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Five Sunflowers
Five Sunflowers
banmorn


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Soft Focus II (Basic Editing III)
Camera: Nikon D70s
Lens: Sigma 50mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro for Nikon
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Date: Aug 22, 2006
Aperture: f/ 32
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1 second
Galleries: Still Life, Floral
Date Uploaded: Aug 22, 2006

 If you know me and flowers, I am not an advocate of shooting for softness in general. But with the Nikon and the SLR versatility, I am becoming, for lack of better words, a little more soft about the process.

I had no idea how to shoot soft. I did a series of lisianthus yesterday and that was more shallow DOF than soft. I had the camera set for a soft focus but that did not really do the trick. I went to the Rittenhouse Square Farmer's Market this morning and saw these minature sunflowers and bought five. I still had no idea how to shoot for the soft focus so I tried just shooting and then adding gausian blur on a couple of faded normal blending mode layers and....nah...didn't work. Also tried 15 to 30 second exposures painting the flowers with the lights of two small, white LED flashlights and....nah, didn't work.

I had reviewed the prior challenge for this theme and found a solution that did work. Timmi had shot her entry in the first challenge by breathing on the lens and then shooting, so I tried it. Of course it was not as cold here as when she took her shot, but the effect worked. I put my UV/Circular polarizer filters on my Sigma 50mm Macro and breathed on them. I as I recall on this shot, I was breathing and breathing until the filter was full covered and then clicked the remote. I had set the camera in manual focus so there was no refocusing of the lens to get the shot and loose the effect on the filters.

I love the glow that this procedure made around the flowers as well as the softness of the subjects. I might have done some selective brightening up front and definitely got rid of the dust spots that that showed up. But of the images I took for this week's Open Challenges, this was by far my fave.

Post: Converted from raw with +0.67 exposure compensation. Layer adjustments for levels, brightness/contrast and hue/saturation. NeatImage. Sharpen (of all things but I wanted a little more detail after the NI). Resize. Sharpen. Save for Web.

Statistics
Place: 135 out of 252
Avg (all users): 5.1870
Avg (commenters): 5.0000
Avg (participants): 5.0149
Avg (non-participants): 5.2577
Views since voting: 929
Views during voting: 310
Votes: 230
Comments: 7
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II
 08/29/2006 05:51:41 AM
very effective
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Olympus E-3
Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 ED Zuiko Digital
 08/28/2006 12:52:32 AM
Looks more like a filter overlay than soft focus but nice 5
Canon EOS-40D
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L USM
 08/27/2006 09:30:05 PM
The glow around the flowers is nice but the flowers themselves seem to be washed out.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-40D
Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
 08/24/2006 06:57:34 PM
I am not really sure what the yellos cast/halo is around the flowers but it is very off putting and not my idea of soft focus (MHO)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Canon EOS-5D Mark II
Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon
 08/24/2006 09:14:27 AM
the glow doesn't work for me ... and you've lost the true color in the sunfloweres ... sorry
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D700
Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
 08/23/2006 12:40:50 PM
This should do very well.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D800
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
 08/23/2006 06:31:22 AM
the soft focus is quite overdone here...it has taken away quite a bit of contrast
  Photographer found comment helpful.
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