365.130 ce n’est pas une peinture

If not for that bit of lens flare in the lower right, this could quite easily be a painting, or even a pastel sketch… Granted, this isn’t straight out of the camera, but it’s not very heavily processed either:

Aperture’s built-in RAW conversion
Exposure +.44
Black Point +2.43
Brightness +.06
Contrast +.12
Definition +.57
Saturation +.04
Vibrancy +.28
and some rather minor adjustments to levels.

So nothing crazy, no outside image editors, no plugins, nothing. Just pure, unadulterated digital macro photography. But peep the delicate handling of the colors, the soft feathering of edges, the texture that seems to lie under everything.

Fun stuff.

And speaking of fun, two things: 1) I’m reading Dune (thanks to 365.126) and thoroughly enjoying both it and the act of just simply sitting and reading fiction, something I haven’t done in quite some time. I’m afraid I’ve lost some patience and focus, what with all the internet usage I’ve been into for the past years, and I hope some simple reading will help me regain some of that. And 2) Yesterday, I mentioned fantasizing about creating book covers or something. Late last night, I had a though: why not illustrate an entire book? I haven’t started yet, but I think that this idea might form the basis for a long-term photographic project.

Good times.

D7000. Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5, reversed. ISO100, 1/4 sec., f/3.5, -1EV. (further adjustments noted above).

365.129 …at daybreak

I gave up on trying to create a panorama out of images like this… The 2009 13″ mbp is just not up to the task of creating 19,000×13,000px images. Actually, it will create the empty file with relative ease, but each image takes about 4 minutes of frozen computer to appear in the file, and just forget about moving them around at all.

I could probably convert to jpg and shrink down in Aperture, but I want to be able to do some post work after I assemble the panorama… maybe convert to tiff and shrink to 25% or something. I guess I’ll try that.

In the mean time, enjoy this one.

D7000. Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G, reversed and stacked on ~100mm extension. ISO100, 1/160, f/1.8, SB-700 at 1/64th hard camera right, about 1 inch from the subject, and triggered via a pair of Cactus v5 triggers.

365.128 Attack of the Fremen

(I’ll pick up a copy of the book this weekend…)

I’m suddenly having fantasies of becoming a creator of book covers for sci-fi novels, specializing in apocalyptic/bleak future sorts of things, but capable of pulling off some fantasy-appropriate imagery as required…

This is strange, as my fantasies of possible futures are generally less fantastic.

I’m going to have to find a way to create some panoramas out of these… maybe its time to look into the pano-creation abilities of CS6, or maybe I should just spend a few hours reading tutorials and playing around with 5.1 until I get it down, as the last several 365 shots would benefit from a half-again larger field of view.

D7000. Zomb-E Series, extended by 104mm. ISO100, 4 seconds, f/8. Minor adjustments in aperture.

365.127 Apocalyptic, perhaps

Another Macro shot of the Collier Kaleidoscope, and another day where I have very little to say about this particular shot.

One thing that did cause some photographic consternation today (and the bulk of the day was rather consternating… I’m not sure why, but it’s drawing to a close, so gogo): Photoshop CS5.5’s inability to photomerge abstract images like this.

I took a set of 20 shots, fed them into Photomerge, and got the ‘some images could not be merged’ message. Some were pretty much solid grey, so I omitted those and tried again with 10 images: Fail. Ommited the ones that were mostly a gradient, and tried again with 6 images: Fail. Tried with 4 shots: Fail. Tried with 2: Fail. Maybe CS6 will get a bit smarter…

This shot wasn’t a part of the panorama, but it’s representative of the most complex images in the lot, but Ps5.1 couldn’t do anything with them. I tried to arrange them by hand, but Ps wouldn’t show me where I was moving the individual frames (this may be due to the relative age of my aging mbp, I guess).

Frustrating.

But I got this one, so go me, I guess.

D7000. EL-Nikkor 50mm f/2.8, stacked on 104mm extension. ISO100, 1/4, f/2.8, minor levels adjustments in Aperture.

365.126 Otherworldly

I went to Wikipedia and looked up the various planets referenced in the _Dune_ series, didn’t find any that made reference to multiple suns, realized that, having never read any of the novels, and not seen the film since 1995 or 1996, that I’m not anywhere near Geek enough to reference an obscure Dune planet in the title of today’s 365 image. I thought of calling it Tatooine, but that would just be too hackneyed.

Anyway.

We have a new entry in the macro family today, and other than the inability to change the aperture at will, it’s a brilliant performer, much like in ordinary usage. And I’m thankful that the newer versions of the Fotodiox extension tubes have a little prong in them to hold open the aperture on those new lenses with no aperture ring, otherwise the nifty fifty would’ve sat on the shelf for yet another day…

D7000. Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G. ISO800, 1/40th, f/1.8. Very slight adjustments in Aperture, not even enough to mention, really.

365.125 Chrysalis

Uninspired, again. I really just didn’t feel like shooting today. Work has been a bit more wearying than usual of late, so that might have something to do with it, I guess. At least I’m over the brisket craving, though. I guess there was something in those nasty vegan sausages that filled the hole for awhile. I need to figure out what that something is, so I can avoid a repeat: yesterday was rough.

So I started to go walking, but thought better of it. Hooked up the Zomb-E series and started shooting some paint splatters, but I wanted to get closer and less artsy, so out came the 104mm extension tubes and reversing ring, and on went the 24mm, but that was too close for the paint splatters, so I went back to the kaleidoscope, and fetched this beauty in two or three shots.

GoGo.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8, reversed and stacked on 104mm extension. ISO800, 1/8th (AP Mode), f/2.8 (ignore the EXIF: it’s lying to you because I forgot to change the settings when I changed the lens…). Processed rather heavily, all in Aperture.

365.124 they’re here…

And not much to say about this one. I’m having significant cravings for brisket—especially the crunchy bits on the edges—that are as bad as the withdrawal on the second day without cigarettes: shaking, sweating, bargaining, etc. I tried to fool myself with some vegan sausages, but I stopped eating meat because I stopped liking meat, and so the supposed-to-taste-like-but-really-aren’t are not in the least bit appealing, and the sausages were actually rather nasty, though they did take the edge off. But I still want brisket, specifically brisket tacos made with only the crunchy/chewy edge bits of the brisket.

FYI: I’ve been vegetarian for 10 months, and this is the first time I’ve felt anything like this. It’s very strange and very disconcerting. If you have any ideas, please to pass them on.

So this was a shot made largely in desperation. And it was frame number 5 of a 5 shot session. I chimped and knew this was it.

To be honest, I’m a bit ashamed that I’m back to making abstract macro pictures instead of pushing myself to get out and learn some new things. But given the ridiculous cravings I’m very seriously struggling through, I’m actually surprised I even thought to make a picture today.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 (@f/11), reversed and stacked on the Vivitar 70-210mm f/3.5 (at 210mm and f/3.5). ISO800, 4 seconds (AP mode). Rather heavily processed in Aperture.