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ctfchallenge | all galleries >> Challenge 188 - One Second Shot >> Challenge 188 - Eligible > 7th. Self Portrait
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26-JUN-2009 Maarten Mariën

7th. Self Portrait

Vancouver, BC, Canada

Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi ,Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
1s f/6.3 at 100.0mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time26-Jun-2009 14:54:30
MakeCanon
ModelCanon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length100 mm
Exposure Time1.60 sec
Aperturef/6.3
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias
White Balance
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programaperture priority (3)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium original auto
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ctfchallenge28-Jun-2009 23:42
Way to give all of us tunnel vision. What a unique setup. -Doug
ctfchallenge28-Jun-2009 14:56
Maarten, my congrats to your new lens, I have one myself and love it. Very creative picture and techically well done (may be I would like to see a bit more details on the camera).
As for many pictures in the challenge - not so much from "long exposure".
K
ctfchallenge28-Jun-2009 13:02
...and "Canon" gets into the picture, too! Nice one Maartin. shu
ctfchallenge28-Jun-2009 05:30
Now I understand, its levels in PS too and I use it but this helps me appreciate why I am using it and prob then use it better. Thanks - Debi
Guest 28-Jun-2009 03:29
Thanks Rod, tv and Debi!!

tv--Interesting suggestion of turning it back around, I honestly didn't think of that! :-) But after comparing both versions, I think I'll retain this one anyway. The other one isn't really a self portrait, and as such is all about (only about) the strange effect.

Debi--I'll try. On my original image the histogram was flat from 0-5%, meaning there were no almost black shades at all; it had a big bump between 5 and 35%, meaning there were a lot of rather dark shades; and was flat again from 35 to 100%, meaning there were no light shades at all. I simply used the histogram adjustment tool (called "Levels" in Aperture, I don't know about photoshop), put the leftmost slider to 5% and the rightmost one to 35%, so that in the resulting image, all the existing shades in the image would be distributed over 0 to 100% (pure black to pure white).

Come to think of it, I should have taken the picture with 2 seconds exposure instead of one, then I guess the shades would have been between 10 and 70% instead of 5-35%. Well anyway, it was already difficult enough as it was.
ctfchallenge27-Jun-2009 16:25
This is very creative thinking. Will you please explain the part about the histogram - about being between 5-35% and centred to 0-100% if its not too much of an effort? - Debi
ctfchallenge27-Jun-2009 14:59
Unusually creative macro image. I couldn't figure it out either. It has a surreal quality that might have been better in its original orientation with the center upside down. -tv
ctfchallenge27-Jun-2009 07:43
Rod
Very well done Maarten I haven't seen anything like this before. I thought you shot through a tube but using the image on the lens glass is very novel. Way to go mate.
ctfchallenge27-Jun-2009 03:34
Ah I understand the setup now and congrats on the new lens. I have one myself and love it. Well it sounds like you are going about things more scientifically than I do. I honestly don't mind the effect that much the "banding?" I see looks similar to what I have gotten myself when trying to raise the exposure on a RAW image that was shot with inadequate exposure. In my case it has been hard to get rid of but once in a while using a noise filter seems to help. Not really an issue here because what I see looks kind of "Ahrty" :-)
Guest 27-Jun-2009 02:59
Thanks Brent!

The setup: my camera was quite close to the mirror. Since I used my (brandnew ;-) macro lens, I could focus, at about 1:3 sensor size to image size ratio, on the reflection of the image inside the aperture (which was upside down; this is a 180 degrees turned image).

I'm not too sure what you mean with the exposure suggestion. The luminance histogram was almost everything between 5 and 35 percent; I centered that out to 0--100%, and passed it through a monochrome filter (NB: I've just updated from original version). No other processing. Noise reduction didn't have much effect. Interestingly, since the whole image was shot through quite some glass, the colour histograms showed a marked shift of about 5% left between Red, Green and Blue.
ctfchallenge27-Jun-2009 02:23
Very cool effect Maarten, I'm still trying to figure out how this was done. It almost gives it a canvas look with the banding but I wonder how it might look with exposure brought up less (hope you shot RAW) or possibly a pass through a noise filter?
~Brent