View allAll Photos Tagged NikCollection
#macromondays
#Bottles(s)
Please press "Z".
This is the base of a green glass bottle that once contained white wine and now is a vase. I often keep beautiful bottles, big or small, just because they look nice. I use them as decorative objects, as colour filters for tabletop photography, or as vases. And when I saw this bottle, I bought it specifically because it looked so nice (hoping that the content would be nice as well – it was), and with the intention of turning it into a vase. There's a glasser around my corner who has cut off the necks of quite a few bottles for me, as the DIY methods you can find on YouTube seemed too unsafe for me to do it myself. When I turned the bottle upside down, I noticed the really interesting-looking circular pattern at the base consisting of many tiny indendations. I've experimented with light from different positions, and backlit (with a hint of red light slightly from the front / above) brought out the patterns best.
There's also a bit of an optical illusion here, because the whole bottle base is convex (as to be expected), and the circle at the centre is a convex shape of its own, even though in the final image it looks concave, sort of bulging. And with those two extra, almost V-shaped indentations at the centre it reminded me of a reptile's eye staring right at me ;)
The "V" shape at the centre is 0,5 cm / 0,19 inches long, and the circle itself has a diameter of 2,5 cm / 0,98 inches. It's a single shot processed in DXO PhotoLab 5, with further tweaks in Analog Efex (vignette, Vintage Camera 5), and in Color Efex (Brilliance & Warmth, Detail Extractor, Photo Stylizer).
HMM, Everyone, take care and stay safe!
Schau mir in die Augen, Kleines? Nun, warum nicht. Denn weder hat Humphrey Bogart das tatsächlich so gesagt noch ist Kaa böse, obwohl er in den Disney-Verfilmungen des Dschungelbuchs so dargestellt wird. Und eigentlich ist das der sehr harmlose Flaschenboden einer ehemaligen Weißweinflasche, die nun als Vase fungiert. Ich hebe oft schöne Flaschen auf, egal welcher Größe, die ich als Deko-Objekt, als Vase oder auch manchmal als Farbfilter für Fotos verwende. Bei dieser besonders schönen Flasche, die ich schon mit dem Gedanken, daraus eine Vase zu machen, gekauft hatte, hat mir der Glaser um die Ecke den Flaschenhals abgeschnitten, damit ein ganzer Strauß Blumen darin Platz findet und nicht nur eine einzelne Blume. Ich weiß, dass es auf YouTube jede Menge DIY-Anleitungen gibt, die mir aber alle zu unsicher sind, um das selbst zu machen. Jetzt habe ich beim großen Fluss aber DIY-Sets entdeckt, die ich mir mal genauer ansehen werde ;)
Die Flasche an sich hätte für ein Makro nicht viel hergegeben, als ich sie aber umdrehte, fiel mir am nach innen gewölbten Boden ein interessantes kreisförmiges Muster, bestehend aus vielen winzigen Einkerbungen, auf. Und das habe ich mir dann durch das Makroobjektiv mal genauer angesehen. Das Resultat erinnert mich ein wenig an ein Reptilienauge, besonders mit den beiden länglichen (vorgewölbten) Einkerbungen in der Mitte. Dass der innere Kreis nochmals deutlich nach innen gewölbt ist, aber wie ein Auge konkav wirkt, ist eine optische Täuschung (wie sie bei solchen Formen häufig vorkommt, finde ich). Das Foto ist eine Einzelaufnahme, hauptsächlich von hinten beleuchtet, mit etwas rotem Licht leicht von vorne / oben für extra Akzente.
Habt eine schöne Dezemberwoche, liebe Flickr-Freunde, und passt gut auf Euch auf!
This view was definitely one of my highlights from the trip. The day started off very grey and when we arrived at Skógafoss it was raining a bit. As I mentioned in my earlier description it was crowded by the waterfall itself, but the further we walked, the less other tourists we saw. Then suddenly the sun started to shine gently between the low clouds, and revealed all the beauty of the curvy and hilly landscape. The temperature also rose and in October, in Iceland we were able to take off our coats, sit on the hillside with a cup of coffee and just enjoy the scenery in front of us, with the sound of the flowing water to make it even more intense. The first few days were amazing, but sometimes it felt like being in a hurry. No wonder with all the things we wanted to see and our busy schedule, but this was maybe the first time where I sat down and thought: "wow, this is Iceland and this is why we do it!"
Thanks for having a look! All faves and comments are highly appreciated!
Spring is here - and this joy may distract us from the current events, and in nature we can still take pictures at any time. I hope you are all well, don't let it get you down and take good care of yourself !!
#macromondays
#Vintage
#sharpnessisnoteverything
Extra! Extra! Read all about it, the vintage watch in a miracle cure...
I had two possible subjects for "Vintage", a brass thread counting glass that my mom (magrit k.) got during her dressmaker apprenticeship, and an automatic wristwatch that had belonged to my father. The plan was to combine these two items. I placed the thread counter's magnifying glass over the date, and while I was checking out different positions of thread counter, watch, and camera, all of a sudden the seconds hand appeared on my camera's display. Now you might think that this is nothing special, the seconds hand of a watch does move, doesn't it? Well, this one didn't. For the past 15 or so years, it didn't move an inch. I've been wearing this watch nonstop for many years after my father died, and I had it repaired several times, but at one point it stopped working, and the watchmaker told me that the movement was finally beyond repair. And now the seconds hand started moving out of nowhere. You can tell that I was surprised. Even shocked a little when the watch started working again all of a sudden. Immediately, The Who's song "Miracle Cure" from Tommy popped up in my head, hence the title ;) So what I will do next is carry the watch to a watchmaker and have it cleaned and checked. I still can't believe it ;)
Technically, this is one single shot. I had focused on the dial, through the thread counter's magnifying glass, which explains the distortion of the dial. The main focus is, of course, on the magnificent seconds hand ;) The frame around the dial is the brass thread counter; the manufacturer was "Hostmann-Steinberg" which is the blurred lettering that you can see. Processed in DXO PL6, Lightroom, and a variety of Nik Collection filters.
Happy Macro Monday, Everyone!
Behind the window...
#windowwednesday
Beautiful autumn day at the Lake Tegel in Northern Berlin. The unusual bicycle on the jetty and the charming old boat next to the newer, streamlined yacht caught my eye. When I took a few photos of that lovely autumn scenery, I thought that the old boat was empty. But when I processed this image for Window Wednesday, I realised that, unwittingly, I had kind of trespassed onto a rather special moment. That boat hadn't been empty at all. Please zoom in, and you'll see what I mean with "special moment" ;)
Happy Window Wednesday, Everyone!
Ich habe kürzlich mal wieder den schönen Tegeler See im Berliner Norden besucht. An diesem Steg an der Seepromenade fielen mir das ungewöhnliche Fahrrad (es könnte sich um ein "Load" von Riese & Müller handeln) und die beiden Boote ins Auge, das linke schon älteren Datums, dafür aber sehr charmant, und daneben die schnittige, noch ziemlich neue Jacht als Kontrastprogramm. Beim Fotografieren hatte ich noch gedacht, die Boote seien leer, aber beim Bearbeiten fiel mir dann auf, dass ich hier, auf dem alten Boot, rein zufällig einen ganz besonderen Moment eingefangen habe; wenn Ihr reinzoomt, könnt Ihr sehen, was ich meine ;)
Habt eine schöne Restwoche, liebe Flickr-Freunde!
Explored July 4, 2023
#MacroMondays
#Feather
Plume grass is an extremely rare type of grass that can only be found in the deep sea in light-flooded caves (illuminated by the just as rare but permanently glowing deep sea rainbow) or above the clouds. I couldn't verify the origin of this specific bunch of plume grass, because it had materialized itself on my photo (aka living room) table out of nowhere. OK, joking aside, "nowhere" is a small paper bag that I keep in my original MM box (numerous boxes have followed since) in which I've carefully stored this feather ever since I found it on the ground in front of an outdoor owl cage/compound at the Tierpark Berlin back in 2017. The owl inhabiting said cage had eyed me suspiciously all the time plus its plumage colour and pattern were very similar to that of this feather, so it was pretty sure that owl's feather.
The feather, or rather the part of it I'd found (it looks as if it had broken off because the quill is missing), is very fluffy and delicate, and it has a white/light brown zigzag-like pattern. The entire length of the feather is 6,5 cm/2,5 inches, and the (upper) part of the feather that you can see in my image has a length of 2 cm/0,78 inches and a width of 4 cm/1,5 inches..
Since a feather is all about airiness, freedom, and a creature soaring the sky up above I thought I'd use a bright blue backdrop for a change. I still didn't know how to add a little more vivacity to the feather itself, since while beautiful it isn't exactly colourful with its muted tones that suit a predator well as camouflage. My makeshift colour filters didn't work too well for the scene I had in mind because they coloured the backdrop as well. But the sunshine came to my rescue. I keep all sorts of stuff on the window sill, like a sundial, and also rocks and crystals, and among these "dust collectors" also is a huge, diamond-shaped glass crystal. Its facets conjure lovely rainbow-coloured light reflections onto the wall and the window sill when hit by the sunlight at the right angle. And when I noticed the sparkle, I thought "That's it, hooray!" :) Not that it is easy to direct the rainbow sparkles to a specific subject, it was a lot of hit-and-miss, but in the end, I once again had a few images to choose from. I also took a few images of a plain white feather that actually reflects the rainbow light much better, but since I had to make a choice, this image made it mainly because of the white bokeh balls in the upper right corner (probably light reflections from the glass crystal as well) because they reminded me of sunlight shining through a very clear water surface (or of a small fleecy cloud), illuminating a beautiful "underwater scape".
HMM, Everyone, and have a nice week ahead!
Blue hour at Convict Lake, about 15 minutes away from the town of Mammoth Lakes. It was about 30 F (-1 C) after sundown.
4 portrait wide angle exposure panorama using the Samyang 12mm f/2 manual focus lens. For highest possible resolution, go full screen on your browser and press L.
Thank you very much for your faves and comments.
#sliderssunday
Explored 23 May, 2021
You might wonder about the title. Well, what you see in the photo is the river Spree taking one of its many bends across Berlin, and this particular area that you can see on the opposite river bank is also called "Spree-Bogen", "Spree bend". This area used to be the home of the Meierei C. Bolle (dairy farm C. Bolle) that was founded in 1879 during one of Berlins particularly strong periods of growth. The two glass towers belong to an U-shaped building ensemble that was the (rented!) seat of our Federal Ministry of the Interior from 1999 - 2015.
This is one of the images that needed time to "develop". I've tried several different processing approaches over the past months, and I was never really happy with any of the results, because I always found the sky too blue, the image too bright, the clouds not nice enough... I once even replaced the sky in Luminar, but didn't like that, either. So back to the original sky, and just the other day, when I gave it another go, I finally stumbled upon the solution. In a first new version I had processed the image in HDR Efex, kind of liked it, but still found the image too bright. Just for fun, and for comparison purposes, I decided to also process the image in Aurora HDR, tried a few of my favourite presets that I use as starting point in Aurora, and... Bingo! In the "Dramatic" preset collection, there's a preset called "Sleepy Drama" which desaturates the blue tones and adds a darker look to any image – and that did it, at least for me. I still tweaked the preset's settings to my liking, and, in Color Efex, added some Brilliance and Warmth. I hope you like the image :)
Happy Sliders Sunday, stay safe and healthy, and take care!
Bolle reiste jüngst zu Pfingsten...
Blick auf das Spree-Bogen-Areal, gelegen an einem von sehr vielen Spreebögen durch Berlin. Auf diesem Areal wurde 1879, während einer besonders starken Wachstumsphase Berlins, die Meierei C. Bolle erbaut, deren Gründer Carl Bolle allerdings nichts mit dem bekannten (und so lustig wie hintergründig makabren) Bolle-Lied zu tun hat, dessen gesamten Text (bitte alle Strophen lesen, es lohnt sich) Ihr hier finden könnt: STRG/CTRL+ de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolle_reiste_jüngst_zu_Pfingsten. Es passt nur gerade so schön zu Pfingsten ;)
Die beiden Glastürme sind Teil des U-förmig gestalteten Spree-Bogen-Gebäudes, das von 1999 bis 2015 das Bundesministerium des Innern beherbergte (zur Miete!). Diese Bild hat sprichwörtlich Zeit zum Entwickeln gebraucht, ich habe über die Monate immer mal wieder diverse Ansätze ausprobiert, aber es hatte bislang nie richtig "Klick" gemacht, immer war mir der Himmel zu blau, das Bild zu hell, die Wolken nicht schön genug... Einmal habe ich sogar in Luminar den Himmel ausgetauscht, was mir aber auch nicht gefallen hat und sowieso nur eine Notlösung sein sollte, weshalb ich schlussendlich doch beim Original-Himmel geblieben bin.
Kürzlich habe ich dann noch einmal einen Anlauf in HDR Efex gestartet, was mir schon recht gut gefiel, mir aber immer noch zu hell war. Nur aus Spaß und auch zum direkten Vergleich habe ich mich dann noch durch meine Lieblings-Presets in Aurora HDR geklickt. Meistens nehme ich in Aurora eines der "Dramatic"- oder "Artistic"-Presets als Ausgangspunkt für die weitere Bearbeitung. Hier war es das "Sleepy Drama", das – endlich – den Knoten löste. Für den "sleepy" Look werden die Blautöne entsättigt und für das "Drama" wird die Tonwertkurve in Richtung Tiefen korrigiert. Ich habe dann noch eigene Anpassungen vorgenommen und abschließend in Color Efex etwas "Brilliance and Warmth" hinzugefügt. Mit dem Ergebnis bin ich recht zufrieden, zufrieden genug jdf., um es Euch zu zeigen. Ich hoffe, das Bild gefällt Euch auch :)
Ich wünsche Euch schöne Pfingsten, passt weiter gut auf Euch auf und bleibt gesund!
#WinterSolstice
Explored December 21, 2022
Today is Winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Finally, days will get longer again, something I've been looking forward to all the more this autumn/winter because it's the darkest, dullest season we've had for many years. Since there are also only three days left until Christmas, I was searching my photo archive for something festive and sci-fi-looking. I stumbled upon a series of images that I'd taken back in December 2018 at the Christmas market nearby Berlin's TV tower (one of my city's most iconic and well-known landmarks) where you can see the TV tower's spire and its famous "ball" (which houses a rotating – slowly rotating, I should add – restaurant) behind the Christmas market's rotating Ferris wheel.
I've already uploaded one photo from this series – four years ago, so I was also hoping that most of you have forgotten about that first upload by now and this image passes as "new" ;) Well, it kind of is new, because it's not the same shot as the first image. The first image (which you can find in the first comment) has a tighter crop and the colours are different because the Ferris wheel had been illuminated in changing colours. This time, I also thought I'd leave the Ferris wheel's metal brace in the image because I thought the brace adds a "space station" look. The Ferris wheel's colour "rings" also reminded me of Saturn's rings (or of a wormhole), hence the title.
Wishing you a Happy Winter Solstice, and Happy Hump Day, too :)
Well, Snoopy can't spell, and Sloopy won't mind ;-)
7DWF: Fauna
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone!
Considered to do Snoopy as a silhouette for Macro Monday's "Silhouette" theme (he was actually clearly recognisable!), but I actually like it better this way.
Thank you all for your faves, and wonderful comments, I highly appreciate them ;-)!
I wish you a nice, calm Sunday, and a peaceful week ahead, dear Flickr friends!
Ich wollte Snoopy eigentlich als Silhouette für das entsprechende Macro-Monday-Thema nehmen (er war als Silhouette sogar erkennbar), aber so gefällt er mir besser.
Vielen Dank für Eure Kommentare und Favs, ich freue mich sehr darüber ;-)
Ich wünsche Euch einen ruhigen, angenehmen Sonntag und eine friedliche Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde.
Picture of the Zêzere riverside at its birthplace, the Covão d'Ametade at Serra da Estrela Highland.
===================================
Leica M246 Monochrom, Summilux 1.4/50 Asph. Affinity Photo 1 + Nik Collection, EI 320 ISO, 1/750s, F/4
Can it be mended?
💙💛🙏
#macromondays
#reflections
A broken nacre brooch on a mirror tile which consists of several unevenly shaped hexagons. The hexagons create a distorted reflection, but the dove brooch is just a tad too small (it is 3 cm/1,18 inches long and 1,9 cm/0,74 inches high) to really show the distortion; at least you can see a little bit of it. I also have an intact "twin" of the brooch (which I handle with extra care so at least that won't break), but here I thought the broken one worked better, for obvious reasons. I actually wanted to have the reflection in the upper part of the image, but there was no way I could photograph it so the reflection would be on top (and visible). And rotating/mirroring the image resulted in the dove brooch and its reflection pointing/"flying" downwards, but I definitely wanted it to point upwards as to represent hope. I also found that the gaps in the tile where three of the hexagons meet formed a shape reminiscent of the peace sign, so I decided to place the brooch and the broken-off tail accordingly.
A single photo with focus on the broken part. I had placed a blue glitter foamsheet above the tile to get a blue backdrop. You can see the above mentioned distortion effect of the tile in the somewhat "twisted" bokeh reflection. Light sources were one soft LED photo light from above against which I held the transparent red chocolate box lid to create the red highlights, and one single LED light equipped with the yellow bottle cap to colour the white nacre brooch yellow. Processed in DXO PL5 and Analog Efex.
HMM Everyone!
I'll catch up with you tonight!
Zerbrochen
Zur Thematik muss ich hier sicher nichts groß schreiben. Ich habe zwei dieser hübschen Perlmuttbroschen, die zum Tragen eigentlich zu empfindlich sind – und eine der beiden Broschen ist mir dann auch irgendwann einmal kaputt gegangen. Ich hätte für das Foto natürlich die intakte Brosche (auf die ich nun ganz besonders aufpasse, damit sie nicht auch noch zerbricht) verwenden können, fand die kaputte aber passender für meine Bildidee.
Platziert habe ich diese "verletzte" Friedenstaube auf einer Spiegelfliese, die aus mehreren sechseckigen kleineren Fliesen zusammengesetzt ist. Die einzelnen Sechseckfliesen haben eine uneben geformte Oberfläche, die eine interessant verzerrte Spiegelung erzeugt. Dass man von der Verzerrung hier nur wenig sieht, liegt daran, dass die Brosche einfach ein bisschen zu klein ist (3 cm lang, 1,9 cm hoch), um den Effekt sehen zu können. Über der Fliese habe ich eine Platte blaues Glitzermoosgummi platziert; im Bokeh könnt ihr etwas vom Verzerrungseffekt erahnen. Für generelles Licht habe ich eine LED-Fotolampe mit weichem weißen Licht (von oben) verwendet und die Brosche habe ich mit einer einzelnen LED-Lampe angestrahlt, auf die ich den gelben, halbtransparenten Plastikverschluss einer Spüliflasche gesteckt habe, um die weiße Taube gelb einzufärben. Schließlich habe ich noch den transparenten roten Pralinenschachteldeckel gegen die Fläche der LED-Fotolampe gehalten, um die roten Highlights zu erzeugen. Zur Thematik passt es auch, dass hier die Lücken zwischen den Einzel-Sechsecken in ihrer Form fast an das Friedenszeichen erinnern, weshalb ich die zerbrochene Taubenbrosche entsprechend platziert und die Kamera zur Seite gedreht habe, um diese Form sichtbar zu machen. Einzelfoto mit Fokus auf den Bruchlinien, entwickelt in DXO PL5 und Analog Efex.
Ich schaue heute Abend bei Euch rein!
Ich wünsche Euch eine gute Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde, passt gut auf Euch auf!
Or: The Beauty and the Beast
Explored November 19, 2022
For #sliderssunday
I've realised that I haven't uploaded an autumn photo this year, yet, and of course, that won't do ;) So here you go: golden October glory at the Rudolph-Wilde-Park, a public park in the Berlin borough of Schöneberg. The park, which was conceived in 1906, and which is named after the first mayor of Schöneberg (before Schöneberg became a part of Berlin in 1920), Rudolph Wilde, is a 6,6 sq green oasis amidst one of the most densely built-up areas of Berlin. Most conveniently, the park is only a 15-20 minute walk away from where I live.
You may wonder why I subtitled this image The Beauty and the Beast. Well, on that walk, and also when I processed the photos I'd taken on that walk, I thought that in this place you can find both what is so beautiful and also ugly or aggravating about my hometown. The park itself is very lovely, there is a huge playground, there is the small lake (which you can see here) in front of the historic subway station, there are lots of bunnies (yes!), but there are also trash and graffiti. Not that I generally dislike graffiti, but for me, it's kind of a double-edged sword. In Berlin, you can find marvellous, artfully done graffiti and street art which I really like, but there also is the aggressive tagging, and I usually don't like that at all, especially when it's done on carefully restored historic buildings such as the Carl-Zuckmayer-Brücke of which you can see a small part in the lower left corner of this photo. The bridge is part of the heritage-protected underground station "Rathaus Schöneberg".
The image is an HDR made from exposure bracketing (three photos) which I've combined in HDR Efex. Since I'd photographed directly against the sun (I almost couldn't see a thing on the display), there are a few blown-out parts on the left which even the exposure bracketing couldn't prevent. I tried to fix it in LR, and I think it doesn't look too bad because it's just the upper left corner. I hope you like it anyways ;)
Have a nice weekend, dear Flickr friends!
#Mittwochsmakro
#MacroMondaysOuttake
#Keepsake
I don't post MM outtakes often anymore, but this time it had been a really difficult choice between two images, and I also didn't want this image to end up in a permanent hard drive slumber. So here is MM choice No 2 that simply didn't make it to the group's pool because it looks a little weird (I like it weird, though), and not as elegant as my official upload. Most of the weirdness here probably derives from the fact that I had taken some photos with the watch placed upside down (and rotated this one to the left twice in LR) because it was easier to get a clear image of the 12 and the moving cursor at the same time this way.
Some of you may know that my Dad's watch had officially been declared "out of order for good" by a watchmaker many years ago and that it had miraculously started to work again when I photographed it for our November 2022 theme "Vintage". Well, I'm happy to say that it still runs happily and steadily, and this so much so that it runs really fast because it apparently always likes to be ahead of (the correct) time – but that doesn't matter at all as long as it keeps working ;)
What surprisingly also still works, is the lume on the hour and minute hand, even if it only glows for a few seconds after being activated by a strong light source. In this image, however, the lume glows courtesy of a few Lightroom sliders ("Lightlume") because it had not even crossed my mind to activate the lume during my MM Keepsake photo shoot. To make it look glowing, I masked the lume part, increased the whites, and tweaked the tone in the white balance menu. The fan-like effect on the moving second hand once again is a result of using the in-camera Live ND filter. And the colourful texture in the upper left corner is the Nato strap I keep the watch on. The watch has an unusual 19mm lug width and curved spring bars on top of that, and an 18mm Nato strap was the easiest way to fit it with a fresh-looking new strap (ordered from Esprit Nato in Paris because that's the only store that offers almost all the different colours and patterns a Nato strap can have with gold hardware).
Happy Mittwochsmakro, and happy hump day as well :)
Explored December 17, 2020
Before autumn finally gives way to winter, here's another image from a photowalk with Flickr friends back in November 2018. This a a view westwards from the rooftop terrace of the Reichstag building. While the Reichstag building's rooftop terrace is by no means the highest viewpoint in Berlin, you still have a pretty good view over the city in all four directions. And on that particular(ly cold) day we enjoyed a lovely golden hour up there that ended in a really spectacular sunset later.
Some of the builings you can see here are amongst Berlin's landmarks: there's the Victory Column with the gilded statue of Victoria on top – which was featured in the video for U2's song "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" from their 1993 album Zooropa, and also in Wim Wender's movie Wings of Desire (1987). The tower on the right behind the Victory column which looks like the Eiffel tower's little brother is the Berlin Radio Tower which was inaugurated in 1926. On the left behind the Victory Column you can see the Teufelsberg ("Devil's mountain"), a rubble mountain which also covers the unfinished Nazi military-technical college (Wehrtechnische Fakultät); on top of the Teufelsberg you can see the remains of a former US listening station (the buildings with those spherical roofs). And the tower at the far right is the Tiergarten Carillon, the closest building to the Reichtags building in that direction. The 42 meter high Carillon is a large, manually played "Glockenspiel" consisting of 68 bells; it's located in Berlin's largest park, the Tiergarten (all those colourful tree tops you can see).
At first I thought I'd crop the image to get rid of the decorative roof element which you can see on the left. But then I thought that it's actually another layer in this multi-layered city image and also a nice anchor or entry point. Regarding the sky I should admit that I needed "a little help from my friends" aka photo editing software (Luminar AI to be precise): While the colours which you see are pretty much true to the golden hour colours we'd had on that afternoon – a warm, golden glow on the horizon that started to rise into the bright blue November sky – there was a fairly large area blown-out from the low afternoon sun which, for me, would have ruined the image. Other than that I've edited the image in Color Efex Pro starting from the preset "Warm Sunset".
Happy Hump Day, dear Flickr friends, wash hands, wear a mask, and stay safe and healthy!
#macromondays
#leather
A belt. And one with a history. Originally, this belt had belonged to my mother (magrit k.), but when I was a teenager, she gave it to me, because she didn't wear it anymore, but I thought that it looked cool and also very much 1960s. Back then, I was totally obsessed with anything 1960s, especially music and fashion. And this blue leather belt, although from the 1970s, in my opinion, had (or rather: still has) the perfect swinging sixties vibe with its 5 cm/1,96 inches width, its nicely shaped buckle, and the large, punched holes. And those holes were the "problem". I simply couldn't wear it with its original style, because that belt was a low waist belt, but the dictate of fashion at the time I got it asked for a waistline almost under the chin. So I clumsily drilled some extra holes with a simple gimlet. Since the result, not entirely unexpectedly, looked ugly, I took the belt to a cobbler who did some decent punching work and also added the metal eyelets to the extra holes. I've been wearing this belt ever since, on and off, to this day.
The image is a focus stacking made of 15 photos. The in-camera stacking result looked good so I used the Jpg out of the camera and further processed it in Analog Efex. I've illuminated the scene from above and slightly from behind. To add some visual punch, I placed the belt against that red, transparent chocolate box lid which, as you know, usually serves as a colour filter. You can see how scratched that lid already is, so maybe it's time to buy a proper colour filter. On the other hand, I might simply buy another box of Mon Cherie chocolates to get a new "colour filter" – with the bonus of some extra chocolate pleasure ;)
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)
Nach Hause telefonieren
In digital times it is hard to be an old fixed-line phone, but even harder to be the underside of it. Width: 4,3 cm / 1,69291 inches
In Zeiten von Smartphones und Apps ist es nicht leicht, ein Festnetztelefon zu sein, schon gar nicht, wenn man dessen Unterseite ist.
Thank you for your kind comments, I appreciate every single one, and your faves! Vielen Dank für Eure tollen Kommentare und Faves!
A Happy Macro Monday, Everyone!
Nature is painting for us- day after day- pictures of infinite beauty.
John Ruskin (writer, painter, art historian and social philosopher)
#macromondays
#Texture
I even massacred one of these big blue IKEA bags in search of an interesting-looking texture, do you believe it? Well, these bags are sturdy, aren't they, and that small hole I clumsily cut into the blue fabric won't impair its carrying abilities. These bags are strong as Hulk, but not as green, and since the fabric's texture didn't look that interesting in close-up either, I continued my search, until this morning I noticed an old green, pretty battered clothes' peg that has long retired as a laundry helper and keeps the potato crisp (a guilty pleasure) bag closed so I won't eat them all at once ;) Not that I'd eat potato crisps for breakfast ;) This peg has plenty of texture, original texture in the form of the protruding rhombic pattern (for better grip), and acquired textures from a lifetime of being squeezed. This makes this little clothes' peg (that might as well be as old as me) a Hulk in its own right – and it's Hulk-green on top of that ;)
What you see is a pretty small part of the peg's grip, a 5x5 mm / 0,19x0,19 inch section. I've illuminated the clothes' peg from behind and photographed it with the cheap little 30 mm macro lens because that gives me more magnification (2.5x) than the regular 1:1 of my 60 mm macro lens. It's also a single image shot in High-res mode (so I would be able to crop out the patterned part and still have a big enough file). Processed in DXO PL6, Color Efex, Analog Efex (Film type Bolton 1), and Lightroom (clarity, contrast, colour adjustments).
I'm busy today and will catch up with you tonight! HMM, Everyone!
... or Honeycombs
#MacroMonday
#Oranje/Orange
Get well soon, Hans, we are looking forward to when you will be back as group admin and also with new photo contributions to the MM group :)
Something I've always wanted to photograph with the extension tubes in order to get really close, but never got it quite right. Well, it's still far from perfect, but at least I managed to get a fairly sharp image of these tiny honeycomb cubes (size of each cube: 2x2 mm / 0,07x0,07 inches) this time. They are inside of a small orange spoke (or rear) reflector, a scratched, battered thing that must have fallen off a bicycle. I picked it up in the street one day, because I thought it might be useful for Macro Mondays one day. I've already used this once before for a theme, the "Lit by Candlelight" theme from December 2017 (you can find the photo in the third comment, I was too slow ;) ). And since Hans is Dutch, and the Netherlands are a bycicle country, I thought the reflector might be an appropriate subject for the Oranje / Orange theme :)
I've used both extension tubes (which gave me 26 mm on top of the 60 mm from my macro lens), the Raynox DCR-250 close-up lens and a +4 close-up filter. The result reminds me of an optical illusion, because I can see both the cubes and the honeycombs, but not at the same time. I hope it's not too confusing to look at. I had to do some extensive dust and "scratch bokeh" removal (some of the many scratches on the plastic surface appeared as bokeh spots, but not nice ones, when I focused on the inside of the reflector) with the healing brush to make it pleasant to look at, and only when I applied a slightly matte look in Analog Efex it looked right to me.
I have a very busy day today, so I hope I can catch up with you tonight. HMM, Everyone, stay safe!
#sliderssunday
Explored 22 August, 2021
Entrance Hall of the newly opened Humboldt Forum, photographed from the tribune on the first floor. The Humboldt Forum (named after the Prussian scholars Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt), built between 2012 and 2020 on the site of the Berlin Palace (which, after World War II, had been torn down and replaced by the Palast der Republik – the former seat of the GDR government), is an architectural mix of "historical and modern". Its façade is a replica of the baroque Berlin Palace, while the interior has been newly designed by Italian architect Franco Stella. The Humboldt Forum houses the non-European collections from the Berlin State Museums, the (temporary?) exhibition "Berlin Global", and it will also be used for different events. Btw., that organic shaped thing on the left is a construct made of several projection surfaces that display all kinds of informations, regarding Berlin's history, for instance, but not at the moment I took the photo ;)
Back in 2015, after the topping out ceremony, the Humboldt Forum's shell construction had been opened for the public for one weekend. I've included an imaged I'd taken back then from almost the same spot as I've taken this photo from, you can find it in the first comment (and for more photos of that 2015 event, please see my album), I think it's an interesting "then and now" comparison. My new photo is an HDR made from three images, processed in HDR Efex. I've also bumped up the clarity, so it would match the look of my 2015 photo (I've only used LR back then).
HSS, Everyone!
Humboldt-Gewusel
Blick in die riesige Eingangshalle des neu eröffneten Humboldt Forums, aufgenommen von der Galerie im ersten Stock. Errichtet zwischen 2012 und 2020, ist das Humboldt Forum ein (nicht unumstrittener) Mix aus historisierend (die Fassade, die eine Replik des nach dem 2. Weltkrieg abgerissenen und durch den Palast der Republik ersetzten Berliner Stadtschlosses darstellt) und vollkommen neu (das vom italienischen Architekten Franco Stella modern gestaltete Interieur). Es beherbergt die außereuropäischen Sammlungen der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, die zuvor in Dahlem gezeigt worden waren (und die ebenfalls nicht unumstritten sind, Stichwort: Beutekunst). Außerdem ist als größte moderne Ausstellung momentan "Berlin Global" zu sehen. Das organisch geformte Ding links im Bild ist übrigens ein Konstrukt aus mehreren Projektionsflächen, die z.B. Verschiedenes zur Berliner Geschichte und andere Infos im Wechsel anzeigen, nur gerade nicht in dem Moment, als ich die Belichtungsreihe gemacht habe ;)
2015, nach dem Richtfest, konnte man ein Wochenende lang den Rohbau des Humboldt Forums besichtigen. Ich habe, als Vergleich, im ersten Kommentar ein Foto von diesem Wochenende verlinkt, das ich damals von fast exakt demselben Standpunkt aus fotografiert hatte wie mein neues Foto. Weitere Fotos von 2015 findet Ihr im Album. Das neue Foto ist ein HDR aus einer Dreier-Belichtungsreihe, die ich in HDR Efex zusammengefügt habe. Um eine kleine optische Verknüpfung zu 2015 herzustellen, habe ich das neue Foto dann noch ein wenig in LR (welches damals mein einziges Bildbearbeitungsprogramm war) angepasst.
Habt einen schönen Restsonntag und einen guten Wochenstart!
#MacroMonday
#Nuts
Pareidolia gone nuts? I was lucky that I still had the package of walnut halves that I'd bought for the "In Ice" theme (please see the first comment). So I thought I'd continue that story: a "brain", finally freed from the restrictions of its former ice skull housing – what would it do? I think it would begin to curiously discover its new world, discover its own intellect (without the interfering thoughts of its previous owner) – much like a child that grows up and gets more and more independent, and has an enormous hunger for knowledge, but also for mischief and fun :) My first idea was to make a pair of glasses for the brain / walnut; I thought I'd use jewellery wire for it, but then I looked at the small walnut halves and the thin wire, and thought: impossible! Unachievable! Too difficult for my clumsy hands! Well, I might have given it a (most likely unsuccessful) try, but went looking for nuts in the toolbox instead, nuts small enough to serve as eyes. So may I introduce you to Frankie, the brain that set out to conquer the macro world – but should adjust its eyes first :)
Happy Macro Monday, Everyone, stay safe and healthy!
Die Muttern aller Kopfnüsse
So erschien mir dieses Thema zunächst – es erwies sich dann aber als erstaunlich leicht und schnell umsetzbar. Zum Glück hatte ich noch Walnüsse vom Thema "In Ice" übrig, und so dachte ich auch gleich daran, die Geschichte des "Gehirns" im Eisschädel (siehe ersten Kommentar) weiterzuspinnen. Was würde so ein Gehirn, plötzlich ganz auf sich allein gestellt, weil vom Eise, damit aber auch von den störenden Gedanken seines ehemaligen Besitzers befreit, wohl tun? Ich könnte mir vorstellen, dass es wie ein Kind seine neue Welt erkundet, wissbegierig und neugierig, dabei auch stets zum einen oder anderen Unfug bereit. Um also der Walnuss alias Hirn ein Gesicht zu geben, dachte ich daran, ihm / ihr eine Brille aus Schmuckdraht zu basteln. Je mehr ich aber überlegte, wie ich das wohl elegant anstellen könnte (z.B. unter Zuhilfenahme von Buntsstiften für die runde Gläserform), ohne mir dabei die Finger und gleich auch noch den Draht unrettbar zu verbiegen, desto lauter wurde der (gedankliche) Ruf nach einer einfacheren Lösung. Also habe ich den Werkzeugkasten nach möglichst kleinen Muttern als "Augen" durchstöbert – und wurde zum Glück fündig :) Darf ich also vorstellen: Frankie, das Hirn :)
Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne erste Mai-Woche, passt gut auf Euch auf und bleibt gesund!
#macromondays
#Candy
#Lensbaby
The Trekkies among you might remember the episode where Cpt. James Tiberius Kirk and his crew involuntarily swap places with their counterparts from an evil parallel universe where chaos, insanity and illogic rule ("Mirror, Mirror", first broadcasted in 1967). So it might not come as a real surprise to you that there are many more "Mirror Universes". Like the one you can see in my image, into which I was sucked after an unusally high intake of sugar during my quest of finding a nice idea for the "Candy" theme. It's the always colourful, cheery Candyverse, a world fuelled by pure sugar. Depicted in my photo is the UCC's (UCC: United Candy Federation) flagship, the majestic UCC Nonpareille, as it takes up full SOL speed (SOL 22), heading to another mission. Candyverse, of course, has its very own counterpart / parallel universe, the slightly bland Healthyverse.
Actually, the UCC Nonpareille's appearance was pure chance. I had bought three packs of different candies for the theme (strawberry/pepper, passion fruit/chili, and "pebble candies", sugar-coated sweet liquorice candies that look like pebbles).
But while (too) delicious, neither the strawberry nor the passion fruit candies were very photogenic, and the "Candyhenge" stone circle I had made with the pebble candies looked a little boring. I then remembered the bottle of nonpareils which I'd once bought for another MM theme. Nonpareils are certainly the tiniest type of candy that exists, so I thought they'd be well suited for MMs. I thought about forming a classical Cretan circular maze with them. To make things a little easier, I wanted to use a bronze pendant (diameter: 3 cm / 1,18 inches) which is made after one of those classical mazes as template. But when I looked at it I knew it would take ages to put the seemingly simple, but actually not so simple maze shape free-handed. And since it was late, and I needed a photo, I decided to make things even more simple by simply arranging the nonpareils right on the pendant by following the debossed lines on it. And although I had actually focused on the maze shape, all of a sudden the USS Enterprise, or rather its Candyverse counterpart was there, as if it had just emerged from a Warp tunnel – bang!
A funny thing with the MM photos is that in most cases it's either the very first or one of the last images I take for a theme that makes it. This is the second to last image, taken last night, handheld and with the Lensbaby SOL 22 which I'd equipped with the 10 mm extension tube. The red light reflections were created by using a translucent, red raspberry lollipop as colour filter (after all, we are in Candyverse). Since the Lensbaby created a kind of motion blur, I thought I'd highlight that effect by adding a texture to it that would look like star trails right in the moment the starship reaches its maximum speed. The "Drizzle left" weather texture in ON1 did the trick :) Other than that I've only done minimal processing steps in DXO (mainly sharpening and denoising) and in Analog Efex.
HMM, Everyone, have a nice week ahead!
P.S. I'm trying to catch up with you tonight!
Clearly I was drawn to these narrow alleys of old Girona. One more set of stairs with this POV. I liked this one for its particularly gritty feel. 3 exposure HDR.
#MacroMonday
#SquaredCircle
I'm sure you all know the tube caps that have a star-shaped tool on the upper, "non-screwy" side which serves as opener for tubes that are sealed. This is one. A Sunday breakfast table discovery, when I opened a tube with a delicious (bread) spread inside and by chance noticed that the cap is semi-transparent (which looked nice held against the sunlight) and also round. So I thought I'd give it a try as a circular object within a square frame. And since I ran out of time, in the end this was my only circular object in a square frame ;-) Since I wanted to backlight it, I didn't shoot it from above, but up front, with blue transparent paper as background and both propped against my small LED torch (its diameter is the same as the cap's: 2,2 cm / 0,86 inches). This is a focus stack composed of 25 images rendered in Helicon Focus (Method B). Processed in Analog Efex Pro and ON1 Photo RAW (filters: HDR "Glow" and "Normal", Tone Enhancer and Dynamic Contrast, each with my own sliders tweaks).
A Happy Macro Monday, Everyone!
Ihr kennt bestimmt alle diese Tubenverschlüsse, die auf der oberen Seite so ein sternförmiges "Werkzeug" zum Öffnen der Tube haben. Dies ist so ein Verschluss. Eine Zufallsentdeckung am sonntäglichen Frühstückstisch, als ich eine Tube mit einem leckeren Aufstrich öffnete und den Verschluss aus Spaß gegen das Licht hielt. Der Anblick machte neugierig, und da der Verschluss praktischerweise auch rund ist, wie es die meisten Tubenverschlüsse so an sich haben, bot sich hier eine Möglichkeit für die Quadratur des Kreises. Am Ende blieb es die einzige Möglichkeit, da ich gestern schlicht keine Zeit für mehr Fotos mit anderen runden Dingen in einem quadratischen Rahmen hatte. Um den Verschluss direkt von hinten anstrahlen zu können, habe ich ihn nicht von oben fotografiert, sondern von vorn. Als Hintergrund diente ein Blatt blaues Transparentpapier, hinter das ich meine kleine LED-Taschenlampe legte, die denselben Durchmesser hat wie der Verschluss: 2,2 cm. Das fertige Foto ist ein Fokus Stack aus 25 Bildern, zusammengefügt in Helicon Focus (Methode B) und bearbeitet in Analog Efex und ON1 Photo RAW.
Ich wünsche Euch eine sonnige Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde!
Aufnahme wurde bei Nebel fotografiert und später mit Nik Collection HDR Efex Pro bearbeitet und verfremdet.
Sich treiben lassen...
7DWF, Fridays: Flora
Also for Sliders Sunday
Have a wonderful weekend, dear Flickr friends! Ich wünsche Euch ein schönes Wochenende, liebe Leute!
Or: We Are Family
#macromondays
#Four
OK, let's say that sharpness isn't everything. At least not every time ;) I simply couldn't get this "inside view" any sharper, but I still like the result, because it reminds me of planets, or, more precisely, a planetary "group" consisting of four equally sized planetary siblings that are kept together (and also safely apart at always the same distance) by a special, gravity-defying magnetic field that only exists in "teaverse". Yes, this is a stainless steel tea egg, its holes are beautifully arranged in groups of four, and we are looking through one of those holes (diameter of each hole: 1 mm / 0,039 inches) right into the tea egg. In the upper "planet" you can see one of the aforementioned "hole quartets" on the opposite inner wall of the tea egg. I was surprised that it actually worked, and I assume it's because you can get extremely close to your subject with the 30 mm macro lens, in fact so close that its UV filter (highly recommended for this lens!) touched the tea egg.
The image is a single photo illuminated by a single LED lamp which I'd put inside of the tea egg. Processed in DXO PL5 and Analog Efex (with only the basic adjustments, no film preset, vignette, or anything else).
HMM, Everyone!
Sagen wir mal so: Schärfe ist nicht alles, jedenfalls nicht immer ;) Schärfer ging es hier nicht, aber ich finde, das Foto funktioniert trotzdem - irgendwie. Ich sehe hier eine Gruppe von vier Planeten, Planetengeschwister, die von einem sehr speziellen Magnetfeld mit ausreichendem, der Schwerkraft trotzenden Sicherheitsabstand zusammengehalten werden. Und das gibt es so wohl nur im "Tee-iversum". Richtig, dies ist ein Tee-Ei, dessen Löcher (jew. 1 mm im Durchmesser) in hübschen Vierergruppen angeordnet sind. Und durch eines dieser Löcher (bzw. durch vier, natürlich, aber nur der Blick durch das obere rechte Loch ist halbwegs scharf) schauen wir hier ins Innere des Tee-Eis. Im oberen "Planeten" könnt Ihr eine solche Vierer-Loch-Gruppe an der gegenüberliegenden Innenwand des Tee-Eis sehen.
Ich war überrascht, dass diese Innenansicht überhaupt so funktioniert hat. Allerdings kann man mit dem preiswerten 30-mm-Makro auch extrem nah ans Motiv herangehen. So nah, dass sich auf jeden Fall ein Schutzfilter empfiehlt, und so hatte auch hier der Filterrand bereits das Tee-Ei berührt. Nicht so günstig für viele Motive, hier aber ideal :)
Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde, kommt gut durch die bevorstehende Hitzewelle!
While on a walkabout on the back streets of Porto, Portugal, I met this little cat who was obviously hoping for some assistance.
"The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don't wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope. ~ Barack Obama
#MacroMondays
#Pins
I knew early on what would be my subject for the "Pins" theme: pins on an old motherboard. For my "Modern Times" style image for the MM theme "cogwheel" back in 2018 (please see the second comment) I'd wanted a circuit board as background, but didn't have one at hand. So I went to a very small computer shop around the corner and asked if they had an old, useless circuit board lying around – they had, and I got it for free. To carry it home, however, was a spiky affair. I'd thought that I'd simply put the mainboard under my arm, but I hadn't been aware that there are so many tiny, super spiky-prickly-sharp pins on a mainboard ;) So in the end I held it – in turns – at the sides (gingerly) or at the ports that would have been at the back of the computer chassis. A lasting memory, as it seems ;)
I've photographed the undersides of a row of connector pins that are plugged onto the edge of the mainboard. Each of them is 1 mm / 0,03 inches long. I've used both extension tubes (10mm/16mm) and the Raynox DCR-250 close-up lens to get as close to the pins as possible. For the yellow/golden light I've used a yellow, semi-translucent cap of a soap bottle that fits so nicely onto the LED lamp's head. I was surprised that the pins looked so soft(-ish), and with the smooth, minimalist bokeh and the background colour (apparently the living room wall, because I hadn't put anything behind the mainboard) the final result reminded me of a corps de ballet or a chorus line. Or of chess pawns, but I prefer the aforementioned idea that these are dancers on an opera stage.
HMM, Everyone! Stay safe and healthy, and have a pleasant week ahead :)
Ich wusste schon frühzeitig (was nicht allzu oft vorkommt), was ich für das aktuelle MM-Thema machen wollte: "Pins" / Steckstifte auf einer alten Hauptplatine. Diese Platine hatte ich mir mal als Hintergrund für mein an "Modern Times" angelehntes Foto für das "Cogwheel"-Thema (September 2018, Ihr findet das Foto im 2. Kommentar) bei einer kleinen Computer-Bude bei mir um die Ecke besorgt. Das Nachhausetragen war dann eine stachelige Angelegenheit, denn ich hatte nicht an die doch sehr vielen, so kleinen wie nadelspitzen Steckstifte / Lötstifte / Verbindungsstifte und das andere spitze Zeugs, mit dem so eine Platine bestückt ist, gedacht. Unter den Arm klemmen war also nicht – und diese "Fasse-die-Platine-dort-an-wo-es-mal-nicht-pikt"-Erfahrung war dann offenbar doch so nachhaltig, dass ich mich gleich daran erinnert habe, als ich las, was das heutige Thema sein würde ;)
Ich habe hier beide Zwischenringe (10mm/16mm) und die Raynox-DCR-250-Makrolinse verwendet, um so nah wie möglich an die Reihe von Verbindungsstiften heranzukommen. Fotografiert habe ich deren Unterseite, mit gelb-goldenem Licht von der Seite, für das ich den halbtransparenten, gelben Schraubverschluss einer Spüliflasche auf den Kopf der LED-Lampe gesteckt habe (er passt wie dafür gemacht). Die Hintergrundfarbe kommt offenbar von der Wohnzimmerwand, da ich nichts hinter die Platine gestellt hatte. Das Resultat sieht überraschend luftig-leicht (für Technik) aus, finde ich. Die "Hütchen" erinnern mich durchaus ein wenig an Bauern auf einem Schachbrett, noch viel mehr erinnern sie mich aber an ein Corps de Ballet.
Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne Sommerwoche, liebe Flickr-Freunde. Und auch wenn die Inzidenzwerte momentan niedrig sind: Passt gut auf Euch auf!
#macromondays
#open
#Shocktober
Mr. Croc at the dentist('s) 😉 And who likes to see the dentist...
This is Mr. Croc's second appearance on Flickr, you can find the first one in the first comment. Mr. Croc is a Schleich figurine, and unlike most Schleich figurines that are just that, figurines without any moving parts, Mr. Croc's mouth is openable. So this was an easy choice for the "Open" theme, especially when it's Shocktober as well ;) I'll leave it up to you to decide whether the rather unenviable dentist ("You had one job!") is James who went missing in Mr. Croc's first adventure. But what is sure is that he's an H0/1:87 figurine used in scale modeling scenes. I picked him up used along with other H0 model railway figures from the spare parts box of a shop that is specialized in rare second-hand scale modeling supplies – a real treasure trove.
With a width of 4,5 cm/1,7 inches the frame is a little on the bigger side. This final image is the result of another in-camera focus stacking. Light sources were one LED light from the left, and my small LED flashlight handheld from above/behind the scene. To block out any daylight I've again used a small black cardboard box and a black tile as "stage", and I've also wrapped black velvet foil around the scene so that I'd still be able to illuminate the scene from behind.
HMM, Everyone, and have a nice week ahead!
Wer geht schon gerne zum Zahnarzt...
Dies ist Mr. Crocs zweiter Auftritt bei Flickr, sein erstes Abenteuer findet Ihr im ersten Kommentar. Mr. Croc ist eine Schleich-Figur, die, anders als die meisten Schleich-Figuren, die keine beweglichen Teile haben, ein Maul hat, das sich öffnen und das sich – wie ich angesichts der nicht ganz ungefährlichen Lage, in der sich der wenig beneidenswerte "Zahnarzt" hier befindet, anmerken muss – leider auch wieder schließen lässt. Perfekt also für das "Open"-Thema.
Die Entscheidung, ob es sich hier um James handelt, der in Mr. Crocs erstem Abenteuer an ganz ähnlicher Stelle "abhanden" kam, überlasse ich Euch. Unwahrscheinlich ist es nicht, aber da das Thema ja "offen" ist, können wir auf ein Happy End hoffen ;)
Ich wünsche Euch eine schöne erste Oktober-Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde!
When the Romans ruled Hispania, this stadium at Italica, Spain seated throngs of people. if you listen with your imagination, you can almost hear the crowd.
"The great eventful Present hides the Past; but through the din
Of its loud life hints and echoes from the life behind steal in."
-- John Greenleaf Whittier
#sliderssunday
Explored November 15, 2020
Before I continue my casual series of the Berlin Olympic Stadium, here's another photo from my visit to the Olympic Village of 1936 with 3-day-beard / 3-tage-bart, bananahh, and magritknapp.
Heavily (over-)processed for Sliders Sunday. It shows the Olympic Village's gym. I wish it were possible to re-visit the Olympic Village (or what is left of it) with a tripod and a wider lens, but guided tours have been discontinued in 2020 – not because of the Corona/Covid-19 situation, but because the site of the Olympic Village is under (re-)construction as a housing area called "G.O.L.D. Gartenstadt Olympisches Dorf von 1936®" ("Gold Garden City Olympic Village of 1936"). So actually we were very, very lucky to still have gotten hold of a tour back in September 2018 – a once-in-a-lifetime photographic opportunity. It also means that I have to make do with the photographic yield achieved mostly with my little Lumix LX100 (and without a tripod, because I thought that I couldn't bring one – a stupid mistake).
In 2018 the Lumix had still been new and I hadn't figured out all the functions properly, yet (well, I still haven't); this image would have definitely benefited from the use of the HDR bracketing mode, but it simply hadn't been on my radar back then. So this image also was the ultimate test for the new DxO Photo Lab 4: an image with obvious flaws such as lots of noise and mushy details. DxO PL 4 has a new AI de-noising technology called "Deep Prime" (which only works with RAW files, so make sure to process the file in DxO first before you export it to LR). And I must say that I'm quite impressed. Since this image is obviously more about atmosphere than image quality I also added a subtle HDR look in HDR Efex (preset "End of the road" tweaked to my liking and blended in with the original file in PS at 79 % opacity); I like the soft glow and slightly painterly look HDR Efex added to it. I hope you like it, too, and that you can forgive the poor all-over image quality :)
And speaking of atmosphere: The photo board in the background displays original images from the Olympic Summer Games of 1936 – and the image on the far right is a portrait of Jesse Owens, the athlete who dominated the games of '36. This, the lifetime friendship he had built with German long jumper Luz Long (Long was fatally injured during WWII in 1943, but the Owens and Long families have stayed in contact to this day), and the fact Jesse Owens also was the undisputed crowd favourite, publicly reduced the ugly racist ideology of the Nazi regime to absurdity – alas, as we all know, only for those two summer weeks of 1936...
Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone, have a safe and healthy new week ahead, dear Flickr friends, and take care!
Bevor es mit meiner losen Serie von Berliner Olympiastadion weitergeht, streue ich für den Sliders Sunday ein weiteres Foto vom Olympischen Dorf in Elstal ein. Da die (geführten) Touren dort leider eingestellt wurden (nicht etwa wegen der Corona-Situation, sondern weil mittlerweile die Bauarbeiten für die neue Wohnanlage "G.O.L.D. Gartenstadt Olympisches Dorf von 1936®" weiter fortgeschritten sind), war der Besuch dort (zusammen mit 3-day-beard / 3-tage-bart, bananahh, and magritknapp) tatsächlich eine einmalige fotografische Gelegenheit – und das bedeutet auch, dass ich mit den Fotos vorliebnehmen muss, die ich damals überwiegend mit meiner kleinen Lumix LX100 (und blöderweise ohne Stativ, weil ich dachte, ich dürfte keins mitbringen) gemacht habe.
Insbesondere diese Aufnahme hätte sicher von der Verwendung des HDR-Belichtungsreihen-Modus profitiert, aber da die Kamera damals noch recht neu war, hatte ich diese Feinheiten noch nicht auf dem Schirm gehabt. Das Resultat ist, insbesondere hier, sicher eindeutig mehr unter Atmosphäre denn unter Bildqualität einzuordnen. Eine Einzelaufnahme, bei der aufgrund der schwierigen Lichtverhältnisse in der Turnhalle des Olympischen Dorfes die dunklen Bereiche nach dem Aufhellen reichlich verrauscht sowie nur noch mit spärlichen Details versehen waren. Da konnte sich dann gleich mal das gerade erschienene DxO Photo Lab 4 beweisen. Und ich finde, das Resultat kann sich durchaus sehen lassen, wenn man ein Auge zudrückt ;) DxO hat das brandneue KI-Entrauschungstool "Deep Prime" an Bord, das tatsächlich mit zu dem Besten zählt, was es momentan in diesem Bereich gibt (wie z.B. Topaz DeNoise AI, das auch hervorragende Arbeit leistet, aber DxO legt hier noch einmal eine Schippe drauf). "Deep Prime" funktioniert übrigens nur mit den originalen RAW-Dateien, sodass man den Workflow entsprechend anpassen muss: Die (Vor-)Entwicklung in DxO muss der erste Schritt sein, erst danach kann man z.B. in LR oder anderen Programmen weitermachen.
Hier habe ich das Foto nach den grundlegenden Anpassungen nur noch in HDR Efex nachberabeitet, ausgehend vom Preset "Ende der Straße" (zu finden unter "Surreal"), das ich noch angepasst habe und anschließend mit dem Originalbild in PS mit 79 % Deckkraft überblendet habe. Also, wie gesagt, seid bitte bzgl. Bildqualität / Details / Schärfe dieses Mal nicht ganz so streng :)
Apropos Atmosphäre: Die Fotowand im Hintergrund zeigt Originalbilder der Spiele von 1936 – und ganz rechts seht Ihr ein Portrait von Jesse Owens, dem unangefochtenen Star der Spiele. Die sportliche Überlegenheit Jesse Owens', die Freundschaft mit dem deutschen Weitsprung-Star Luz Long (die übrigens bis heute von beiden Familien gepflegt wird, auch wenn Long bereits 1943 im Krieg tödlich verwundet wurde) sowie die Tatsache, dass Owens der absolute Publikumsliebling war, führten damals die hässliche Nazi-Rassentheorie öffentlich ad absurdum. Aber, wie wir alle wissen, leider nur während jener zwei Wochen im Sommer 1936...
Ich wünsche Euch einen guten Start in die neue Woche, passt auf Euch auf und bleibt gesund!
...Next to Your Fire
#MacroMonday
#MacroTrash
Please press "Z".
Not the most original take on "Macro Trash", I know, but the best "trash image" I was able to take today. Since in many countries an Easter fire also is a century-old tradition, a burnt match head might even be an appropriate "match" for Easter Monday.
The striking surface of the matchbox didn't work any more, I broke the match in half while trying to light it on the striking surface, so I thought I'd light it with a lighter and nearly scorched my thumb, but I was able to pull my hand back fast enough ;) Don't play with fire at home...
I've used the extension tubes (10 and 26mm) and the Raynox DCR-250 to get as close to the match head as possible. The image is an in-camera focus stacking made of 15 images, processed in DXO PhotoLab 4 and Analog Efex (Vignette and Film type "Warm").
Happy Macro and Easter Monday, Everyone!
11 exposures stacked median in Photoshop, each between 5-20 seconds, totaling about 2 minutes, then blended with a darker exposure sky.
This was blue hour just before it became pitch dark with freezing temperatures around 28F (-2C).
Samyang 12mm manual focus lens.
Thank you very much for your kind comments and faves.
Explored April 23, 2022
#900
#sliderssunday
Laowa C-Dreamer 7.5 mm F/2
My 900th photo upload on Flickr :) I stumbled upon this interior photo of the Reichstag dome while flipping through my photo folders in search of a photo that might be a worthy No. 900. Back then the Laowa 7.5 mm F/2 prime lens had been my widest lens. Now that the dome is open to the public again, I can't wait to plan another visit, and this time I will bring the M.Zuiko 7-14 wide-angle zoom along. The dome isn't easy to photograph, and I'm curious if 7 mm is that much wider compared to 7.5 mm in an interior setting and whether I will benefit from the extra flexibility a zoom lens offers.
Processing-wise, this is a slider already for Sunday. Back in 2019 I still had not been used to doing exposure bracketing regularly, so the original RAW file had been a little on the dark side. To reproduce the open, airy atmosphere of the Reichstag dome, I went both into Color Efex and Luminar Neo and individually processed the RAW file using the high-key filters of both programmes. The final result is a combination of the Color Efex and the Luminar Neo image done by blending in the layers in PS. I hope you like it.
Mein 900. Foto auf Flickr :) Anlässlich dieses "Jubiläums" habe ich meine Foto-Ordner nach einem Bild durchsucht, dass der Nr. 900 würdig ist, ich hoffe, ich habe das richtige Foto gewählt. Die Reichstagskuppel ist gar nicht so einfach zu fotografieren. Bei meinem Besuch 2019 hatte ich mein damals weitestes Objektiv dabei, das Laowa 7.5 F/2, eine Festbrennweite. Da die Kuppel erfreulicherweise endlich wieder geöffnet ist, werde ich wohl bald einen weiteren Besuch planen – und dieses Mal wird das M.Zuiko 7-14 mit von der Partie sein. Ich bin schon gespannt, ob der halbe Millimeter mehr am weiten Ende in Innenräumen wirklich einen so großen Unterschied macht. Und ich hoffe, von der Flexibilät des Zooms zu profitieren.
Bearbeitungstechnisch ist das eigentlich schon ein Slider für Sonntag. Ich hatte damals noch nicht regelmäßig daran gedacht, bei schwierigen Lichtverhältnissen Belichtungsreihen zu machen und so war die RAW-Datei ein wenig zu dunkel geraten. Um die luftig-leichte Atmosphäre im Innern der Kuppel wiederzugeben, habe ich mich hier also an einer kleinen High-Key-Spielerei versucht, und zwar sowohl in Color Efex als auch in Luminar Neo. Beide Bilder habe ich dann in PS miteinander kombiniert. Das Endergebnis seht Ihr hier, ich hoffe, es gefällt Euch.
#roseate_spoonbill #florida_birds #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #sonyalpha #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobeLR&PS #nikcollection