DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register) 
 
Challenge Entries
Portfolio Images
This image is not part of a public portfolio.
Thistle Missile
Thistle Missile
giantmike


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: In The Style Of: bspurgeon (Advanced Editing VII)
Camera: Canon EOS-50D
Lens: Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS
Location: Madison, WI
Date: Jul 13, 2011
Aperture: 36
ISO: 100
Shutter: 0.5
Galleries: Nature, Blur
Date Uploaded: Jul 13, 2011

 This challenge certainly took me outside of my comfort zone, and challenged me in many ways. Pretty much form the start I knew I wanted to go for something with good blur, but getting good blur is very difficult without a ND filter. Stopping down the aperture can help lengthen the shutter time, but that also results in a larger depth of field. I have a polarizing filter for my 15-85 lens, but that only happens so much. So I had to use more physics knowledge and make sure the background was very far from the subject in comparison to the lens to subject distance (to use the small aperture). In this case the lens was about 2m from the subject and the background was at least 15 m away.

I got lucky and went to shoot for this on a windy day. That allowed me to hold the shutter and get a number of shots and pick out the best movement. Far and away this shot was the best. The plant must have stopped at the left most position for an extended period of time to make this effect.

Post Processing:
* Crop
* Retouch out dust spots
* Increase exposure
* Increase black point
* Topaz DeNoise
* Nik HDR Efex Pro on a single exposure
* White Balance
* Increase Exposure and recovery
* Increase contrast and definition
* Reduce Saturation but increase Vibrancy
* Reduce Green but increase red/purple/blue
* Export as TIFF
* Resize
* Sharpen Edges
* Save as JPEG

Statistics
Place: 145 out of 156
Avg (all users): 5.0000
Avg (commenters): 5.2000
Avg (participants): 5.1013
Avg (non-participants): 4.7500
Views since voting: 422
Views during voting: 198
Votes: 111
Comments: 5
Favorites: 0

Please log in or register to add your comments!

AuthorThread
 Comments Made During the Challenge
07/21/2011 10:24:04 PM
I do like the blur quite a bit....
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/19/2011 08:26:29 PM
Now this is funny. Painfully colorful!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/18/2011 09:12:41 PM
Not Ben but 6 anyway.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/16/2011 02:55:02 PM
If the blur were softer I think I would like this better. Still like the colors with the muted green as a background.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 07/15/2011 10:47:20 PM
Not the kind of blur I'd associate with Ben. This has a strange, psychedelic feel to it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Prints! - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2024 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 04/23/2024 02:14:12 PM EDT.