* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #824 / Revived #044 on 2024 01 31 *

You are on your way to becoming a DragonMaster. These are both very nice. Your focus is quite good, getting all essential parts of the dragonfly in focus. I prefer the first one because of the nicely managed blur in the background contrasting with the sharpness of the insect and the stick he's standing on. The second one works though, in spite of some OOF foreground, because the OOF parts seem to form a frame for us to peep through to see the dragon.

I have never seen a red dragonfly. It's quite beautiful.

Fog makes everything lovely, doesn't it? And mysterious too! The bare tree reflected in the puddle is brilliant as a center of interest. I like the visual design of this a lot, with the stair step effect of the building's shape leading up from the left, dipping to make an arc over the tree, then disappearing into the fog along that tower. I think I might try to take more advantage of that effect by some judicious cropping to get most of the white sign or box off of that left side, and the half-tree off the right side, and some off the bottom. I'll post a rough approximation of what I'm talking about.

I am again not sure what "it" is that you ran through AI. I saw another poster interpreted it as a rock and you noted that it was a big one. I see a dog's head as he is swimming bravely in our direction trying to avoid drowning in the icy water. His shadow, of course, is in front of his head. It's an interesting image with nice defining edges and good colors (as I always say, you can't go wrong with orange and blue). You definitely have a painting effect going on here. I like it a lot.

Oh my this is lovely. Wings spread to full width, every single feather deployed for launch, her precious little feet (!) outstretched to the max with claws tucked, her face determined, and a tiny catchlight in her eye. That is just beautiful. You've captured all the taut energy necessary for launch, and all the bird's delicate beauty as well, plus something of her personality. Wonderfully done.

Quite an evocative image. The metal Godzilla in the process of destroying a city. You don't see that every day. What an amazing capture! How you've caught and framed it is pretty masterful as it evokes the old horror movies with your grainy/gritty monochrome processing choices as well as with the careful inclusion of just enough monster doing just enough damage. I can almost hear the whirring of the projector's wheels as they turn above and behind my head.

The geometry of small sections of architecture are so satisfying geometrically. This one has the added effects of exceptionally fine light that's spread like a gradient across the frame, and excellent and interesting colors. The eye follows the "up" arrow against the left edge then wanders rightward to find the light, and the perfect square, then as the shadows converge, the eye can ease on out of the frame on the right. Nice.

Someone posted a pic of Las Setas on Guess The Place (was here but now back at DPR in the OpenTalk forum) last year. It's an impressive structure both visually and from an engineering pov. I have had a long running fascination with geodesic domes and shell structures so this one ticks boxes.
I might have said that a wider view of more of the structure would be good but with the provided link we can see it all, and you would have lost the human elements and close detail.

As minnie has said and I will add that it could be an artist's impression of a castle in a Tolkien or equivalent story. Impressive picture.

My question is: were you hanging out of the train risking life, limb and camera, or is it taken from within, the slight red ghosting a reflection in the window of a passenger's clothing? Just the right ss to give an impression of high speed.

As everyone has said, nice timing and intensity of the moment. I wonder if you could raise the shadows a bit at least under the wings, if not already. Without the muted green background I would assume b&w. Is that possibly a pp effect or we see it as captured?

I think it's an iconic photo in that genre of foggy, misty, bleak winter style. But you have plenty of colour, perhaps due to being further south with the sun a little higher and a bit more humidity. I love the soft focus, fog or otherwise, as we explore further into the scene. Full screen it certainly has the look of a very good water colour, but 1:1 there's a lot more detail to explore.

Maybe a crop off the bottom of the darker grass brings us a little closer into the scene and a touch more panorama?

Certainly could be a scene from a sci-fi flick with mechanical monsters running amok, the darker foreground adding to the sense of doom and gloom. The composition or crop is just right for us to imagine the machine having a neck along with it's head and mouth parts. Classic.

The reason the 2nd grew on me was that the oof foreground frame was like a portal down the back of a garden, the dragonfly being the vehicle in a child's magical fairy tale.
Dragon Master makes me wonder if it's time to move onto something else...😏 It is good to see the different species, the main motivation of day after day at this close by dam being to capture one in flight, large in frame, in sharp focus and with a decent background. I have discovered a wetlands sanctuary near one of the local towns and had a quick visit today. Unfortunately there's a sign saying no dogs (amongst 20 other red crossed circles) and I didn't see any birds from outside although there must be some...

The AI is the video link. There's movement suggesting the watery nature around the rock.

I'm still cheating badly to get this effect. It's a photo of a video. The backlighting is helping, not to mention the lack of 3rd dimension. I've been playing around with shooting outdoors, but the logistics are complicated, the tools are easy to break, neighbors are nosy, and the results are not equal. More tools need to be made, bought and experimented with.

On a related note, I've noticed small apertures are part of making the magic. Unfortunately, most lenses I own only go to f22. Is there anything f64 or greater that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and will adapt to other mounts? I assume f64 or greater is all for medium and large format and has to be adapted to be used. Is there anything I can do to induce smaller apertures on the glass I have? I know pinhole might be an option, but with the distances involved in the setup, I'm not sure it would be feasible.

Yes, lots of Repro lenses go to f/64 some to f/128! Coverage depends on the focal length you need though…

Beautiful light and mood.

Rich

What is a Repro lens?

A lens usually made for so-called Repro- or copying cameras, devices which were used for capturing material for printing (newspaper, advertising) before the rise of digital. Many of those lenses go to f/64, f/90 or even f/128. Some names of those are Apo-Gerogon, Apo-Tessar, Apo-Germinar, G-Claron etc. Some of those lenses are quite cheap because they're no longer needed, others are not. Depends on the focal length, your patience and where you look. There are also scanner and some cine lenses with a diaphragm that closes completely. And finally there are lenses with a slot between the lens cells, that let you insert any (cut-out) stop you want.