vor die Linse geschoben, was im unscharfen Bereich im Hintergrund einen schönen 3D-Effekt (finde ich) erzeugt hat. Entwickelt in DXO FilmLab und Analog Efex (für einen etwas weicheren, matten Look).
Habt eine schöne Sommerwoche, liebe Flickr-Freunde, und passt gut auf Euch auf!
#sliderssunday
A recent photo, taken two and a half weeks ago at the Messe Berlin (trade fair grounds of the Messe Berlin). At the moment, the Messe Berlin functions as one of Berlin's five vaccination centres, and I'd accompanied my mother when she had her first vaccination appointment, but I had to wait outside, because only the vaccinees were allowed inside. But since I'd brought my camera(s) along (of course I had, the Oly and the Ricoh), I whiled away the (short) waiting time by taking some photos – a most welcome diversion from the "stay at home, leave only for neccessary errands" routine. Although, of course, the vaccination had been a very neccessary (and long awaited) errand, too ;) And next Wednesday, my mother will get her second jab of the Biontech-Pfizer vaccine.
This photo shows the Berlin Radio Tower, the older brother of the Berlin TV Tower, and, one could say so, the younger brother of the grand Eiffel Tower – I think a certain resemblance can't be denied. The Berlin Radio Tower, however, is of a much lighter, slimmer appearance than its world famous brother. The concrete foundation of the 146 metres high tower spans a mere 20 square metres and it is also the only observation tower in the world that stands on porcelain insulators. The Berlin Radio Tower was built between 1924 and 1926, and in 1932 (other sources say 1935) the world's very first TV programme was broadcasted from the tower. I can recommend a visit to the Radio Tower's viewing platform which, at a height of 126 metres, offers a really nice view of Berlin. There's also a restaurant (at 50 metres).
Here, I particularly liked the natural, delicate-looking ramification of the still bare branches of the trees in the foreground in comparison to the filigree, elegant construction of the Berlin Radio Tower. So my "sliding" aim was to highlight all these structures. I wanted to achieve an airy, graphic, "high-key-ish" look. The image itself is a HDR made of five single (exposure bracketing) images. I first processed the images in DXO with only a few basic adjustments, before I let Lightroom do the HDR combination work. I did that, because I wanted to use the really excellent DeepPrime denoising technology that DXO offers (albeit for RAW files only). After combining the images in LR, I went into Color Efex, were I applied the filters "Brilliance and Warmth", "High Key", "Reflector Efex (Soft Gold)", and the "Skylight Filter", all individually tweaked to my liking.
P.S. I've added the geotag for the spot I've taken this image from (the central dividing strip of the Masurenallee), not for the Radio Tower itself.
HSS, Everyone, stay safe, stay healthy :)
#sliderssunday
#yourbestshot2020
This is my personal "Best Shot of 2020". Taken during a visit at the Olympiastadion Berlin in September which also had been my only real photowalk in 2020. While the image in the first comment might be a little more compelling, because it shows the historical Olympic cauldron of the Olympic Summer Games of 1936 and also the interesting-looking open part of the roof of the Olympic stadium, this image includes the two things that made an already wonderful day special – and one of them also is a symbol for the changes the Corona pandemic has brought to our lives. The image of the Olympic cauldron was taken from the exact opposite position of this photo; while we were at the Olympic cauldron (here you can't see it, but you can see the marathon gate below the tall, slim bell tower), I noticed that all of a sudden a larger group of teenagers and children appeared at the opposite entrance of the stadium. I wondered what was going on, because I couldn't imagine that in those pandemic times there would be any school field trips. And soon it became clear what this was all about, because once the children had taken their places, they started to warm up by singing scales: This was a choir practice :) Of course I tried to find out which choir it was that got the marvellous opportunity to practice in the empty stadium, with enough, safe distance to each other, so I searched for "choir practice at the Olympiastadion" later and learned that this was the youth and children's choir of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (STRG/CTRL+ www.berlin-buehnen.de/en/theatres/deutsche-oper-berlin/). Here you can read more about this unusual collaboration if you like: STRG/CTRL+ olympiastadion.berlin/en/news/children-choir/.
And so the rest of our photowalk was accompanied by beautiful singing which tremendously added to the elated, relaxed, literally free mood of that day :) What a wonderful, unexpected gift which was made even better by that wonderful sunset we saw when we went back into the stadium for a few last shots: This was my personal "Wow moment" of 2020 :)
Dear Flickr, friends, I wish you a Happy and Healthy 2021! Let's hope that, step by step, the "new normal" will eventually be replaced by our old normal, at least a little bit :)
Für mich mein schönstes Foto des Jahres 2020. Aufgenommen im September im Berliner Olympastadion, das herrlich leer gewesen war an jenem Tag, sodass wir unbeschwert nach Fotomotiven suchen konnten. Das Foto im ersten Kommentar, das die Original-Feuerschale der Sommerspiele von 1936 und den interessanten offenen Teil der Dachkonstruktion zeigt, ist vielleicht das spannendere Bild, aber es zeigt nicht die zwei Dinge, die diesen ohnehin schon tollen Spätsommer-Tag zu etwas ganz Besonderem gemacht haben: Als wir bei der Feuerschale waren, die sich exakt gegenüber von dem Stadion-Eingang befindet, von dem ich später dieses Foto gemacht habe, sah ich auf einmal eine ziemlich große Grupper Kinder und Jugendlicher ins Stadion kommen, was mich doch wunderte, weil ich mir kaum vorstellen konnte, dass in Pandemie-Zeiten größere Schulausflüge möglich sein würden. Des Rätsels Lösung: Sobald die Kinder alle ihre Plätze eingenommen hatten, fingen sie auch schon an, sich einzusingen. Und nicht etwa mit Fußballgesängen ;) Es fand eine Chorprobe im Olympiastadion statt, dem zu normalen Zeiten wohl unwahrscheinlichsten Ort zumindest für klassische Chorgesänge, zu Corona-Zeiten aber wie dafür gemacht: mit recht guter Akustik und genügend freier Fläche, um mit Abstand und dennoch gemeinsam singen zu können. Ich habe dann später recherchiert, welcher Chor das wohl gewesen sein könnte; es handelte sich um den Kinder- und Jugendchor der Deutschen Oper Berlin: STRG/CTRL+ olympiastadion.berlin/de/neuigkeiten/kinderchor/.
Was für eine tolle, fast schon surreale Atmosphäre das war, der dann zum Schluss auch noch der herrliche Sonnenuntergang mit diesem typisch goldenen Septemberlicht die Krone aufsetzte :) Mein persönlicher "Wow-Moment" des daran gewiss nicht reichen Jahres 2020 :)
Ich wünsche Euch allen ein gesundes und, trotz aller Ein- und Beschränkungen, die uns wohl noch eine ganze Weile begleiten werden, schönes Jahr 2021!
BEFORE & AFTER EDIT:
gyazo.com/dcca9aabfc6fbf9bafa3ef798fd9678d
*FULL DISCLOSURE, I stole this look from someone but I can't for the life of me remember who, but just liked it for a photo, so credit to that dude!
#hutchinsonislandsunrise #florida #sunset #waterscape #landscape #nature #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs
#macromondays
#Knolling
Something strange happened: I had my MM image photographed and processed by Friday evening. That's a first ;)
When we had "Knolling" as a theme for the first time, I'd skipped, because I simply couldn't think of anything to knoll, let alone how to arrange it nicely. So this time I wanted to meet the challenge. My idea was to choose tiny things that I have collected as macro props over the years. But then the porcelain cat pendant that I keep in a small glass bowl together with other souvenirs and lucky charms caught my eye. And that gave me the idea to knoll some of my lucky charm keepsake pendants of which you already have seen three in MM themes: the silver heart, the tiny golden key, and the pendant with my zodiac sign engraved. Other than that most of these pendants are "animal themed", they also share their "fate" of never being actually worn – with the exception of the Cancer sign pendant which I got for my 7th birthday on a holiday in Italy. I think I have worn that from time to time, later it was attached as a lucky charm to the keyring/carabiner hook I keep my apartment keys on. The other pendants are presents or souvenirs from my childhood (the heart, the elephant, the bird), more recent presents (the key), and souvenirs from holidays (the porcelain cat, and the tiger cat which I brought along from Passau).
Size info: I decided to use the entire 7,5 cm / 3 inches frame (width) for "Knolling", negative space and image border (which is an overlayed, slightly transparent border, not an extra frame) included, so the items wouldn't be too cramped and the image could breathe. I didn't want to take the "mugshot with ruler", but the tiny key can serve for scale because it is exactly 1,5 cm / 0,59 inches long.
The final image is an in-camera focus stacking made of 15 photos. I've arranged the items on my tablet case, a totally random choice, because I'd only collected all pendants on my tablet simply because it lay right next to the glass bowl. But the case's light blue, textured surface made for a surprisingly nice-looking backdrop, and it also looked fresher than the gold-coloured cardboard or wooden coaster I'd originally wanted to use as background. Processed in Lightroom and Color Efex (Detail Extractor).
HMM, and Happy Easter Monday, Everyone!
Oh dear, oh dear, such a difficult theme. I took tons of photos on Sunday, and I only liked two or three. And it's never helpful when Monday is free so I can continue to take photos... The one you see here is a Monday photo. Literally ;)
I had a certain idea that I simply couldn't make work. I knew that I wanted to photograph my old Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. That was the easy part. I've gotten them as a teenager, and I remember that I'd wanted them so so badly ;) The frames were expensive, and on top of that I needed extra prescription lenses for them to be swapped with the originals. Well, to make it short, in the end I got them, and I've kept them to this day. Except that nowadays we're speaking of progressive lenses that I'd need for them ;)
With these vintage (I guess you can call them that) Ray Bans, the brand name and Wayfarer lettering were still engraved to the inside of the temples. I was torn between the "B&L Ray Ban U.S." engraving on the right temple piece and the "Wayfarer" engraving on the left one. For the "Ray Ban" lettering I'd envisoned a light flare or light star to be created with a glass crystal and the star filter; it never worked the way I wanted it to. I also experimented with a red laser pointer (to highlight the "Ban" part of the lettering). The latter worked out OK-ish. In the end it boiled down to two images out of many, and it was difficult to make a decision, but "Wayfarer" won, because focus, DOF and light were slightly better. And because I simply couldn't skip anymore ;) Oh boy, I hope the next theme will be easier for me ;)
HMM, Everyone, stay safe and take care!
#MacroMondays
#Buckle
The research for what exactly the (belt) buckle you can see in my image is called almost took longer than taking the photo itself – because this is actually one of my test shots ;) But sometimes the test shot is the best, and I liked it, so I went for it. I couldn't find a definite term for this type of buckle but on Wikipedia, I found the so-called "Western or cowboy buckle" that at least works in the same way as this buckle does: it has a pin on the underside which is inserted into the belt hole of choice (and comfort). This buckle even has two pins, one which fixates the leather strap underneath the buckle, and the aforementioned pin to adjust the belt's length. This also makes it easy to take the buckle off the belt without damaging either belt or buckle.
The belt is what one might call a fashion belt (it belongs to my Mom, magrit k., and she says that it is from the 1970s or 80s) but unlike most fashion things today it is of very sturdy and good quality. Although the belt is very slim (only 1,4 cm / 0,55 inches wide), the red leather strap itself is really thick (3 mm / 0,11 inches) and it's still in excellent condition.
But enough of the belt because here I have photographed the buckle on its own. The width of the buckle (and therefore also of the frame) is 1,8 cm / 0,70 inches. The length of the decorative element in the buckle's centre part is 2,5 cm / 0,98 inches. That deco element is embossed with tiny dots (bokeh!) and its shape is what I'd describe as a hybrid between an H and an X (to me it also looks like a tiny person with raised arms reminiscent of some statues of the Mayan culture).
Light sources were a natural light photo lamp from above and two LED lights, one from the left (equipped with the semi-translucent yellow bottle cap colour "filter") and one from the right (red transparent chocolate box colour "filter" placed in front of it). It's a single shot captured wide open at F2.8 for that extra shallow DOF and bokeh.
One last thought: The small red and orange "bokeh worms" in the upper middle look like telescope eyes to me, and together with the colours this reminded me of a Gecarcinus quadratus, a colourful land crab species that is also known as "Halloween crab" or "Halloween moon crab". So maybe this isn't a belt buckle at all, but a "Halloween buckle crab" ;)
HMM, Everyone, and have a great week ahead!
And fun with the Lensbaby for #sliderssunday :)
First outing with the LB SOL 22. I thought the Botanical Garden would be the perfect place to check this lens out in real-life conditions, because it's nearby and I've been there so often before, with various cameras / lenses, so I thought a photowalk with the Lensbaby would allow me to capture some new aspects. It did, and it's also such fun to use :) I'd also brought the GR III along, so I have a "clean" version of this couple chilling in front of the greenhouses. I'll upload that photo, too, maybe already for Monochrome Thursday next week.
The pose of this young couple had caught my eye, and also the fact that they were playing around with a real camera, not their phones. I was also a little afraid that they might notice me, as I usually only photograph people in candid situations when they are far enough away or have their backs turned on me, so I acted as if I was interested in the greenhouses only ;) Since you can see a little bit of the guy's face, I've added some motion blur to it in PS, just to make sure one can't recognize him. The couple could have been better in focus, but I think there's enough sharpness to make the scenery pleasant to look at (and the GR III image is sharp all over).
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone, and have a nice and safe week ahead!
Erster "Feldversuch" mit dem Lensbaby SOL 22. Der Botanische Garten war der perfekte Ort, um dieses ungewöhnliche Objektiv auszuprobieren. Er ist leicht zu erreichen und ich war schon so oft dort gewesen, immer mit anderen Objektiven oder auch Kameras, da konnte ich mit dem Lensbaby nach Herzenslust herumprobieren, ohne Sorge haben zu müssen, "das" Foto zu verpassen. Das Objektiv ist sicherlich nichts für jeden Tag, macht aber großen Spaß, auch wenn man sich in die Bedienung erst reinfuchsen muss.
Da ich auch die GR III dabei hatte, gibt es von dieser Szene zwei Versionen – diese leicht verschwurbelte und ein "sauberes", scharfes "Streetfoto", das ich Euch demnächst auch noch zeigen werde. Normalerweise fotografiere ich Szenen, bei denen mir fremde Menschen eine Hauptrolle spielen, nur, wenn diese weit genug von mir weg sind oder mir den Rücken zukehren. Hier aber fand ich die Synchron-Liegepose dieses Pärchens einfach zu charmant, um das Foto nicht zu machen. Ich hatte aber schon etwas Sorge, dass sie mich bemerken würden, deshalb tat ich so, als würden mich einzig die Gewächshäuser interessieren ;) Da man hier ein bisschen vom Gesicht des Mannes (er beschäftigt sich mit einer Kamera, nicht etwa mit dem Handy!) sehen kann, habe ich seinem Gesicht in PS ein wenig Bewegungsunschärfe verpasst – sicher ist sicher. Auf dem Ricoh-Foto (auf dem die beiden liegetechnisch sogar noch mehr Synchronität zeigen) sieht man die Gesichter gar nicht, und das ist mir auch immer am liebsten ;)
Ich wünsche Euch einen guten Start in die neue Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde! Passt gut auf Euch auf, Delta schläft nicht.
#MacroMondays
#Dots
Another theme, another watch ;) No, seriously, I struggled with finding something interesting with dots, even though for this theme dots can also be small holes or droplets. The original plan was to photograph the hour and minute separator (the colon) on one of my Casios. Although I was a little in doubt if these counted as dots because on a digital watch these "dots" are squares. But when I got really close to the display with the macro lens, I discovered dots of a different kind: the pinpoints of light of the LCD panel. My "dot-finding problems" were solved ;)
I assume that the panel used for this display is a TN-LCD (TN = Twisted Nematic) because that is what Casio uses for most of its digital watches while the better STN-LCD panels are reserved for the high-end models. TN-LCD was introduced in 1974, and it is still used even for cheaper (UHD) monitors and such. The display of this watch is a negative one which means that its legibility is not the best, especially because this is also a tone-on-tone coloured display made of a very dark, almost black-ish purple as background and a warm rose-tone for the numbers, etc. And unless there is a light source from above (daylight/sunlight works best) checking the time is a guessing game. But since I never wear this watch at home, only outside, the legibility is still good enough, and I bought that thing for its multicolor bezel anyways (please check the first comment where you can find a detail of said bezel which I'd photographed for our "Low Key" theme in September '22) ;)
Setup: The best way to photograph the watch's display was to mount the camera to my repro/copy stand and shoot straight from above. I still had to do some book stacking to get the watch as close to the lens as possible, but that was nothing compared to the days when I had to clumsily balance the table tripod on a (very unsafe) pile of books to be able to shoot straight from above. I also used the Oly's High-Res mode so I would be able to crop out a small part of the image while still retaining a good resolution and a big enough frame. My lightsource was a single photo LED lamp with natural light from the left. Processed in DXO PL6, LR, and Color Efex.
In case you wonder what the diamond-shaped symbol in the lower right corner is: it's the "alarm on" indicator, and it blinks a few times every full hour (and the watch bleeps).
HMM, Everyone!
Taraxacum officinale, the common dandelion (often simply called "dandelion"), is a flowering herbaceous perennial plant of the family Asteraceae (Compositae).
It can be found growing in temperate regions of the world, in lawns, on roadsides, on disturbed banks and shores of water ways, and other areas with moist soils. T. officinale is considered a weed, especially in lawns and along roadsides, but it is sometimes used as a medical herb and in food preparation. Common dandelion is well known for its yellow flower heads that turn into round balls of silver tufted fruits that disperse in the wind. These balls are called "blowballs"[5] or "clocks" in both British and American English. (Wikipedia)
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#white_pelicans #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs
Or rather on a crystal vase behind my living room curtain, illuminated by the strong afternoon sun ;-). The cat is a Schleich figurine, 6,5 cm (2,55906 inches) from tail to nose.
I have another one, two very famous silhouettes ;-), from behind that curtain which I will upload tonight, they exceeded the 3 inches rule by a pinch (8 cm / 3,14961 inches wide).
Thank you for your kind comments, I appreciate every single one, and your faves!
Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdach - oder besser auf einer Kristallvase auf meinem Fensterbrett. Vorhang zu, Nachmittagssonne drauf, Silhouette der Schleich-Katze fertig ;-)
Ich habe noch eins "hinterm Vorhang", zwei sehr bekannte Silhouetten, die die 3-Inch-Regel knapp überschritten haben. Die beiden kommen heute abend ;-)
Vielen Dank für Eure tollen Kommentare und Faves!
A Happy Macro Monday, Everyone! Und noch einen schönen Pfingstmontag!
7DWF, Fridays: Flora
Have a beautiful weekend, dear Flickr friends!
Thank you very much for your comments and faves ;-) They are much aprecciated !!!
#green_heron #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs
with 10 different kinds of blossoms (ToC below)
in our rock garden - Frankfurt-Nordend
... for a Happy Sunday !
(and some playing with Nik Collections during one of the various yesterdays rainshowers)
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Table of content (from left to right :-))
For a larger view of each blossom, just click on the name.
Upper part:
- Large Speedwell / Dunkelblauer Ehrenpreis (Veronica teucrium )
- Dalmatian Bellflowers / Dalmatiner Polster-Glockenblumen (Campanula portenschlagiana)
- Corydalis / Lerchensporn (Corydalis ochroleuca)
- Welsh Poppy / Gelber Schein-Mohn (Meconopsis cambrica)
Middle section:
- Rockrose / Sonnenroeschen (Helianthemum)
- Pink Cranesbill / Storchschnabel (Geranium x oxonianum)
- Bloody Cranesbill / Blutroter Storchschnabel (Geranium sanguineum)
- French Cranesbill / Basken-Storchschnabel (Geranium endressii)
Lower part:
- Dusty Miller / Vexiernelke, Kronen-Lichtnelke (Silene coronaria)
- Yellow Columbine / Akelei (Aquilegia)
#roseate_spoonbill #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs
#sunset #florida_birds #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs
We don't have snow yet this year, so some cheerful Barberries from my garden will have to do for a Merry Christmas wish to you all.
"I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it there all year." ~ Charles Dickens, "A Christmas Carol"
#MacroMonday
#Zed
Photo taken by Roby (please see the first comment) as she approached the fourth planet of the Zed Zolar Zystem on another mission to cause some UFO sightings. Ever since Earz's closest neighbour, the Rose Planet, had been made inhabitable, and a commercial shuttle service has been established, it has become the dernier cri for Earzlings to have a cottage on Marz, and to spend at least a few weeks there each year. Since Roby so enjoyed to cause UFO sightings on Earz – they always cause such a pleasant buzz, and they always guarantee such a huge TV, internet and newspaper coverage –, she had decided to expand her planet coverage.
As you know, Marz possesses two irregularly shaped moons, Phoebe and Deizel, and here you can see Phoebe with its characteristic protrusions facing Marz' west pole in the famous "Afternoon Tea" constellation that Phoebe reaches every day precisely at five o'clock in the afternoon, while Deizel is still hidden from the beholder's view, hovering over Marz' south pole (also known as "Marz' kitchen"). Unlike the Earz-like Marz, both Phoebe and Deimos consist mostly of NaCl. This breakthrough discovery made during the 2021 Marz mission "Perzeverance" – which had been expanded to the exploration of Phoebe and Deizel in 2022 after the Marz rover's AI had miraculously developed awareness, and was therefore able to conduct and expand self-reliant experiments beyond Marz' surface – was the final proof that Marz, Phoebe and Deizel originated from the Zechstein Zea (located in the European Permian Bazin which stretches from the east coast of England to northern Poland). It layed the foundation for the settlement of Marz under Perzy's (the name the Marz rover chose for it-, pardon herself) conduct.
So what do we have here: A backlit rose quartz sphere / ball – 2,5 cm / 0,98 inches in diameter –, and a side lit rock salt (Steinsalz) crystal which is 0,9 cm / 0,35 inches wide. I had to focus-stack both the salt crystal and the rose quartz, because anything stopped down further than f/4 resulted in a too prominent background (black glitter foamsheet), but with this relatively wide open aperture I never managed to get both the salt and rose quartz sharp in one shot. The salt crystal was held in place by tweezers (which I'd mounted on a clamp) – another idea had been to photograph the salt crystal only and make it look like a precious raw diamond held by a diamond cutter's tweezers for a close inspection of the "stone's" quality –, and I've retouched the tweezers with the clone stamp in Photoshop post-processing. Further processing was done in Analog Efex.
HMM, Everyone, and stay safe and healthy!
#MacroMonday
#unusualpatterns
Weather forecast on a knife blade. On a Damascus steel knife blade, to be precise. Not what I initially had in mind, but that so often is the case when it's one of the "MM themes of the 1000 possibilities". Usually, for such a wide theme, I only have a few vague ideas what I could do for it, and the end result is pretty much a random surprise of what looks, firstly, most interesting through the macro lens, and, secondly, best as a photo, of course. Also, what is easy when it's not asked for - such as finding interesting patterns - becomes nearly impossible when it's required: patterns positively seemed to escape me as I went looking for them around the apartment ;-) And when I saw the knife in the kitchen (I hadn't even considered it as a possibility) I just thought "OK, that's probably very boring, but I'll give it a try." As for the "macro lens surprise", that was that not only did the banding typical for Damascus steel looked like waves (often an intended effect, but I only learned about that when I did my research on Damascus steel for the description and the tags), but those scratches from sharpening the knife that you can see in the upper part of the image also looked like heavy rain. And here it was, unfolding before my eyes: the high seas tempest.
The setup for the photo was as simple as it gets: I simply propped the knife, sharp side of the blade up, against a jar of sugar (my photo studio also doubles as breakfast and dinner table), both of it sitting on top of a heavy book to give it the same height as my camera on its small table top tripod, positioned one LED lamp (warm light) at the side of the table and grabbed my LED torch (cold light) to illuminate the blade from above (which also added the ever so slight 3D effect on the upper part of the blade), enabled the in-camera focus-stacking function, and hit the shutter button. I shot three focus stacking sequences of different parts of the knife of which this looked best.
Processing steps: The cold / warm light effect is something I get quite often when I use different light sources as above mentioned. It even works with one artificial light source (provided it gives warm light) and daylight from the window. Here I liked the split tone effect very much because I think it adds more depth to image. I wish I could have achieved the vivid colours you see here entirely by the use of light and the use of a colour filter (warm-cold or a combination of a cooling and a warming filter), but I've only recently considered to buy a few photo filters to improve my landscape photography, and since a good filter is expensive, I think I will buy one or two more versatile filters first before checking out the more exotic colour filters. So the colour enhancement here was done in Lightroom, where I tweaked the saturation and luminance of the blue, yellow and orange tones, and then in Nik's Color Efex, where, as final touch, I applied a Bi-color filter. I hope that these processing steps are deemed OK according to the new MM rules regarding the editing of an MM shot. I also did some sharpening and de-noising in Topaz Sharpen AI ("Focus" yielded the best result).
HMM, Everyone, and have a beautiful and safe week ahead!
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”
~ Marcus Aurelius ~
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