Hello Earthlings! It’s Friday and among many great things that Friday brings, here is the ABF Forum. Please visit Stacy Fischer’s blog Visual Venturing and enjoy some fabulous posts from other participants.
I borrowed Canon EOS 500D from a friend and played with it over the weekend. Oh my, what a joy. For a longest time I wanted to get my hands on a macro lens, but with no luck. I took some photos of my jewelry with the 18-55mm lens and managed to get some decent close ups. Because it is not a macro lens, it just wouldn’t snap the image once I was too close. So, one of the tricks I used was to start snapping from afar and gradually coming closer and closer, thus managing to get really close. It is far cry from what I would get with the macro lens, but I am very happy with some of the images.
Like these pearls. It was taken from the impossible angle, I wanted to get an interesting DoF, but because of that you can see the edge of the bed, the wall and even the blanket. My goal in post-processing was to lose that background, which wasn’t very hard. By decreasing brightness and deepening the shadows I almost removed it all. The piece of that white blanket was still visible, so I used a tool in PixlrExpress called Heal. It is basically a little circle which you position on a part you want to remove and it is replaced with surrounding predominant colors, removing the part within the circle. Or something like that. I really suck at this “explaining” part. I tinkered some more with the angle and the colors, but these were all light touches.
The mean Weather Man says it’s going to rain tomorrow and I was hoping to take some more photos. I even bought these delightful red apples, just like the ones from the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. See, I am planning my photo sessions, that is quite an improvement. Hope you all have a much sunnier and funnier weekend and keep your fingers crossed that I get at least one ray of sun.
Snow's Fissures and Fractures 
Nice image. You’re not wrong about the changes being subtle, but when I did see the wall and the white blanket I can see why you’d removed them, it looks much better without! I don’t know about your Snow White apples, but these pearls have a wonderful fairy tale feel to them! 🙂
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Thank you for your lovely comment. I must admit this ABF forum pushes me to try harder and experiment more, learning new things and improving my skills. It’s nice to realize that you are capable of producing quality images.
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The other day I was trying such a thing and did not succeed much. I needed patience, my guess. 😦
But you have done it so marvelously. :)The processed one looks great with the contrast of white and red against the dark background.
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Thank you, Norma. You are right, one needs to be patient and try over and over again. There is a learning curve to everything in life.
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You did a great job achieving your goal Loré; by getting rid of that no needed background you got a much more highlighted pearls. Well done!
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I am finding balance in my post-processing and that makes me vey happy. Thank you, Jaime.
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Loré, this is a stunning photo! The light on the pearls is beautiful, the red cloth adds a lovely punch, and you did a terrific job getting rid of the background. Just terrific!
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Thank you, Stacy. See how far I came in just few months. 😀
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At first I didn’t see the area you healed and was very confused, but after reading Katie’s comment I tilted my screen, very subtle editing and very well done.
With the 18-55 lens you can get closer at 18mm but have more in the frame, I choose the the method when combating min focus distance is to focus the lens manually and then move in and out because sometimes you can get closer than the auto focus will allow you to.
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You see, when I said I suck in the “explaining” department, I was right. That’s exactly what I was doing, manually focusing the lens and moving in and out. That moving in and out thing I discovered last spring when I was shooting with Olympus 7070, a single lense camera that just wouldn’t focus on close-ups. As I was moving in and out I realized the camera focused on it’s own.
Thank you for explaining it way better than I did.
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That is a really nice photograph. I love the low angle you used. And the quality of the light is superb.
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Thank you, Robin. I really started to enjoy this photography thing. 🙂
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stunning macro art!!
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I don’t know what I would do if I actually had a macro lens. I would probably quit my job and spend my time harassing little bugs and flowers. Thank you!
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I suck at the explaining parts too but you made it totally understandable. Great, subtle work!
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Thank you, Emilio. I try my best to explain what I am trying to do.
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