Wednesday, July 04, 2012

Up Close and Personal

In today's blog, I'd like to share two topics with you: first, getting up close and personal shooting pictures of little wee things, and second some guest pictures from the moose workshop I could not attend.

Close Up photography

As I posted a couple of weeks ago, I now have a bellows which allows me to shoot closeups of really small things. This will give you an idea of scale:


This is nowhere near full magnification. This shot has NOT been cropped, that's what my sensor saw.
And I did that with a $35 piece of equipment (well, added to the camera and lens and tripod and Speedlight and light tent and...). Technical details are on my tech blog here, as well as other pictures. It's a basic tutorial on all you need to know to get started shooting this stuff yourself. Here's another image:


Same flower, more magnification. This was slightly cropped because there was something ugly at the bottom of the frame.

I also shot the following picture in the light tent at the same time. It's not a "macro" since the flower is quite a bit larger than the frame:


I did a bit of work on this image, just to sharpen it and do something other than pure white (or black) for the background. I think it's called a "Day Lily", maybe someone will come along to confirm or correct that. By all means, click on this to blow it up to check out the detail.

Now that I know how to fold up my light tent, I'm going to use it more!

Moose Workshop

As you know, I could not attend the Mike Bertelsen moose workshop in Algonquin Park mid-June because of family circumstances. I'm rather sorry I missed it, maybe I'll have another chance in a while. Two of the people who were on that trip sent me pictures yesterday, and with their permission, I'm able to show them to you here.

Without further ado...



These first two outstanding images were captured by Mark Girard



These two fabulous images are by Dennis Phillips.

Basic DSLR Workshops

If you're a relatively new DSLR owner and photographer, you too can improve your photography. One-day and two-day workshops are available here in the Haliburton Highlands or elsewhere at your convenience. Check it out at www.photography.to.

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2 comments:

  1. Kayla2:26 pm

    Oh gosh.. I must be blunt. I am no photographer but you Photoshop overkill all your images! Some of them actually made me laugh, especially seeing the "©" on them! You don't need to try so hard, they'd be fine without all that heavy colouring that makes them appear cartoon like. You need to tone it down and ask people for honest constructive criticism. Only then you can be a successful self-proclaimed expert. One of your night shots were good.

    Those are such beautiful pictures Mr. Girard and Mr. Phillips took. Do they have a blog also? I'd love to see more of their work. I am interested in buying some photos. Especially ones of Algonquin. We need them to furnish a resort up north.

    Thanks!
    ~Kayla~ :)

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    Replies
    1. Hi, Kayla. Not everyone likes HDR processed images, but some people do. I'm certainly open for constructive criticism, but either you like my style or you don't. It's a love/hate thing. I haven't heard too many people complaining that Andy Warhol's work is too cartoony. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

      The © helps to prevent people from stealing images. I'm happy to share when asked, and print-ready larger sizes or prints themselves are of course subject to some money changing hands.

      I have lots of images you might like to use to decorate your resort! I tend to skip them here because of my audience (mostly Photoshop experts).

      I'm glad you like some of my night shots.

      I can share some additional information with you about my colleagues, but directly, not in a public comment field, so please send me an email to photography@faczen.com. I don't know how to communicate with you otherwise.

      Delete