NikonGear'23

Images => Nature, Flora, Fauna & Landscapes => Topic started by: Akira on October 02, 2016, 11:39:35

Title: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 02, 2016, 11:39:35
All are in full bloom.
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Fons Baerken on October 02, 2016, 12:37:19
#4 great one
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 02, 2016, 13:35:21
Thank you, Fons!
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: David H. Hartman on October 02, 2016, 13:55:44
I like 4, 5 and 6.

Thank you!

Dave
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 02, 2016, 14:02:10
Dave, glad you like them!
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Andrew on October 02, 2016, 15:43:23
Very well done!
Lens?
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Frank Fremerey on October 02, 2016, 16:05:52
I love #4494. It leaves generous space for imagination!
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Anirban Halder on October 02, 2016, 16:33:37
I love #4494. It leaves generous space for imagination!
+1
My fav as well. Nice series Akira. Looks very colorful out there.
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Jakov Minić on October 02, 2016, 16:54:40
I like them on Facebook already  8)
The first butterfly is very confusing, I always get drawn to the fake eyes on the back of the wings :)
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Tom Hook on October 02, 2016, 17:55:25
Akira - Nice shots, thanks for posting. The butterflies are mostly gone in these parts.
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 02, 2016, 18:53:49
Very well done!
Lens?

Thanks, Andrew.  All images were shot with the humble AF-S 50/1.8G, and cropped to various degrees.  The closeups of the butterflies were cropped quite heavily.  The camera was D750 set at ISO200.

I love #4494. It leaves generous space for imagination!

Frank and Anirban, I also like this kind of images for the same reason.  Thanks for kind comments.

I like them on Facebook already  8)
The first butterfly is very confusing, I always get drawn to the fake eyes on the back of the wings :)

Yup, thanks for "like it" over there.  :)  The butterfly is fairly common in Japan, but I'd never noticed that fake until I clopped the imges.  :D

Tom, glad you like them.  They were busy in sucking nectar for their last bit tusks...
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Mongo on October 03, 2016, 00:42:18
a nice short study series. Mongo likes #4 and 5 best.
#5 is probably the best of them because it has so many different points of appeal in the one image. BTW , the colour in these is great. 
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 03, 2016, 01:54:17
Mongo, thanks!

After some discussion in another thread, I found that Adobe Standard color profile is applied in ACR regardless of the Picture Control settings in the camera.  So, I experimented with the Picture Control pulldown menu in ACR before I adjust exposure, contrast, etc.  I fouind that the Picture Control did amazing job and makes the post process very easy.
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: armando_m on October 03, 2016, 04:19:41
Great series Akira

Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 03, 2016, 04:26:50
Thanks, Armando!
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: beryllium10 on October 03, 2016, 06:18:36
Very nice! I like #4 and #5; #5 especially for the contrast between orange and blue, a favourite colour pairing for me.  The orange colour of these flowers reminds me of the intense orange of California poppies (Eschscholzia californica (not a botanist, I had to look that up)).  I find those a challenge to photograph in strong sunlight.  Under auto-exposure the red channel will often clip by a full stop or more at the camera's preferred exposure, which flattens out a lot of detail in the bright orange petals.  To bring the red channel back within range, I have to under-expose the photo overall by a corresponding amount.  I guess this may be happening with the dark greens in #1-#3 and the deep blue of the sky in #6.  They remind me of the beautiful intense reds and yellows I used to be able to get by slightly underexposing ektachrome slide film.

Cheers,  John
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 03, 2016, 07:09:43
John, thanks for sharing your insight and analysis.

Indeed putting the red channel under control was tricky.  And you are right about the underexposure of dark green and blue sky: the blue channel crushed to the left wall of the histogram.  I raised the shadow control to recover the blue channel to some extent, but I chose to stay with the tonal balance that I liked.  All images were shot at ISO 200, and the wide dynamic range of D750 seemed to have helped a bit to keep the color under control.
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Mongo on October 03, 2016, 23:12:12
Mongo, thanks!

After some discussion in another thread, I found that Adobe Standard color profile is applied in ACR regardless of the Picture Control settings in the camera.  So, I experimented with the Picture Control pulldown menu in ACR before I adjust exposure, contrast, etc.  I fouind that the Picture Control did amazing job and makes the post process very easy.

was not aware of this. Great info and very useful. Big thanks Akira. 
Title: Re: Cosmos sulphureus and some guests
Post by: Akira on October 04, 2016, 00:16:46
was not aware of this. Great info and very useful. Big thanks Akira.

You are welcome, Mongo.  I also remembered that my pro photog friend had said that the in-camera JPEG was hard to beat by processing RAW by oneself.  To me, it turned out to be quite true.