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ctfchallenge | all galleries >> The Best of CTF Challenges >> Best of 2009 > 4th - Glistening - by Brent
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10-JAN-2009 Brent

4th - Glistening - by Brent


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ctfchallenge12-Jan-2009 22:00
Georgia O'Keeffe would be proud of you, Brent!
--Mary Anne
ctfchallenge12-Jan-2009 04:11
Great colors and detail Brent esp for ISO 800. What a camera! And thanks for all the setup and pp details. the Canon macro light seems to be quite effective. -tv
ctfchallenge12-Jan-2009 01:11
I haven't commented until now because I don't know what to say.... great imagination?... wonderful macro?... extremely suggestive? .... lovely/shiny?
I guess I better decide before the challenge is over.
Penny Street
ctfchallenge11-Jan-2009 15:50
When I look at this I see a very happy looking plant, like it's grinning at us, and it makes me laugh! Great macro Brent! :-D CJ
ctfchallenge11-Jan-2009 06:13
Sorry Aam, you slipped in your comment when I was writing mine. Thanks and details below mate :-)
~Brent
ctfchallenge11-Jan-2009 06:06
Thanks Guys, odd looking thing isn't it Chrystakis :-) Thanks for wanting to know Rod. All my images start off in Lightroom2 these days. I never used DPP much and I had to use it temporarily with the new camera until Adobe supported it and found DPP produced decent enough picys but didn't allow the amount of control you have with LR or ACR. This had really great color straight out of the camera so that was a good start. I did play with the orange luminosity (the sliders in LR for Lum and Sat are great) to keep the embarrassing part of our friend here from glowing to much. I also used sliders to darken the blacks followed by a small increase in fill light (doing that quite often now). Exporting to CS3 the image still had a slightly muddy look and I got more clarity adjusting curves and levels. I did then something I'm also doing a lot lately and that is to give the exposure a slight negative offset for contrast followed by a slight gamma change (usually it helps but sometimes I go back).
No I didn't use a tube here, I started using one (part of a Kenko set I picked up yesterday) and noticed some play in the way it fit both the camera and lens. I'll have to look into that later and may have to take them back. I can still get pretty close with just the 100 Macro lens as this image was not cropped at all. These plants are behind a mesh screen in a city greenhouse with only about 2.5" square holes. So I had my lens peeking through one square and the twin heads on the Canon macro light each adjusted to poke through their own squares- crazy! I set the flash offset to double power on one side to hopefully keep the flash from looking flat and am pretty happy with the result. At least that stupid screen makes a good hold to keep your camera steady :-)
~Brent
aam1234 11-Jan-2009 05:31
Impressive! Any special treatment (light and/or extension tube).
Guest 11-Jan-2009 05:09
Brent, Excellent quality, composition, colours. But sorry... This looks so wrong :/
Rod 11-Jan-2009 05:08
Questions,questions:-) What program do you use for noise control Brent & what settings do you use? ie like for chrominance & luminance. Ive tried these settings in DPP but I really don't know what I'm doing. Is this picy taken with the extension tube thingys? The picy is so close & clear & terrific mate.