Broccoflower Canyon * by Canon DSLR Challenge

Canon DSLR Challenge | all galleries >> Challenge 61: Perspective (host: Sharon Lips) >> Eligible > Broccoflower Canyon *

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2/11/2006	Victor Engel

Broccoflower Canyon *

Austin, TX

Canon EOS 10D ,Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 & Raynox 24X Closeup
Aperture was at f/22 for all shots in this composition. full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto

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* Submitter retains all copyrights *

Yves Rubin		22-Feb-2006 00:27
interesting shot... there is a little too much highlight space for my taste. It does have an underwater feeling to it. I like it!

dprchallenges		20-Feb-2006 02:18
Well, it was an experiment, and with only one it would have been impossible to capture the "canyon". -- Victor

Canon DSLR Challenge		20-Feb-2006 00:25
Call me old-fashioned but that's about 11 too many! Tim

dprchallenges		20-Feb-2006 00:21
There are about 12 DOF zones, by the way. -- Victor

Canon DSLR Challenge		19-Feb-2006 22:59
It's a really cool and creative idea but I agree with other comments: there's something about having two DOF zones that's slightly disconcerting. Tim

alexeig		17-Feb-2006 08:47
Victor, I do some scuba and this immediately ringed a bell to me. Why? - a lot of coral reefs have a similar shape - color cast is very similar to shallow underwater in a sunny day - disappearing background

Canon DSLR Challenge		13-Feb-2006 23:38
I see what you mean by the scuba look. Do you think it's the occasional softness that does this? Or maybe the color? If the image could be tweaked to emphasize the look of mountain or the look of an underwater scene, what tweaks do you think would be involved? -- Victor

alexeig		13-Feb-2006 16:13
In fact, i haas an underwater feel to it. Almost scuba diving among coral reefs

elips		13-Feb-2006 02:23
That is much better, Victor! And I like the border with the variegated color. This really was a lot of work but it sounds like you learned a bunch in the process and that's what it's all about. Good job! ~Sharon

Canon DSLR Challenge		12-Feb-2006 22:43
Sharon, I realized I had a sharper portion of that "hill", but only in a layer that extended to just to the left of the peak of that hill. This is because it came from one of the right images rather than one of the left images. So I copied that layer and flipped it horizontally pasting it as a new layer. Better? The whole picture is also larger now, and I added a border. -- Victor

Victor Engel		12-Feb-2006 21:54
I just checked the .psd file, and the two "hills" you refer to are from the same layer, so they are unswappable. What I should have done was taking one more picture with best focus on the nearer of those two "hills". -- Victor

Victor Engel		12-Feb-2006 21:47
Sharen, You are right. If I switched those, it would progress better. But that would not represent the actual topography of the vegetable. I guess I should go ahead and describe what I did. I originally wanted just a single shot from a close-in perspective. Unfortunately, I don't have a lens or combination of lenses that will do the trick. I tried using a pinhole, but the results were very poor. Next I tried combining a pinhole with my lens combination, and that didn't work either. That put the iris in the wrong place. So I just put my 24X Raynox lens in front of my 85mm lens and stopped down to f/22. The depth of field was so shallow that I had to take multiple shots, moving the subject slightly betwen shots. I think it's a total of 12 shots (6 on the left and 6 on the right) blended in separate layers. Having the separate layers made it then possible to add haze between the appropriate layers. I think my final image had 24 layers, and then I did a couple more operations on the flattened version. So, the blurred portion you mentioned is because it was out of the depth of field of any of the 12 shots making up this picture. I've learned a lot from doing this. If I were to do it again, I'd shrink the back layers. In this composition, they are all the same magnification, which is wrong for the perspective I was after. But that would require even more pictures side by side to be stitched together (in the background). Oh, I did try one other thing which I've wanted to try for years: adding a reflector into the suite of lenses. Unfortunately, I don't have a suitable reflector. I tried using a shiny, spherical measuring spoon, but it wasn't optically perfect enough for decent results. I'm thinking also that a hyperbolic reflector would be better than a spherical one. Maybe I'll peruse Edmund Scientific or something for some good front surface curved mirrors. -- Victor

elips		12-Feb-2006 17:36
I am fascinated that you were able to artificially depict a kind of perspective usually only seen in landscapes. On the left hand side about mid way you have a sharp section behind an out of focus section, if you switched those two that side of the image would progress more evenly into the haze. This had to be a lot of work and is an interesting image. ~Sharon