Response to Old (Response #71)

Uploaded 530 Days Ago by Ana - 16 comments

Photo © Ana (Ana Cortez) - imageanalogy.my-expressions.com/
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User Comments

beckn32 said 530 days ago:

Great idea and I like the inclusion of the paperwork. I wish this were more in focus to we can see more detail in the fossils.

eggplant said 530 days ago:

I like the shallow dof. What kind of fossils are they?

pete said 530 days ago:

really nice idea :) the focus is just TOOO blurry i think though, detracts from what you can see

King said 530 days ago:

F4 is a very nice f-stop, too. Sorry...shallow depth of field for the sake of shallow depth of field is a pet peeve. It's just personal on my part, but it will also get you a lower technique rating from me on this image. It would have been nice to see more fossil.

The processing is interesting, unless that is some sort of camera effect ( out of focus striations, blurs). Maybe you have a lens attachment (or trick lens) that works best at maximum aperture. I guess I'm asking for an explanation.

King said 530 days ago:

On the other hand, when I want to make a digital image, I use my wifes point-n-shoot, which has no manual adjustments, so who am I to criticize?

However, it's not capable of shooting at an extremely wide aperture, so I couldn't get depth of field this shallow if I wanted to without faking it in Photoshop.

Ana said 530 days ago:

I used my 300mm/macro lens for this shot.
Thanks for all the comments. I tried to photograph my fossils (I dug these up!) in away that was interesting, let people know they were fossils and in a nice, crisp shot.

Flatline said 530 days ago:

Yup, definitely old, but hits a few pet-peeves for me: the white balance is off, I don't see the need for such an extremely shallow depth-of-field, and I usually don't like to be clobbered thematically by text; I prefer to understand that it is a fossil without the dictionary definition.

Flatline said 530 days ago:

Ah, props given for photographing your own fossils.

Ana said 530 days ago:

@Flatline..in trying to decide how to set this up, I contemplated a few different compositions. I was worried about people not realizing these were fossils, or (frankly) the shot being rather boring and bland if taken with them on a black background. I wanted some type of base that made sense. I thought this was fun, and good practice for my new macro/300mm lens!! Yay!

Ana said 530 days ago:

Oh, and this is actually an old encyclopedia, and not a dictionary. I thought it was fun to find an old, yellowed book that had this info!

King said 530 days ago:

Ah, an old encyclopedia. That explains what I called the striations at the bottom left...the decoration on the edge of the pages. I thought it was another fossil.

Congratulations, Ana, on your new 300mm macro lens.

King said 530 days ago:

@Flatline...what is white balance? :>)

Flatline said 530 days ago:

Yeah, I can see how just fossils might be hard to do.

King, WB (or color temp) - the digital cameras adjust for what they perceive to be a weighted average to get to 16% grey (or 18%, but that's another religious battle I want no part of.) By your smiley I asume you know all this...

Anyhoo, Ana's paper looks pink, no doubt due to the camera reading the warm tungsten light incorrectly.

Ana said 530 days ago:

Oh yeah, I guess it does look a bit pink! I was focusing (pun) so much on getting the lettering to look black and clear, that I didn't take much notice to the page looking pink.

tenebrophilia said 530 days ago:

You can't get older than fossil! I like the selective focus on the word and the brachiopod (I think it's a brachiopod?)

Ana said 530 days ago:

If you say so!! I don't know fossils, but it was fun digging them up with the people that did! Rocks and dirt and fun!

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