Silly Wabbit

[Cortian]

@limr, I was withholding replies to the C&Cs because I wanted to see if there'd be others. Your observation nailed it, though. What's in that first photo was pretty much what I was looking to get--which was that portion of the bunny's face lit and in focus, with the rest OOF and/or shadowed. And the background OOF.

I believe the reason the eye appears to be OOF is because the surface is dull. If you look closely (I'm looking at 160%, right now) you can see tiny threads, dust spots and surface contamination. Plus, after just cleaning them up a bit, (gets out his magnifying headset...) I'm 99-44/100% certain those are plastic, not glass, so they're not going to get super-shiny, like real eyes, or even glass ones, anyway.

 

[Gary A.]

The next thing to do is to work on different lighting.
Example, a reflector on the left would fill in the shadow on the left.
That reflector could be as simple as a sheet of paper or a crumpled aluminum foil that is smoothened and put on to a cardboard backer. IOW, CHEAP and easy to make.

You can spend hours by the window with the rabbit and reflectors .

The Wabbitt is cute, but the lighting sucks. Start with what you have ... you have nice directional window lighting. Move the wabbitt move the camera, turn on what's available in the room for fill. If you first learn to use/master what you have readily available ... you can get a decent/good/great image in all sorts of environments. Sure a reflector would be nice, but first work with what is available.

window lighting only

window lighting only

 

[ac12]

@limr, I was withholding replies to the C&Cs because I wanted to see if there'd be others. Your observation nailed it, though. What's in that first photo was pretty much what I was looking to get--which was that portion of the bunny's face lit and in focus, with the rest OOF and/or shadowed. And the background OOF.

I believe the reason the eye appears to be OOF is because the surface is dull. If you look closely (I'm looking at 160%, right now) you can see tiny threads, dust spots and surface contamination. Plus, after just cleaning them up a bit, (gets out his magnifying headset...) I'm 99-44/100% certain those are plastic, not glass, so they're not going to get super-shiny, like real eyes, or even glass ones, anyway.

If you got what you wanted, then you did a good job. It does not matter what other think.

As for the eyes.
Just clean the eye as best you can. That is good enough, short of replacing the eyes with glass eyes, which would be a pain.
Here is a trick that I learned for manequins.
Try some CLEAR nail polish on the eye. The clear polish reflects light similar to the liquid on the eye.

 

[Cortian]

I already did a quick-and-dirty cleanup (warm-breath-and-facial-tissue method), which improved them greatly. (Should have done that in the first place.) After that I think I need to revisit the plastic polish question.

I'd be loath to try clear nail polish for fear of harming the thing. I kind of like it

I got more-or-less what I wanted. But, still, C&C is welcome. Just because it's what I wanted, doesn't mean it cannot be better or more interesting.

I appreciate everybody's input. I'm getting lots of good info/ideas just from this one attempt

 

[Derrel]

Stuffed animals make good practice subjects.
They say still, don't mind how long you take, and don't complain

Yeah, they are very patient portrait subjects!

Maybe try to work out a tall composition as well. That's my main C&C issue...too much unused space on the left...I wanna' see more of the subject's body!

As far as DOF goes, at such close distances, even f/5.6 is in effect, a rather wide aperture value if deep DOF is the desired end result. Stopping the lens down, to f/16 or even f/22 with a telephoto lens that is magnifying the image might work pretty well. Not sure what camera or lens you're using, but I've had reasonably good luck at shutter speeds in the 1/8 second to 1/13 second range with Nikon's old-school VR stabilization on the 80-400 VR Gen 1 and the 70-200 VR (gen 1 model lens).

As with many things photographic, image stabilization is not a 100% successful endeavor; at the extremes, like at say 1/3 to 1/6 second, VR might yield only 30% good shots, and 70% junkers; the key is to shoot in Continuous release, with just one shutter button press, and to make sure to expose enough shots to get one or two critically sharp results. Typically, there will be shots that are from bad to critically sharp,and plenty of in-between frames as well.

 

[ac12]

With a stuffed animal, and slow shutter speed, I would use a tripod.
It will stay still, and not complain about long exposures

The only con to the tripod is that changing camera perspective/positions, becomes more of an effort and a hassle.

 

[Cortian]

Good idea on the continuous release mode, Derrel.

The tripod would be a non-starter for this window, ac12. That's atop the bookcase headboard of our bed. Right about in the middle. Unfortunately, it's the only west-facing window, and that was the light I wanted.

 

[Designer]

What's in that first photo was pretty much what I was looking to get--which was that portion of the bunny's face lit and in focus, with the rest OOF and/or shadowed. And the background OOF.

Your original post was not clear as to your intentions. Just DOF, and no specifics. It seems to me that in DOF practice, you would explore the range and see what can be done. When a visible portion of your subject is OOF, I naturally assume it is a mistake. Making accurate measurements and setting up your subject/background so that you have a good handle on DOF is a reasonable exercise to pursue.

I realize that having a portion of your subject out of focus is a "thing" these days, what with every other photographer seemingly doing that on purpose, but to me they are just experimenting and accepting what comes rather than thinking things through.

 

[Cortian]

Your original post was not clear as to your intentions.

True. I purposely left it kind of open-ended, for the reason stated earlier.

It seems to me that in DOF practice, you would explore the range and see what can be done.

Certainly. In this case I simply ran out of light.

Making accurate measurements and setting up your subject/background so that you have a good handle on DOF is a reasonable exercise to pursue.

I agree entirely.

I just acquired Tamron's latest 90mm macro lens. Believe me: Learning how to get the DoF I want is very much a big deal with me.

I realize that having a portion of your subject out of focus is a "thing" these days, ...

I didn't know that was "a thing" ever, much less these days I just did what I could with what I had to hand.

If I'd had more light I might've been able to coax more DoF out of the photo. Or if I'd had a way to stabilize the camera. Alas: I had what I had and that was all that I had

But you probably haven't seen the last of that bunny. I just haven't been able to get back to it, yet. Had one day, since, where the light was right, but I had snow to shovel. Haven't had the light again, since.

Thanks for your comments, Designer.

 

[Gary A.]

Stuffed animals make good practice subjects.
They say still, don't mind how long you take, and don't complain

Yeah, they are very patient portrait subjects!

Maybe try to work out a tall composition as well. That's my main C&C issue...too much unused space on the left...I wanna' see more of the subject's body!

As far as DOF goes, at such close distances, even f/5.6 is in effect, a rather wide aperture value if deep DOF is the desired end result. Stopping the lens down, to f/16 or even f/22 with a telephoto lens that is magnifying the image might work pretty well. Not sure what camera or lens you're using, but I've had reasonably good luck at shutter speeds in the 1/8 second to 1/13 second range with Nikon's old-school VR stabilization on the 80-400 VR Gen 1 and the 70-200 VR (gen 1 model lens).

As with many things photographic, image stabilization is not a 100% successful endeavor; at the extremes, like at say 1/3 to 1/6 second, VR might yield only 30% good shots, and 70% junkers; the key is to shoot in Continuous release, with just one shutter button press, and to make sure to expose enough shots to get one or two critically sharp results. Typically, there will be shots that are from bad to critically sharp,and plenty of in-between frames as well.

And don’t punch the shutter release. Depress the button halfway ... to the edge of release, hold it, then gently squeeze the release.

 

[Cortian]

Yeah, Gary, I've noticed I need to work on my shutter release control.