Sickley close up

[tpe]

These were lit with diode bike lights and a mag light, using a minolta d5 and a 50mm sigma macro at f22 and somewhere around 2-8 seconds using the self timer on a tripod. It is also a bit of a cheat as i duplicated it to another layer in photoshop desaturated the new layer and set it to multiply at 18% to give more contrast, do you think the final or the original (here http://thebort.net/tpe/macro11.jpg ) is better?

Please be critical or even just derisory and flippant (It would be much better than "nice" comments)...

I do apreciate it, so have a ball and put your boot in. I have no background in photography (and absoloutly no pride to fall from) and cant/wont answer back . So far it is all guesswork (which i am enjoying) as to what should/can work, and i would like to change that :hug:: (the guesswork part).

thanks

yours from cold dark denmark,

tim.

 

[tpe]

O.K bumping for feedback...

Having just seen them on my work screen it looks like the first one before the photochopping is better, funny they look almost exactly the same when one is on a tft and one on a crt screen, but at home i only have a tft, and it made the one below look just too light.

The other things i think are wrong with them is that the last one does not fit with the first two, as it misses highlights and just does not have enough contrast over the image, also the red in the bottom left hand corner has become burnt out, possibly because the red LED only gives a very narrow spectrum of light? So there isnt enough detail, and generally over them all there isnt enough difference over the images to get the eye to move over them.

tim

 

[Rob]

I actually prefer the original, as the new one is a bit dark for my taste. Erm, what is it? Not really important to the photography, but animal, vegetable, mineral?

With a triptych like this I would have chosen the image order differently - the last one should go in the middle as it is slightly different to the others and would lend balance by being there. Also possibly a touch of USM on it to brighten the glisteny bits. Whilst I'm moaning, is the focus slightly off in the last one? It gives that impression, perhaps a shallower DOF was used?

Good start though for a self-professed non photographer! You've obviously got an eye for the form there and with a couple of minor tweaks I think it would be a great finished piece.

Rob

 

[tpe]

Hi Rob, thanks really great crits , it is some kind of edible mushroom from the supermarket, now going off in the fridge, will get some more snaps when its horribly decomposed. Ill try the diferent order (Is it called a triptych !?! I wont try saying that three times fast), sorry getting a bit out of my depth, USM, what is it, somthing like raising the contrast?
Yes it really does look like the focus is off in the last one, i have one that looks like the rest more but the GF liked this one better, i think it is sharp, but that my hand was shaking when holding the light for the picture, its a bit odd, you can see that there are a lot of small focused details there when you zoom in on the original but that it looks blured anyway. The same spoiled quite a few of the other shots, some of them look really weird, but possibly it could be usefull on softening verh hard shots on long exposures?