[HellwratH]

Originally Posted by clevermax

Sure! By the way, colorful flower pictures from the Flower macro specialist!

One shot from a Tulips field near Kuekenhof gardens, Holland.

Hey, thanks buddy. I am no specialist though, just trying to improve in anyway possible . BTW, have you tried a telephoto for the tulip gardens? You'll get a nice compressed pattern for sure.

Originally Posted by W.A.G.7

The blue macro is simply amazing! Which lens was this?

Thanks! That was shot with a Nex-5N and Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm f2.8 lens. That lens is definitely my go to macro lens these days. But, more than the lens, I think exposing to the right (by about a stop) helped me bring out the tones and later compensate for it in PP.

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Here's few from drive to Treasure Island, CA.

Good stuff but the yellow looks a bit un-natural to me. Did you try hiking up next to the bridge there and taking a city scape? I wanted to do it one time, but my sister's family was with me, so didn't get around to doing it.

Originally Posted by Torqueguru

A fiery Sunset at Port Orchard, WA.

Regards,
TG.

Ah, very nice TG. I like the way bird balances out the person on the bridge. And good to see you do UWA perspectives after a while .

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by HellwratH

Good stuff but the yellow looks a bit un-natural to me. Did you try hiking up next to the bridge there and taking a city scape? I wanted to do it one time, but my sister's family was with me, so didn't get around to doing it.

Agree about the yellow color. I wasn't really going for natural look, more for wallpaper-look. I didn't get to hike on the bridge. Probably next time.

Here's a toned-down-yellow version for you.



And a skyline before sunset -

[HellwratH]

Nice! I like these much better. It could be my work monitor, but I think you can use curves tool to improve the midtone contrast a bit more in the second one.

[sidkun]

A few pictures I recently took, from different places in India




A villager leads his camel off into the desert near Tanot

A shepherd is bathed in golden sunlight on the border of Bikaner

Sunset near Vadodara

Jaisalmer fort

Road to nowhere - vehicle tracks preserved in the white desert of Dhordo, Great Rann of Kutch, Gujarat

[bluevolt]

How can I focus on complete remote control and not on a particular area of a product? Same is the case with other photo. I used manual focus and tried to bring complete subject into focus but somehow I managed to get only a portion into sharp focus like in remote's pic middle portion is in focus and not the lower portion where Panasonic is written. Tried with autofocus only but same results. I am also not happy with picture's sharpness. Is it OK?

Camera is D3100, stock lens and shot @50mm, ISO 100 without flash.

Where I am missing?

PS - Is it fine/legal to use company's logo on their products photographs provided such photos are not used in any commercial activities?

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by HellwratH

Nice! I like these much better. It could be my work monitor, but I think you can use curves tool to improve the midtone contrast a bit more in the second one.

Thanks. I've never used curves in Lightroom. Just tried changing the curve from linear to medium and it did improve midtone contrast. I should use it more often.

Originally Posted by sidkun

A few pictures I recently took, from different places in India

Beautiful compositions. I like the processing.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

How can I focus on complete remote control and not on a particular area of a product? Same is the case with other photo. I used manual focus and tried to bring complete subject into focus but somehow I managed to get only a portion into sharp focus like in remote's pic middle portion is in focus and not the lower portion where Panasonic is written. Tried with autofocus only but same results. I am also not happy with picture's sharpness. Is it OK?

Camera is D3100, stock lens and shot @50mm, ISO 100 without flash.

Where I am missing?

The term to get used to is Depth of Field. This is the definition from wikipedia - "depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image."

It depends on the aperture used in the lens. Larger aperture (small f number) = shallow DOF. That's what you've got here. You can try with smaller apertures to get more in focus. Just google depth of field and you'll find lot of reading material.

[navin_bhp]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Stunning photos Navin. Specially the tulips. Which lens did you use?

Here's few from drive to Treasure Island, CA.

Attachment 1101383

Thanks Gandhi. I used 24-70 and 100mm IS for these.
The toned down version of your pic looks much better.

Originally Posted by Samurai

I have been watching this thread for 8 years now. I have to say that the quality of the pics on this thread has been steadily going up, especially the contributions of the regulars. Great job, all of you.

PS: Those tulip shots are truly outstanding Navin.

Thanks Samurai.

Originally Posted by nilanjanray

Loved the Tulips, but this shot conveys the atmosphere of the place really well!

Agree with you. I really enjoyed being there.

Originally Posted by clevermax

Thanks!!

Lovely shots! The flower fields were so vast that I didn't feel like focusing on only one flower, so no closeups from my side...

Spent another day inside the gardens. It was amazing.

Thanks

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

How can I focus on complete remote control and not on a particular area of a product? Same is the case with other photo. I used manual focus and tried to bring complete subject into focus but somehow I managed to get only a portion into sharp focus like in remote's pic middle portion is in focus and not the lower portion where Panasonic is written. Tried with autofocus only but same results. I am also not happy with picture's sharpness. Is it OK?

Camera is D3100, stock lens and shot @50mm, ISO 100 without flash.

Where I am missing?

PS - Is it fine/legal to use company's logo on their products photographs provided such photos are not used in any commercial activities?

Attachment 1101958

Attachment 1101959

Originally Posted by Gandhi

The term to get used to is Depth of Field. This is the definition from wikipedia - "depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image."

It depends on the aperture used in the lens. Larger aperture (small f number) = shallow DOF. That's what you've got here. You can try with smaller apertures to get more in focus. Just google depth of field and you'll find lot of reading material.

in these situations, forget about DOF calculations and just do focus stacking. you will get all your subject in focus and the rest unfocused. narrowing down aperture will only spoil the background.

here is an example from me, posted earlier in this thread:



This is taken with aperture wide open but I had taken few shots by advancing the focus from nearest portion of the subject till the farthest, and stacked them up in PS. You can see that the DOF is unusually wide that it covers all parts of the lens sitting close by, but the background is just bokeh.

you can get details on how many shots to take, what aperture to be used etc, from internet. Super macro photographers usually use this technique to achieve some good amount of DOF, which is otherwise difficult to get within a single shot at such higher magnification levels.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by clevermax

in these situations, forget about DOF calculations and just do focus stacking. you will get all your subject in focus and the rest unfocused. narrowing down aperture will only spoil the background.

This is one which I am trying to get. Other than PS I dont see any other focus stacking solution. There is one and its very costly. Why no PS? Because I am on Aperture. Any suggestions?

[clevermax]

Originally Posted by ampere

This is one which I am trying to get. Other than PS I dont see any other focus stacking solution. There is one and its very costly. Why no PS? Because I am on Aperture. Any suggestions?

You can also use a software called CombineZ. I don't know what professionals use to create stacked images for product advertisements and so on.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

Camera is D3100, stock lens and shot @50mm, ISO 100 without flash.

You didn't mention the f stop. That is the reason for partial focus. Try aperture priority mode at f/8 or f/9.

Originally Posted by clevermax

in these situations, forget about DOF calculations and just do focus stacking. you will get all your subject in focus and the rest unfocused. narrowing down aperture will only spoil the background.

Although good, I guess, it would be a bit tedious for this application. The background here is completely white, so just shooting at f/8, f/9 should get him the desired result.

EDIT: Awesome result that, btw

[Gandhi]

Originally Posted by clevermax

in these situations, forget about DOF calculations and just do focus stacking. you will get all your subject in focus and the rest unfocused. narrowing down aperture will only spoil the background.

My response was to generic question "how to get more of subject in focus" rather than how to do that for the particular image he posted.

Of course focus stacking is arguably the best option for product photography. But I still believe knowledge of DOF is important for focus stacking too. One doesn't have to do the DOF calculations but understanding what impacts DOF and how to control it is important IMHO. Not only for macro photography, but for any kind in general say portrait, wildlife, even landscape.

I would put focus stacking in one of the advanced concepts of photography and wouldn't suggest that to beginners even before they get grasp on basics of photography.

BTW I'm a fan of your focus stacked macros, specially the insects.

[bluevolt]

Thanks all, I got to know what I was missing - basic photography knowledge

I will come back with better results next time.

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

You didn't mention the f stop. That is the reason for partial focus. Try aperture priority mode at f/8 or f/9.

f/5.3 and 1/25 sec.

[Torqueguru]

Originally Posted by Gandhi

Agree about the yellow color. I wasn't really going for natural look, more for wallpaper-look. I didn't get to hike on the bridge. Probably next time.

Here's a toned-down-yellow version for you.

Attachment 1101909

And a skyline before sunset -

Attachment 1101910

Great shots Gandhi. I especially liked the one with the ship.

Originally Posted by sidkun

A few pictures I recently took, from different places in India




A villager leads his camel off into the desert near Tanot

A shepherd is bathed in golden sunlight on the border of Bikaner

Sunset near Vadodara

Jaisalmer fort

Road to nowhere - vehicle tracks preserved in the white desert of Dhordo, Great Rann of Kutch, Gujarat

A lot of mood in your work. Great going Sidkun.


@Hellwrath
Yeah, just back to shooting some landscapes again. More to follow.
Here are some portrait oriented landscape photographs, that I shot at Nisqually, Washington.





Regards,
TG.

[Torqueguru]

Originally Posted by nilanjanray

Loved the Tulips, but this shot conveys the atmosphere of the place really well!



Thanks. Great shot!

Do the US-based folks have more time for photography?

Haha, I do, because I now run my photography business And also, I work in the video game industry as an artist, so taking photos and studying environments and doing cinematography, is pretty much part of my everyday work. So yes I sure have all the time in the world for photography!