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Beauty in the Eye of Our Four Year Old
Beauty in the Eye of Our Four Year Old
bspurgeon


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Body Parts II (Advanced Editing VII)
Camera: Canon EOS-40D
Lens: Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L IS USM
Location: Backyard, Santa Ana, California
Date: Apr 3, 2008
Aperture: 11
ISO: 400
Shutter: 50
Galleries: Macro
Date Uploaded: Apr 6, 2008

 This eye belongs to my spectacularly crazy 4 yo daughter. It took about 100 shots to come up with a reasonably sharp globe with a nice composition that was reflecting the trees rather than the flash. I could not get her to sit still!
I used a 500D close up lens attached to my 70-200 f/4L IS with 430ex for fill, shot at 200mm. I used a tripod as well. I had difficulty with DOF. I wanted the eyelashes sharp, but this was my first use of the 500D, and I have no experience with macro. Shots at f/16-22 had similar DOF.

PP: Aperture for raw conversion, minimal adjustment to white balance. Exported to CS3. Curves to increase contrast. Cropped a small amount, cloned out a large freckle. Merged a color and desaturated layer to mute her skin, masked the eyes for the original color. Lab color/a/soft light at 25% to slightly increase the saturation of her iris (minimal change). Light dodging of the eye. Curves. Additional layer with multiply blend mode to darken the skin, masked the eye. Cloned out an anatomic artifact. Border/resize/USM/Save for web. I believe I left a step or two out, as I worked on this shot over a few days.

I love this photo, and my daughter is quite proud of her eye! She wants a print to put it up in her bedroom.

Statistics
Place: 87 out of 156
Avg (all users): 5.4947
Avg (commenters): 5.8571
Avg (participants): 5.3167
Avg (non-participants): 5.5781
Views since voting: 1105
Views during voting: 290
Votes: 188
Comments: 8
Favorites: 0

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AuthorThread
Nikon D300
Sigma 70-200 /2.8 APO EX DG Macro HSM II
04/23/2008 05:35:34 PM
love this photo you can tell lot about your daughter just by her one eye... that said, my only nit pic would be that I wish the eye was a little more open. great job
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
04/12/2008 09:52:11 PM
A little squinshy, but at least there is emotion in the eye.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D5000
Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G IF-ED
 04/12/2008 05:56:22 PM
Beautiful blue eye!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D80
Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5- 5.6G ED DX
 04/11/2008 11:55:00 AM
nice one
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D50
Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
 04/11/2008 12:08:23 AM
One of the better eye photos in this challenge.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III
Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO
 04/10/2008 01:32:09 PM
Well done, but if they eye were open wider it would improve it tremendously.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Nikon D2Xs
Nikon AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED
 04/09/2008 11:44:33 PM
Nice tones but there are other variations of this type f picture that are a little more interesting in the challenge/
  Photographer found comment helpful.
Samsung Pro815
 04/07/2008 11:40:50 AM
Not enough eyeball showing. great focus on the iris, and a pretty wicked looking iris. could have been much better with more of it showing.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
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