Seasons Greetings everyone! I trust all at Group f11 will have a wonderful holiday (?) over the next week and come back fresh with lots of imagery... Paul how's the camera disaster following you :) Time for a Christmas present?

On a different note, here's something to mull over - SANParks have released their latest policy regarding photography and filming in their parks (http://www.sanparks.org/groups/filming/2008/filiming_policy.pdf). I'm not sure whether this bodes particularly well for anyone with a tripod...or an SLR for that matter, but maybe I'm being pessimistic. Be warned though that according to the law now you cannot earn income (or pocket money) from images shot in SANParks without a paid up front photography permit. Will this affect your shooting? If we are really going to start looking at the lettering, does this mean SANParks owns copywrite to the image of Table Mountain? or Cape Point? (extreme I know, but this kind of law is a slippery slope). What does this mean for stock photographers which are speculative at the very least?

So while you ponder, have a wonderful Christmas and seasons blessings to you and your families.

E

.... oh and rip roarous New Year ;)

Monk's Cowl Stream - and Dec's theme

It's late, but water nonetheless. I wanted to shoot the water theme in a studio shot but lack of time as a result of a new member of the family :) has me resorting to the fail-safe style. Does it work? Comments always appreciated (tech details: 10mp capture with a 12-24mm lens - 100ISO, 3sec @ f11. Small burst of flash, second exposure of 6 sec @ f11 blended into HDR to obtain detail in the shadows)

As an aside - Nikon have finally introduced their full frame mega-pixel heavy flagship, the D3x with a 24.5mp sensor...all for the pocket change tag of US$8000!!! That's heavy when Canon's equivalent sells for 1500 less and Sony have just introduced a 24mp FF of their own for less than US%3000. On the home range this means that anyone who wins the lotto can probably buy a D3x for roughly R90k (what with our draconian import taxes)... and people say digital is cheaper than film ;)

On a final note...December's theme, if anyone has a chance to give it a bash with all the festivities is, 'light - the photographer's medium'. As a change as well, here's January's theme, courtesy of Neil. The idea for January is to pick a book and shoot an image that could be used for it's cover. Post the title of the book along with the image. Good luck, you might need more than a month, hence the early warning.

E

PanaTable

Ok so I have to mention that I do not use PS at all and don’t really like using it, as I think part of the art of photography is the skill it takes to take the pic in the field..But this photo is one of the only photos I have ever used PS on. I used PS to splice the photo together..What do you think? There is a slight glitch in the splice on the horizon, and I don’t really know how to get rid of it..? Any ideas?

Does this work?

From birds to flowers :) I shot this last week while in Pongola. I personally really like this shot (this is the Neilish shot I mentioned below). Does this shot work for anyone else? I purposely framed the image to clip the right of the petals. Could this work as a stock shot? Does it have fine art potential?

Tech details - 10mp capture with a 105mm macro. available light which was nicely diffused by the overcast sky. The petal was placed on one opf my flash bounce cards.

E

Being Brave

Hi everyone,

Well I'm being brave here. I am putting up a pic up that is far from perfect but goes with the whole bird in flight string we've had. I am interested to know if this is a 'hit or miss' as Tim put it. I took this picture just after I just got my camera, so I didn't try too hard technically. So please fill me in!

God beams

Ok so this is the first time I am posting anything. I really hope I am not making a botch up of this. But here go's!
Since the theme for November is water, I thought I should post a pic I took on a dive I did on Sunday.
I tried getting the beams of sunlight to shine past the head of the kelp for a mystical forest effect.
Any comments?
I am totally open to crits, as I am not a professional.

Ah, cute?

As some of you know, I only photograph things that do not move (well, according to Emil anyway!). Thus, in response to all the impressive birds in flight shots I thought I would post a nice pleasant (static) image of a doll!

I find this image very spooky? Any comments.

Neil.

Weavers weavers weavers

Right so does this work better? Come on Guru, give me practical advice :) Tim

Weaver - hit or miss?

After visiting Emil and Jax, I somehow managed to put my keys in my boot, close the boot and then hit the lock button on the key...? Only I could do this...so dont ask.
Nonetheless I was stranded under a tree of weavers so took some pics...
What do you think? Hit or miss? Tim Matthis

Lapwing in Flight

This is a pic I shot of a flying lapwing (blacksmith). I know its a sucky shot, but I thought it was interesting to see the spurs on the wings compared with the one on the shot you took of the wattled lapwing. Makes you realise they must have come from the same founding stock back in their evolutionary history

Plover - and call for posts

For a long time now it's been a goal of mine to capture birds in flight, and/or avian behaviour. This is extremely difficult without long AF lenses...but not impossible. One of the winning images from this years BWPY is of a Hoopoe flying towards its nest, taken with a wide angle lens (admittedly via remote).

Here's one of my shots from last week of a wattled plover in flight. D200 with an 80-200, f2.8, but cropped in to about 1/2 frame.

A note to all - please post shots for crit. This is an opportunity to get comments on images and thereby improve one's photography, rather than stashing images away on a hardrive that never get displayed. If you know of other photographers who are interested in joining the group, please pass on their details. If you have something you'd like to say about photography in general, speak up. If you have a question about a technique, ask - someone on the blog will most likely be able to answer it. Just as an example, the blog already has three professional photographers, covering topics from journalism through to food, stock and weddings. There's also something of an IT specialist and another who is involved in tourism...so ask away. Your points may just be answered.

E

November's theme and a macro post

Apologies for the long delay in getting this month's theme out. Hopefully November will have more posts than last month. To make it easy, since it's so late, the theme is water for November. Make it slow, freeze the action, do it underwater...whatever floats your boat really.

for the interim here's a shot from the other day that I'm quite chuffed with. I found these guys hanging onto a pair dying twigs in Pongola. As the wind was blowing we were able to move them in away from the wind and use a set up of three flashguns (1 diffused with a large bounce panel and the other two dialed right down to just add fill). Jackie held one fill light while her dad held the other. The main source was attached via an arm to the camera. What do you think? Any suggestions for PS?

E

Canon's new 50D

For anyone who is interested, DP review have posted their review of Canon's middle range 15mp contender here. Interestingly Sony and Nikon's 12mp answers and Pentax's 14mp challenger possibly outpip the 50D in terms of per pixel sharpness when processed from RAW (very surprising considering Nikon's usual softness compared to Canon).

E

A big sale

On something of a dare i've been asked to post my most valuable sale (not necessarily most valuable image). Earlier this year sold through Getty for a total of $18000 for an all advertising useage. The commission came to just over R25k.

I personally don't feel that this is the best image of mine, but apparently the buyer likes it. This sort of serves as an indication that the value is in the eye of the beholder. It also shows the kind of money that stock images do sell for occasionally. By and large sales are small, netting between 500-R1000 for the photographer, often less. But the big sales do happen :)

E

Interesting reviews

For all the gearheads among us I've added some links to sites of interest. There have been some interesting developments in the FF side of things as well as in compacts.

Luminous Landscape's review on the Canon G10 is very interesting, showing that there may actually be a compact out there that suits the more discerning photog....something that you could possibly fall back on as a back up.

DP review have done a test on the Sony A900... the new MP killer with 24.1mp in a FF sensor. Click on the link to view it.

Enjoy

E

How about this?

Hi Neil

How's this? I took your recoloured image and then created a duplicate layer with mask. Using Levels I got the 'blood' darker, then painted in what I wanted with the mask layer. I then created a burn dodge layer (create new layer then fill with 50% grey, adjust layer to soft light and paint to burn/dodge) to tidy up brights and shadows. Maybe it looks too oily now? Not sure (oh and I resized the whole image as well so that it was smaller for post)

E

Not so YUK!

Again, this was shot for a book cover - moody, arty - with conceptual value because of the switches. All comments welcome, Cheers, Neil.

Yuk!

This was shot with a book cover in mind. I have images with Trevillion Images (UK) and will soon have images with Arcangel Images – a Spanish agency - both specialise in book/cd covers etc. Many contemporary fiction books have images from these two libraries on the cover. This was obviously shot for the thriller genre!

Age theme - Emil's sub

This is my stab at this month's theme, Age. I think the idea in this case is obvious. Sadly I didn't have an older camera at hand, so had to rely on an old rolleiflex.

I purposely wanted to try something that I have never done before, and here is the result. This involved a fair amount of photoshop work, merging three seperate images. In terms of photoshop I mainly worked with layers, using a gradient tool in masks to emphasize the the lighting I had used. As for lighting, I set a single flash gun up and to the left of the cameras. A black background was used as well as a gobo on the right of the camera to kill any accidental fill. I metered the flash and stopped down to ensure that there would be dark shadows on the opposite side of the flash.

Any crits are greatly appreciated.

E

Teaching assignments - a request for suggestions?

As some of you know I currently run a workshop in St Lucia. I've been trying to think up some new assignments for the students as we sometimes have a mix of novice through to advanced photographers. The course is oriented towards outdoor nature photography. So far I have had students go off on mini-assignments to demonstrate camera control through aperture, shutter speed etc, a mini essay on St Lucia itself and a treasure hunt of techniques (demonstrate panning, rear-sync flash, DoF etc, etc.)

Do any of you have suggestions for assignments? My biggest problem is with the more advanced photographers who get bored of demonstrating, let's say aperture and DoF. Paul, what sort of assignments do you give your students (if you don't mind my asking). Mandy, what kind of stuff would you like to see in a course?

Thanks in advance for any feedback. Cheers

E

Eletrifying experience

This was taken last week in St Lucia during the photo workshop. Pity i can't organise this every time as the students loved the shoot.

This is a double exposure, taken one after the other and then realigned properly in PS (I jiggled the tripod a bit between exposures).

Any suggestions as to PS work (colour caste perhaps) or to how to improve the actual comp? I included the sign not only for focal point interest but also because I thought it was slightly ironic (pedestrian + lightning).

Cheers

E

HDR parts

Hi Everyone.

As per request, here are the images that make up the HDR image that I posted about a week and a half ago. as you can see most of the work is in the sky and the sea, rather than the sands.

E

Colour version

Ok, good points. I was considering the fresh rose because of stock - new life, growth etc but I guess that does not really fit the theme. Jackie, I converted to black and white because I forgot to switch off the modelling lights on my stobes and the resultant colour images were too red. They didn't look right 'corrected' in PS. I have re-shot without the modelling lights, let me know what you think!

October AGE theme

I have been drying out some flowers of late and thought I would give the October theme a go. I wondered about leaving this in colour and buying a new rose to exchange for the one that is higher than the others. What do you think?

Neil.

October's Theme

Kicking off the monthly photographic theme for the group, is the rather broad theme of 'age'. The idea is to try and specifically shoot an image each month that contributes to this theme. It can be shot in the middle of a commercial shoot, or while doing other photographic work, but the point is that it is shot during the actual month of the theme. There is no deadline as such. This is purely a exercise to stretch photographic ideas and develop personal vision.

Good luck. I'm looking forward to seeing the images later in the month. See everyone in a week's time when I get back from teaching in St Lucia.

Cheers
E

HDR example

Here's an example of a blended image using three shots but which still has a burnt-out sun. I tried adding another frame where the sun was not burnt-out but it just didn't look natural at all. Not sure if this works entirely, but personally think it's given a latitude handling closer to film (see Neil's previous post and our discussion around it). I didn't use ND filters for this.

E

What about this?

OK, I am putting this one out there with little confidence. Is this suitable as stock, or should I ditch it? I can't decide if I like it, is it marketable? Winter sunrise at Kenton-on-Sea.

Neil.

Coffee example

OK - Stockfood have taken this image as RM.

The group's name

I realised that the name Group f11 may seem a little arbitrary to some. Like Group f64 (founded by the likes of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston etc.) it derives its meaning from a technical application of the aperture. For Group f64 it was the aperture that gave the greatest detail, front to back, for an 8x10 inch negative.

F11 is, for most APS-C sized digital sensors the smallest aperture that allows maximum depth of field before the 'circle of confusion' rears its ugly head (Neil, this doesn't apply for you in a way as the FF sensor can handle a smaller aperture by about a stop). i had also thought about using f5.6 since that is usually the sharpest aperture on most 35mm format lenses. F11 it is though since we tend to want DoF as well as sharpness.

That, in a nutshell, is why this is called Group f11.

E

This is really a question for Neil, the food photog among us, but anyone please chime in here. how would you improve on this (shooting style included, not just PS)? I've been trying to see things in a similar way and hell, i have no idea how you do it Neil. This was with window light using a 50mm lens (trying to avoid distortion). Is this 'good enough' for stock? I'm personally disappointed. How do you deal with the reflections in glass and porcelain?

thanks

E

Just to further the debate

So this is to just further the debate about zoo pics. This pic is taken specifically for fun! As you will all discover I'm the most amateur of the lot. That reflection in the cheetah's eye is me on my haunches taking it's portrait.

But I also get embarrassed when I have to explain that it was a cheetah in captivity and I'm not really stalking this creature. Though my American clients always believe the story I tell before I admit the truth! Ha ha! Even for an amateur there is that guilt feeling when it's not the 'huntitdownwaitforhoursinthebush' wildlife photography.

Mandy Rapson

First image for crit

Ok, this was shot for stock primarily aimed at the postcard/greeting card/poster/calendar market. Aside from being twee, which is really has to be for this market I guess, I'm pretty happy with it.

Neil.

Ok, I actually have a question... how do you guys view images that are shot in a zoo? This was taken through bars at the umgeni Bird Sanctuary. It was shot specifically for stock potential. Is this a valid image...or do i need to go to costa Rica to photograph birds to be a 'valid' image? Thought?

Emil

The first post - and request for comments

Hi everyone. Tada, finally I have gotten some sense of this and have started the blog for the time being. Eventually, once I learn some more about html I'll design a proper interactive website (Tim, you mentioned something about donating space? ;)).

As a first shot here is one that was taken two week's ago in Mountain Sanctuary Private Park. The exposure was somewhere around 10 minutes (the battery died on me before the end of the exposure).

As a general guideline, I guess comments can be left either through the comment section, or by posting below the image. Please sign off with your name as I'm unsure whether it will read or not since we all essentailly have the same identity (once the real site is up that'll all change).

Here's to the experiment.

Emil