Macro Day 3: Bubbling Up
by socalsteve

Comment by GregoryB:
Love this - would also like to see it processed in other colours

Macro Day 4
by socalsteve

Comment by MelonMusketeer:
There is something soothing about a little flame like this. You did a nice job of getting this, and the light fall off is good to help with the effect of the flame providing all of the light.

Macro Day 4
by socalsteve

Comment by ShutterPug:
Very good job here. As Arcanist stated, getting the wb correct is the toughest when shooting fire

Macro Day 1
by socalsteve

Comment by Arcanist:
Not a fan of this image. Don't like the subject, lighting, crop or background. Well, not for a challenge at least. For the side-chall, it is a great subject to learn from.

Excellent focus and very, very impressed with the lack of ISO noise on a long exposure ISO 800 image! Are you using the High ISO noise reduction/Long Exp NR that's built in or are you using a neat image software? (Curious minds who use the same Nik and Lens want to know!)

Macro Day 3: Bubbling Up
by socalsteve

Comment by Arcanist:
Image knocks me out. I can't decide if I love it for the abstarct nature or if it just confuses me because the shapes don't make sense to me. Actually I love it. This is what macro is all about and even the hot spot works for the whole.

Macro Day 4
by socalsteve

Comment by Arcanist:
So tough to balance flame light and low light color casts. You've done it very well. Everything surprisingly in focus for such a wide opening. Good job!

Macro Day 1
by socalsteve

Comment by boyd2000:
Welcome to the side challenge Steve. Good start. With an 18-200 zoom make sure you're at 200 to get the closest in, since the specs say it will focus to 20 inches throughout the range. A couple of cheap Home Depot halogen floodlights would help lighting. That would let you use a higher aperture and get more of the control pad in focus. Looking forward to upcoming days shots.

Macro Day 3: Bubbling Up
by socalsteve

Comment by socalsteve:
Hi all - thanks for the nice comments!

re brightness: I tried several different lighting effects and would always end-up with a bad hotspot somewhere, so low-light long-exposure it had to be.

re what it is: it's a little glass egg-shaped decorative thing, about 5 inches tall.

re shapes and orientations: I like those a lot too - I could only get them at this angle and in this lighting. I tried flipping it 180 vertically, and the drop looked nice, but the "waves" around it looked even stranger than the drop does now. So I guess think of it as a bubble instead of a drop?

Steve

Macro Day 3: Bubbling Up
by socalsteve

Comment by MelonMusketeer:
Nice shapes and textures in this shot. I feel that it would look even more mysterious if you rotate it 180 so the "drops" would be hanging from the top.

Macro Day 3: Bubbling Up
by socalsteve

Comment by kteach:
I have no idea what this is, but it's neat! Great variety of shapes and textures, and the color is neat too. Almost an optical illusion since I'm having a hard time with the depth perception of this one. Interesting!