Lines, macro

Josh66 · Sep 24, 2008

There's some kind of optical illusion going on... It's hard to focus on.

rom4n301 · Sep 24, 2008

woah i think its awesome... wat is it

Josh66 · Sep 24, 2008

Thanks, glad you liked it.

It's a bunch of cad plated cotter pins with one long cotter pin threaded through the eyes (to hold them together).

I used a single light (just a portable spot light, I'm on a low budget) from the side to give it the shadows between each pin.

realitycheck3907 · Sep 24, 2008

Hey Josh what did you put under the cotter pins to make it black? Also did you turn the rest of the lights out in the room?

Josh66 · Sep 24, 2008

realitycheck3907 said:
Hey Josh what did you put under the cotter pins to make it black? Also did you turn the rest of the lights out in the room?

That's just shadow (there are no spaces between the cotter pins).

The room wasn't completely dark (not counting the light I was shooting with), but the lights were dimmed pretty low. As long as your main light is a lot brighter than the ambient light I don't think it would matter much.

This is actually about 2 stops (according to what the camera said was a good exposure) underexposed. I have some others with a "proper" exposure, but I didn't like them as much.

What you're seeing is just the topmost ridge of the cotter pins.

realitycheck3907 · Sep 24, 2008

I got you now I see what you did. I've never seen cotter pins with that rainbow color on them.

Oh and I forgot to mention in my first post I really like the picture. I just kept staring at it trying to figure out what it was you photographed. It looks really cool.
I think the only thing I would do is try and clone out that mark on the third in from the right. It looks maybe like a burn mark. Thats it though, looks cool.

Josh66 · Sep 24, 2008

realitycheck3907 said:
I've never seen cotter pins with that rainbow color on them.

I think it's mostly from the reflections on the cadmium plating.

realitycheck3907 said:
I think the only thing I would do is try and clone out that mark on the third in from the right. It looks maybe like a burn mark.

Yeah, that must have happened during the plating process. I might see what I can do with it. If it's too hard to clone out I might just re-shoot it and try to avoid that spot.

Darton · Sep 24, 2008

It makes my eyes svream. "Look Away! Look Away!". It's cool. 2005 X 4.0 6spd 33x12.50 (gives the Jeep Wave)

Josh66 · Sep 25, 2008

Same picture, cropped (and rotated a little).

Better, worse...? I didn't think I'd be able to do anything about that burned spot with out making it look bad, so I decided to just crop it out.

Darton said:
It makes my eyes svream. "Look Away! Look Away!". It's cool. 2005 X 4.0 6spd 33x12.50 (gives the Jeep Wave)

Thanks.

edit
Damn, I don't like how the top right corner is softer than the lower left one. I just noticed that... I tried to make sure the lens was perpendicular to the pins to avoid just that, guess I was off a little.

realitycheck3907 · Sep 25, 2008

I'll have to say I like the first one better than the second. Like you mentioned the soft spot wasn't as noticeable, and the first one created a kind of optical illusion.
Hey Josh I know it says its not ok to edit your photos, if you would like me to try a shot at removing the burn mark I will though. Completely up too you bud.

Josh66 · Sep 25, 2008

Sure, go ahead.

I actually haven't even tried yet. I was kinda afraid that cloning that area would make it softer, but since it's softer anyway it probably won't matter.

I think I like the first one more too... Hard to say. The soft corner kinda ruins the second one for me. I might play around with it (too lazy to re-shoot it right now) and see what I can do. I think if I can make the other corner as soft as the top one it'll be OK. Either that or covering it up with some vignetting, but I don't think that would work very well with this image...

Hmm... I just gave myself an idea for a new picture of this. I'll have to rig up some kind of support for it though...