The Loyal Worker
by paganini

Comment by Journey:
I'll be darned, not a macro! And i resent the fact that you proclaim that out of principle you never crop and then end up doing it big time. Whenever i was working on my pictures, i recalled that post and felt so pitiful that i needed to resort so often to cropping.
Funny too, that Gordon said that the saturation hurts his eyes. I really love the colors and it was me who criticized Rockwell's colors :) Thx for the channel mixer tip; for pictures, i tended to use hue/sat.

The Loyal Worker
by paganini

Comment by Gordon:
This is a cool shot - great detail on the bee - though the saturation is hurting my eyes :)

Btw ,the 70-200L _is_ a great lens for doing close-up work... Just because it doesn't say macro, doesn't mean it can't be used (I have an entire book on macro photography that only mentions macro lenses for about 4 pages) I've taken some nice macro of flowers with it.

All 70-200 lens for the close-ups

The Loyal Worker
by paganini

Comment by paganini:
Thanks Journey. I think you'd be surprised that this is a crop -- yes, i am whoring in this challenge :) and a VERY tight crop indeed, almost no resizing needed, seriously.

I did several crops of this scene and use this the best, then just add a bit of saturation (Channel Mixer to minimize noises -- if you use saturation button in PS it adds a lot more noises). That's why the edges of the stem is sort of blurry because i am losing resolution big time.

It was shot with a 50 mm lens too.... just cropped. The original photo had the bee as the focus @ F2.5 so i know most of the flowers will be OOF outside the plane, hand held, was going to do a FLORA photo and turned it to a Fauna challenge.

Too bad this will not be able to be "printed" as it is a very very very small crop of the original photo and doens't have enough resolution. It's funny how a lot of people "believed" it's a macro when it's really just a large photo cropped down tightly.

Oh yeah, i do have that 70-200 mm L lens :) but it's not suitable for macros. Probably could've used it to get closer than what the original photo was... but it's not a macro lens -- they both have the 100 mm macro.

Message edited by author 2003-04-30 01:12:37.

The Loyal Worker
by paganini

Comment by Journey:
Oh, paganini, YOU did this shot? That pleases me to no end!!! I knew of course that this came from a Canon but i was suspecting it was Dadas or Gordon since they both have that great 200mm lens. But since i knew they had both read the Velvia thread they would understand the joke (it was a joke, hope you realize that). I have never given a 10+ to any picture. This is my favorite of all pictures at dpc ever! I am really not a silly goose but this picture is so beautiful, it delights me so that it brings tears to my eyes looking at it. You are such a 'technical' guy (not a put down by any means, merely an observation) but this picture shows that you're really moving around in the domain of Art. I have thought a lot about this picture this week and fully intended to make whoever did this my one and only (so far) favorite photographer. So, there you go! I suspected this picture was too sophisticated to win but that it didn't make the top 10-20 is truly pathetic :) Sorry for writing this book! Btw, did i tell you i LOVE this picture?

The Loyal Worker
by paganini

Comment by inspzil:
This is almost really good. There is just too much yellow to this. I think its oversaturated and it's not the clearest shot either which makes little yellow ghosts around the little yellow flowers. Maybe a ladybug would provide a little more contrast. I think if it were just a little sharper, the framing and the distance of the bee would overcome the yellow and I would have to score it higher. But as is, its an almost very good shot.

New Born Baby
by paganini

Comment by paganini:
Lens used was 70-200 mm L F4 @ 200 mm i think.

The Loyal Worker
by paganini

Comment by the_emaxx:
i like it very much, but how did you blur the backgound so much... it seems a bit like a filter. anyway the composition is great

New Born Baby
by paganini

Comment by magnetic9999:
what lens?

New Born Baby
by paganini

Comment by paganini:
Thanks for your comments.

It's not a background, it's actually water, just dark. Funny how people don't see it's in water -- where else do you find waterlillies? The purple ones are especially rare....

New Born Baby
by paganini

Comment by seasaw:
The flower is nice but the background in the upper left corner is distracting...