simply green..

[trog100]

450mm 1/180 of a second F22 with fill flash ISO 200

trog

[Chunk]

This is a nice monochrome of the repeating pattern of leaves but is way dark. I like it better with the following levels adjustment, giving a much wider range of values.
I'd also suggest a vertical framing although a square crop from just outside that leftmost spike works pretty nice.

[Greg McCary]

I like this one, a touch to dark, but a good subject and framed well...
Greg

[Loupey]

Your shooting specs indicate that your flash was set too high. You can see this by the shadow created and overall darkness in the background.

In a majority of situations in nature, fill flash should be just fill - not main. To bring up the background, first meter on the ambient light then adjust the flash output from -3 to -1 EV of that value to give a hint of extra light to the foreground/shadows while keeping the background exposure balanced for ambient.

[trog100]

the shot isnt what it seems.. it might look like an attempt to take picture of a normal size pot plant but it isnt..

the plant itself is a small weed or patch of weed growning on my lawn.. it is less than 1/2 an inch across in size at maximum..



the idea was to turn a simple part of my lawn into something that could have well come out of the amazonian jungle.. it was a follow up to my green on black shot..

u will have to forgive me for not following the normal rules..

trog

ps.. the original fullframe shot..

[trog100]

somwhere in my not exactly awe inspiring and now correctly exposed lawn lies the amazonian jungle.. if u look close enough..

or am i loseing the plot.. he he he



trog

ps.. and it hasnt been anywhere near photoshop.. he he

[Overbeyond]

450mm 1/180 of a second F22 with fill flash ISO 200

trog

Simply green; simply nice. But it does need a lift.

[trog100]

yes.. all my pics suffer from my dislike of post processing.. but its just my idea of photography.. i try and get what i can from the camera simply useing the camera..

in the days of excessive post processing and cropping small chunks out of larger images it kinda leaves me at a disadvantage.. he he

what i think is good result from a camera pales into insigificance compared to the wonders of photoshop..

what it really needs is putting back to its original size and viewing from my widescreen lcd monitor.. it looks simply green.. exotically so in fact.. and gets its lift from being its intended size and colour.. he he

sadly downsized cropped and probably viewed on a laptop screen its wasted.. a small crop easily taken from a larger mediocre easily obtained image would do just as well..

trog

[Loupey]

Trog, with digital "film" one requires digital "processing" to bring back the vibrancy that was there originally.

Even with traditional film, one used traditional darkroom techniques to create quality enlargements.

I'm not sure about yours, but my camera is stupid. I tell it exactly what to do and it produces an image it thinks I asked it to take. And it is never how the real subject looked like. It's up to me to make it look like how I remember it

[trog100]

yes but i ask my camera to produce something i couldnt see and in this instance it obliged.. it dosnt always but in this case it did..

mind u in this post processing photshop age.. folks probably see what photoshop can produce.. i try and work within the limitations of my camera..

i will use a simple analogy.. take the pro photog with his big lens and his pro skill.. he picks his moment and captures the ball player just at the right moment.. thats photography..

take a guy with a sharp 50mm lens stuck on a high mega pixel count camera.. he vaguely points it at the field in general and takes his shot.. he then crops out the best player out of a whole bunch in his 50mm image.. gives it the photoshop treatment and presents it as a photograph..

its an "image" and it might look good small size but somehow i dont think its a photograph.. i also think it demeans the whole art and skill of photogrpahy..

"photo critique".. or "image critique" skill as a photographer or skill as a graphics artist.. a line does have to be drawn somewhere.. things have changed a lot in the three years i have been away from this forum.. he he he

it seems most folks here dont "critique" "photos" they critique images.. how those images are arrived at dosnt seem to matter.. its all about what the eye imagines and what photoshop can produce..

whatever happend to the art of photography..???

trog

ps.. i am not stick in the days of film by the way.. i never used the stuff much it was too expensive and too much trouble..

[readingr]

yes but i ask my camera to produce something i couldnt see and in this instance it obliged.. it dosnt always but in this case it did..

mind u in this post processing photshop age.. folks probably see what photoshop can produce.. i try and work within the limitations of my camera..

i will use a simple analogy.. take the pro photog with his big lens and his pro skill.. he picks his moment and captures the ball player just at the right moment.. thats photography..

take a guy with a sharp 50mm lens stuck on a high mega pixel count camera.. he vaguely points it at the field in general and takes his shot.. he then crops out the best player out of a whole bunch in his 50mm image.. gives it the photoshop treatment and presents it as a photograph..

its an "image" and it might look good small size but somehow i dont think its a photograph.. i also think it demeans the whole art and skill of photogrpahy..

"photo critique".. or "image critique" skill as a photographer or skill as a graphics artist.. a line does have to be drawn somewhere.. things have changed a lot in the three years i have been away from this forum.. he he he

it seems most folks here dont "critique" "photos" they critique images.. how those images are arrived at dosnt seem to matter.. its all about what the eye imagines and what photoshop can produce..

whatever happend to the art of photography..???

trog

ps.. i am not stick in the days of film by the way.. i never used the stuff much it was too expensive and too much trouble..

Trog

I am not sure I agree with all your statements.

As a an old chap I used to use film and always used to develop my own B&W and sometimes colour. During this process I used to dodge, burn, crop, cross process... So this is now equivallent to PS editing, which is a lot more powerful.

The art of photography is a combination of

• capturing and composing within the camera to capture the moment within the confines of the equipment you have,e.g. I used to predominently have a 50mm lens on the camera and then see and take a picture which I knew that it would be cropped to get what I wanted. This is because I had no time to change lens to the 200mm or whatever.

• And the post processing to get what you envisaged of the shot. It just means that today you can take loads of photos and pick the best one to edit at no cost (Thank god).

I only remember a small number of photos in 30 odd years which never got some form of post processing even in the film/slide days. Its just got easier and opened up to more people.

As for critique - I think this site shows that you can only critique the image in front of you as you never now or knew in the days of film how or what was done to get the image in front of the viewer. I remember merging two photos even 30 years ago to get the picture I wanted, they could have been in camera or in the darkroom.

To me this site shows that the art of photography is alive, kicking and growing and has been opened up to more people and for me that is a good thing.

Roger

[readingr]

Trog,

Sorry but this doesn't work for me. The plant doesn't pop in the photo and is competing with the background. If the background was straw colour,,,

Roger

[trog100]

roger.. to be honest.. nothing presented webcam size works for me.. i view my images on my 20 inch wide screen rather bright monitor..

i see a 16 x 11 inch image as the norm.. i judge real image quality (if in doubt) by a quick look full size.. i am pretty much looking at a yard wide image or a piece of a yard wide image..

the bottom line here is nobody can see the "simply green" image as i see it.. of course it dosnt work webcam size.. i should know better than to even think it might work with the wrong viewing medium..

also darkroom cheating was still cheating.. simply a more limitted form of it.. something most people didnt or couldnt do..

now the whole word is cheating and producing poor quality webcam sized images (small crops) with the help of photoshop and calling them photographs..

whilst i accept bandwidth as being a problem.. some of the images i see presented here are that small they could well have come from a cell phone.. the image quality (after photoshop) is so poor the postage stamp size is being used to hide the fact..

the simply green image will at least stand being printed large size.. its a real photograph.. but as u say presented webcam size it simply loses its impact.. and any technical merit it might have isnt even thought about.. its just "too dark" or cropped a little wrong.. he he he

trog

[Loupey]

This has been a very interesting discussion going on. Trog, you bring up good points that I’m sure others have been contemplating. Perhaps better to continue the discussion regarding your views on post processing in the Viewfinder or Digital Imaging forums to get more opinions.

As for your image, I’ve viewed it on 4 different monitors now and what I’m seeing isn’t different from my initial viewing/critique. I’m not being argumentative, but perhaps you should calibrate your monitor (or at least change it temporarily) to see how your image is being viewed on the www.

I kindly disagree about the size of the images here on PR masking the quality (or lack thereof) of the original image. Even at a mere 640 x 640, I can discern, on my own images, flaws that I had not originally detected. Besides, most images should be able to tell a story whether you are nose-to-a-poster or way across the office.

Thanks for sharing your views :thumbsup:

[Chunk]

To post an image for critique and then belittle the people who take the time to look at your image and make suggestions is rude and you've post it in the wrong place.
Since you are the only one who can define 'photograph' and everyone else is cheating you certainly should not expect us cheaters to be able to critique what you produce.
Sorry for wasting your time and mine by offering critique.
There's more that could be said but it doesn't belong on this forum.

[Greg McCary]

Trog, I once too felt, in a way, that PhotoShop and other post processeing software was in a way cheating, but here are some of the things that changed my way of thinking.
1. The camera itself does not see as much light as the human eye, changing f/stops, shutter speeds and lens just in itself is a munipulation of the final, out of camera, image. Double exposures, long shutters speeds and other techniques can be used that will totaly change the final out come of your subject. How many filters do you own? They too change the final out come of your image.
2. Different films as well, have different characteristics that can give the final image different looks and textures. Print, Slide, Black and White and even Infrared film all manufactored by different companies with different final results.
3. I started scanning some of my own slides and negatives and found out that by changing the scanners settings I could manipulate colors and exposures and give the final image a different look. Sometimes my scans would be totaly different from the labs that scanned them.
4. Read your history on Photography. Negatives and slides have been manpulated in the darkroom since the invention of the camera. You can bet the farm Ansel Adams had dark room techniques that made him what he was.
So is PhotoShop cheating? Maybe if you are documenting history. But to me photography is a form of art and expression. A perfect example is Gary Heller's last posted picture, Open Book, it reminded me of a happier time in my life and moved me emotionaly. I think like me in time you will think differently about photography, but I do understand and respect your opinion. The first rule of photography I learned was please yourself first and have fun....
Greg

[Overbeyond]

To post an image for critique and then belittle the people who take the time to look at your image and make suggestions is rude and you've post it in the wrong place.
Since you are the only one who can define 'photograph' and everyone else is cheating you certainly should not expect us cheaters to be able to critique what you produce.
Sorry for wasting your time and mine by offering critique.
There's more that could be said but it doesn't belong on this forum.

Chunk; you have just saved me the effort.
Tom

[gahspidy]

Trog, first off, I would agree with most of the comments about the image. The subject does not stand out well enough from the bg to hold my attention for long. The overall image is rather dark. Chunks suggestion for improvement sounds good. If it works for you though, thats fine. Btw, would you not say that viewing your image on a 20" brightly lit screen at a minumum of 11x16 is not "cheating" as well? I mean, a print is certainly not going to look like it does on your setup. Even if printed large, it will not have the benefit of powerful backlighting making it glow on screen.

But I think what your saying is that you like it because it is "true to form" Thats fine, but I think what your doing is closing yourself inside a box and have become frustrated with the restrictions you have created.

As Greg Said, I too believe photography is an art form of expression, in these digital days more than ever. I do not think there is such a thing as "cheating" in this arena, with the exception of photo journalism.
A professional sports photog who fires off bursts of shots at a player to capture that "Golden Moment" is merely utilizing the technology available to him/her. I do not think any of this is cheating at all. When I take a photo and release the shutter, for me, it is only the beginning. For you, it is the end. Thats ok, though. As they say, "to each his own"
If you put your image on the forum for critique, than you should be ready for criticism, as long as it is done respectfully, constructively, and with good intention, which I believe you have recieved a wealth of here.

[trog100]

"When I take a photo and release the shutter, for me, it is only the beginning. For you, it is the end"

that does come kinda close to it.. perhaps not quite the end but as near the end as i can get it..

its a question of degree.. at what point does photography stop and graphics artistry take over.. how much can a photograph be altered and it still be called a photograph as opposed to an "image"..

one example that even made "photograph of the week" springs to mind.. what appeared to be a nice panoramic view.. now to do this properly would have required a tripod.. at least three carefully taken shots which would then have to be stitched together.. okay still some graphics skills involved but mostly photographics skills.. all in all some achievement to do it properly and possessing some merit..

the easy way.. stand back and take one single wide angle shot and take a lettererbox crop across the middle.. the end result webcam size looks very similar.. the only merit.. the eye for a good "image".. no skill involved and not much at all going for it.. the fact that "this little chap" won the acclaim it did kinda boggled my mind.. a good "image" yes.. a good "photograph" certainly not..

i think i have said too much to continue to participate in this little forum.. i have not intended to offend anyone but probably have..

u have my apologies.. but i know i do have a valid point.. i perhaps chose the wrong time and place to make it..

trog

[gahspidy]

Trog, you do have valid points worthy certainly of further discussion, especially in these "new" times of photography. I think it would be a great idea to start a thread on the topic in the ViewFinder forum where you can state your case and carry on an in - depth , and healthy dialogue on the subject.
Lets keep this thread on the Critique Forum one that focuses on the particuliar photo that you have posted and what can be done to improve upon it. I do hope you stick around here. I remember comments that you have made on my own threads as well as others and valued them as well as your time.

[chrispycrunch]

450mm 1/180 of a second F22 with fill flash ISO 200

trog

The subject is lost in the background. Also, the exposure seems to be too dark for me. Given this was a macro shot, you needed far more light (try a wider aperture). The wider aperture will also blur out the surroundings which puts more focus on the subject.

[readingr]

"i think i have said too much to continue to participate in this little forum.. i have not intended to offend anyone but probably have..

u have my apologies.. but i know i do have a valid point.. i perhaps chose the wrong time and place to make it..

trog

Trog,

I don't accept your apology as you have nothing to apologise for.

I agree that you have valid points and so do others on here. As far as I'm concerned you haven't offended me and I presume no one else, and I think we would be loosing a valuable member if you leave.

I appreciate your photos but will always give feedback which is my own honest opinion and you can accept or disregard as you see fit. I will never intentionally offend but if I do please let me know.

Roger

[Greg McCary]

No offence here either Trog and I hope you hang around. We all have our definition of photography. I feel we can all be adults, get along and learn together. You would be hard pressed to find the wealth of knowledge in these forums anywhere else. I haven't been a member here but a few months and in that time I have seen photographers grow and improve very rapidly right here in these forums. I went from the worst flower pictures you have ever seen to featured photo last week. And in a very short time. I respect your opinions and welcome your critiques....
Greg

[livin4lax09]

Trog, while you do have some valid points, I always think back to a recent issue of popular photography that I was thumbing through in barnes and noble that contained a letter from a reader that echoed some of the same ideas that you are expressing. But alas, as another reader put it "is a manuscript more of a book because it was written by hand instead of typed on the computer?" The answer is no. Times change, and technologies change as well. What really matters is the final product, and how you decide you want to arrive at that final product is your own decision. Are you not using a digital camera? how about an automatic flash? Yes, both are being utilized, so in essence, this is "cheating" as well because you are no longer manually processing your own film nor are you manually controlling your output of light, you're running on automatic. What you are doing is arguing against the use of technology to better the results, yet at the same time you are using newer technology to get better photos in the first place. And how about the internal settings in your camera? What are the sharpness, contrast, and saturation settings? If they are anything other than neutral, then you are post processing the image already, in just a different form. And the fact is that DSLRs leave images soft, and they are MEANT to be post processed, and without it, you will not reach the pinnacle of the aesthetics of the image. Yes, there is talent in just "taking it as it is, and not changing it with photoshop," but you have to realize that most of the incredible images you see in magazines and newspapers have been photoshopped, and for a reason. It makes them more pleasing. Don't expect that to change any time soon, and if you don't want to be left behind, you will have to adapt and change with the times and technology, because without PP, your images won't go too far.

As far as the image goes, I echo everyone else's comments about the underexposure, sharpness, and it looks like it was highly compressed for web. It does not do much for me, because it lacks any real substance or vivid colors.

[trog100]

just a reply to chrispycrunch about his wider lense opening comment..

the problem with high magnification macros like this one isnt getting enough background blur its about getting a deep enough DOF to get most of the subject in focus..

with this one F22 is on the edge as regards depth of focus.. it also makes lighting difficult.. but the small lens opening is needed.. no way around that..

as u see from the 100% crop of the tip of the plant.. quiet a bit of the subect isnt in focus.. the overall distance from tip of plant to background is about one inch in total.. the dof or depth of focus in that shot is about one quarter inch..

the whole thing is a compromise between deep enough dof.. enough light.. and lens quality dropping of at F22 and smaller.. F32 or F43 would be better for dof but create ohther problems..

near miracles i can achieve real ones i cant quite manage..

as regards dslrs not being sharp.. mine is.. and i dont think i have said i am totally against a certain amount of post proccessing.. just excessive reliance on it.. especially to the point where it alters the very essence of the original shot.. the very small crop taken from a much larger image being the worse offender..

the 100% crop i post as a shallow dof example isnt a photograph.. just a peice of one..





trog