This is the tip of a corkscrew, the pieces of old corks are still visible as brown "gold".
Setup is easy:
[thumb]840541[/thumb]
Used a dvd back to get a blue tone, and an external flash with eBay triggers.
The hardest part was to get my lousy Sigma to get from 1:2 magnification ratio to something better, so I had to use all three Kenko extension tubes, so the camera was a bit ridiculous :-P
I will hope to get a 7 with this, should be a personal best, but one can only hope.
I tried a few more shots:
[thumb]840542[/thumb](a Rubik's cube) and [thumb]840544[/thumb] (a shower head) :-D
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This is an interesting macro puzzle, and I think you accomplished that part of the challenge quite nicely. There were several people who guessed it correctly, but only a few that knew for sure what it was.
I love the colors that you got out of the dvd and reflections of your counter top. The blue highlights on the cork screw don’t quite work though in the overall composition, they look more like accidental flares rather than supporting elements.
A few things that I think brought your score down are:
1. The horizontal cork screw does not have much dynamics. I think it would have worked better with either a diagonal or straight on with the end of the corkscrew falling out of focus. Overall it is out of balance.
2. The blue light streak from the DVD is really nice, but with just the one it seems out of place and distracts from the composition.
3. The spots (dust?) at the bottom need to be cleaned up.
4. The focus point is not on the most interesting aspect of the corkscrew. It seems to be on the cork in the last bend. I think this composition would have been a lot better with the point in complete focus. The DOF with macro is so shallow (even at f/16) you really have to have a point of interest for the eyes to focus on (unless it is an abstract) in my humble opinion.
5. There is not much separation between the background and corkscrew. I’m wondering if you could have positioned the flash behind the corkscrew, dialed down the flash output, and with the camera on a tripod shot with a slow shutter speed capturing the ambient light with balanced background light. You could have used a bounce card for fill maybe.
6. The flash seems to be pretty harsh judging by the highlights; did you cover the flash head with something to diffuse it? I like to make little soft boxes out of Kleenex or other boxes with cloth on the front of the box to create softer lighting. Bouncing the flash would also have helped.
This was a fun challenge and I hope you are not to disappointed in your score. There are a lot of wonderful macro shooters here at dpc and the bar is just so high. You photo is a good one and you should be proud of it. I also liked your Rubik’s cube and shower head shots. I think the shower head is my favorite.
ok, a cork screw with little bits of cork on the thingie (how's that for specifics?) not sure...but is your sensor dirty??? good idea...had me stumped for quite sometime...had to see the "thingie" as a thumbnail to get it...
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