Working with the new toy

[Cheryl Slechta]

Here's another shot with the cctv lens taken at the Harn Museum butterfly garden. Pretty much straight out of the camera - cropped a little. I tried it with a texture but it seemed to mute the impressionistic look so I copied and pasted the image with the texture (it was an abstract texture that I had done as a theme entry a long time ago) and reduced the opacity until I was happier with it.
Thanks for looking:S3:

[Anita Bower]

I like it a lot. You are tempting me with this lens. Nice composition. The bokeh works beautifully. Is the bokeh from the texture? Not sure I understand what you did in copying, etc. I might crop a bit off the top.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Thanks, Anita, the bokeh is from the lens. It only cost $17 (although I may invest in a couple of better quality ones for around $30 each). This is a 25 f/1.4. I think there is a 38mm one also. I haven't had much time to research it further. It has a "C" mount so you have to get an adapter from B&H - they are specific to lens mounts so you would want a "C" to M4/3 mount and you want to get a better quality one - it costs about $10.
What I did for the image is I had the base image and then I duplicated it and tried a texture which I overlayed using the overlay blend mode at a reduced opacity. I really wanted something in between the two looks so I copied the image with the texture applied and pasted it onto the base image and then reduced the opacity to about 60%. I like your suggestion about the crop from the top. Thanks:S3:

[Valerio Tarone]

Hi Cheryl, I like the impressionistic views as this. Exactly what I'm often like to get, the bokeh. Could you explain what kind of lens is it to an ignorant? the bokeh was famous for Sandra Bartocha's images, they were made with a 'Zeiss 100' lens. This old german lens as been recently renewed and presented a new model by Zeiss...But it cost too much! you can see the www.sandrabartocha.com (or some similar)site.