This is a plastic plant thing that I bought to try to mimic Ursula's Sweeping in the Rain for the Deja Vu III challenge. I failed at that, but when this challenge came up, it occurred to me to try using it. This non-macro shot of it is about 8 inches across. Those tiny little fibers you can see are the large ones in the entry.
Here's an outtake (original and what I entered in Best of 2007:
I've seen lots of things on DPC use water droplets to add interest, so I used a mister on a water bottle.
The background colors come from some stickers I found lying around.
This is the best of maybe 20 shots. One thing about macro shooting - moving stuff around by as little as 1mm yields a whole different shot.
It's lit with the setting sun from behind and a couple of lamps from above me pointed down into the bristles.
Editing was minimal: selective sharpening on the droplets, a little deepening of the blacks using a selective color adjustment layer, and some noise reduction.
I owe this shot to DPC - it's here that I learned about DOF, using a remote shutter cable and mirror lockup mode to avoid vibrations, and how to use extension tubes on a normal lens to get macro-level magnification. With 68mm of extension, my 50mm gets about 1.4:1.
Post-challenge: yahooo! Most faves ever during a challenge: 6. Plus my first wishlist ever.
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Nice colors and the play of light through the droplets. I might have sharpened it a touch more, but I'm not sure if that would really help or hurt it. Only real nitpick is the composition does not lead me to anything in particular. A different crop may have pulled me in better. I think it is the large drop in the lower right quarter that is the culprit, when I cover up the right 1/3, it flows better.
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