[Anton Magus]

Most shots with point light sources and the like are very tough. Shooting a decent picture of the moon, for example, is very difficult to get right unless you're doing Full-Manual with a digital camera.

I may be the Famous FIlm Fanatic (tm), but there are times I think Digital is a godsend.

That said, I have 2 new point-and-shoot-eligible film cameras, so I'm trying to work them into the competition!

Absolutely. The auto-exposure kept averaging out the light so the candle and the table it was on were perfectly exposed, but the flame itself was just a white, over-exposed blob. Also, the camera wouldn't focus on the flame alone. Hmmm. I originally thought this was a quick and easy task. Take a few shots and zap them into the contest. But it was fast turning into a major problem. Going to manual focus and setting the camera exactly a metre from the flame was OK, and then full manual on a range of ISO's at f8 changing the shutter speed for each shot was the way to go. As you say, digital was a godsend. I would just hate to have had to process film and make prints to see what worked best. Eventually discovered 80 ISO, f8 and 1/125 second worked pretty well to capture the colours in the flame.

There's room in the world for film and digital. I still say there is nothing to compare with my grandma's apple pie, with home-made pastry and fresh-picked apples, lovingly baked for what seemed an eternity in her coal-fired farm oven. On the other hand I can live with the frozen apple pie from the supermarket chucked in the microwave for a few minutes too. Its not as good as what I remember from my childhood, but its OK for what I want now.

So, whether film or digital, we are really looking forward to your entries.

[Immunogirl]

Oh wow... I've been busy with work and more work, but there's been some awesome and very creative pics since I last checked in.... It is shaping up to be a very difficult competition to judge, a little sparse on the entries but all of 'em are really high quality.

Todd - I really like the lighting/shading on the first pic.

G.T. managed to find an antique looking flame...

Great photoshopping by Chemtech & Ivoire


Anton Magus is not only a magician, he's got findertips instead of fingertips! That's how he found some flame!

Love the sunlight reflecting on the rails in Bart's picture - it really draws you in. Have you tried cropping out some of the left side of the pic?

Kyteflyer, excellent rendition of romantic candlelight...

[chemtech]

Thanks, Immunogirl for your kind comments, I forgot to mention that the orginal fireworks were taken by the FZ150.
After reading how Anton captured his flames, I was encouraged to give it a try with the manual focus on the Pan. FZ150. My flame is a little different, but, it made an interesting pic.
My inner Pyro found two black tiles from the garage, some table salt and lighter fluid to build this quick burning flame. Yes, safety cautions were observed, but, it sure was kinda exciting anyway.

[Anton Magus]

Nice picture chemtech.

[chemtech]

Thanks, Anton. Do you think I should have tried to lighten it up a little?

[Anton Magus]

Thanks, Anton. Do you think I should have tried to lighten it up a little?

That's a tough question based on your personal taste. For a trial I took your image and looked at it darkened (-1 EV) and lightened (+1 EV) with the original in the middle for comparison.



To me, I liked the original better than the +1 EV, but maybe somewhere in between would have been good. The lighter you go the more the burning salt becomes visible which (IMO) spoils the image a bit.

Of course, burning salt gives a characteristic yellow sodium flame and I prefer flames to have a strong red component if possible. So I also fooled around with the color balance - very radically - just to show the reds and yellows. Its a bit surreal but interesting. Finally I just took the original image and applied a gentle red filter.
These are shown below, original / color balance altered / and red filtered very mildly.



All done in Photoshop CS6 - my amazing new toy.

I guess you could lighten the image say +1/2 EV and just boost the red component a tad if you really want to, but like I said in the beginning the original is pretty good anyway.

[chemtech]

Wow, Anton! Love what you have done with this!. You and your new toy (CS6) have done a great job of making the flame look better. I think, I like the last one the best of all, although the + 1EV is an improvement too. On the other hand, the surreal one would work as a graphic or maybe a texture.
Thanks, again!
Edith

[ivoire]

Agree with chemtech... last one is excellent

[todd]

Yes, the last flame frame is the tastiest..

[Anton Magus]

Wow, Anton! Love what you have done with this!. You and your new toy (CS6) have done a great job of making the flame look better. I think, I like the last one the best of all, although the + 1EV is an improvement too. On the other hand, the surreal one would work as a graphic or maybe a texture.
Thanks, again!
Edith

My pleasure.
One of the main reasons for moving from film to digital, for me, was the ease and flexibility of "playing" with the image. Not only is it easy to check that the pic you have just taken is acceptable, but you can then work some "movie magic" on it to get it how you want. To be fair though most of the images are fine just the way they are.

[Bart]

Wow, chemtech. That is really beautiful!

Great variations, Anton. Last one for me.

Thanks, Catriona. I'm actually pretty bad in cropping: I usually feel I'm loosing something
I'll have a look.

I think it did improve the image so, I updated the entry. Thanks

[Anton Magus]

It seems many of us indulge in a bit of Post-Processing in an attempt to change or improve our photographs.

Maybe you have tried fairly mild PP, like cropping the image, correcting white balance, reducing noise or sharpening the image. Or something more adventurous like converting to black & white, fixing exposure or correcting color.
Have you played with creating high dynamic range (HDR) images from a series of differently exposed pics? What about stitching images into a panorama?

Perhaps there is enough interest to start a PP contest thread?
The contest could run just like the P&S contests, from month to month. The winner of the contest is the new judge and puts up a photograph for the next contest. We could then download that photograph and do whatever to it to "improve" it.
The final post-processed image can then be submitted as an entry, along with a short description of what was done and how. The judge for the month picks the winner, as well as second and third etc. The winner then becomes the judge for the next contest.

To get it started I have set up the first contest on a new thread. It will run from now through July, so visit the thread and give it a go.

[unixrevolution]

It seems many of us indulge in a bit of Post-Processing in an attempt to change or improve our photographs.

Maybe you have tried fairly mild PP, like cropping the image, correcting white balance, reducing noise or sharpening the image. Or something more adventurous like converting to black & white, fixing exposure or correcting color.
Have you played with creating high dynamic range (HDR) images from a series of differently exposed pics? What about stitching images into a panorama?

Perhaps there is enough interest to start a PP contest thread?
The contest could run just like the P&S contests, from month to month. The winner of the contest is the new judge and puts up a photograph for the next contest. We could then download that photograph and do whatever to it to "improve" it.
The final post-processed image can then be submitted as an entry, along with a short description of what was done and how. The judge for the month picks the winner, as well as second and third etc. The winner then becomes the judge for the next contest.

To get it started I have set up the first contest on a new thread. It will run from now through July, so visit the thread and give it a go.

I like this idea, though I'll probably not be doing much in it.

[Anton Magus]

I like this idea, though I'll probably not be doing much in it.

Thanks Unixrevolution.
It may be something to do on a boring evening or a rainy weekend

Maybe have a look at the thread - we have had our first entry already!

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-compact-digital-film-cameras/19073...ntest-1-a.html

[chemtech]

I like the idea of a contest for compact PP, too! I plan to give it a try.

Thanks, for all the attention and nice comments, Anton, ivorie, todd and Bart. It was fun to see how all the adjustments made the flame pic change. I did try some further adjustments on my own and the pic is improved, but, I still think Anton was able to pull out the most improvement.