Reaching Out

[denise ippolito]

Canon 1D Mark III
100 mm Macro lens
1/125 sec. at f/2.8
ISO 400
HH
Natural light
I watched a Tony Sweet Webcast on LB images. I decided to try his technique. Which is basically looking for forms and color and freeing your mind. I decided to try it w/ a regular lens and set my f -stop to 2.8 and see if I could still get the same effect. If anyone would like to see this webcast just follow this link and scroll down. There are some other very talented artist's/photographer's webcasts there also.

http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=60286

[Stuart Frohm]

Thanks very much for posting the beautiful photo and helpful referral to the Tony Sweet webinar and Nik Software webinars.
A couple of hours with a borrowed Lensbaby with macro set has — at least temporarily — guided me toward using my current lenses rather than buying a Lensbaby. I recognize that a number of photographers have been getting excellent results with their Lensbabies.

[Julie Kenward]

Denise, the color palette and soft focus are lovely. I do think it would be a stronger image if the top "hand" (for lack of a better word) were as in focus as the bottom one and if it were just a little bit further from the vertical line directly to its right. If this were my image, I'd probably crop out the ULC where the half circle is as well as it pulls my eye away from your focal point.

I'll have to go check out the link...thanks!

[Anita Bower]

Lovely colors and selective focus. I hope you share more with us. I like to experiment with this technique also, but find it challenging to get good composition. :)

[Anita Bower]

Thanks very much for posting the beautiful photo and helpful referral to the Tony Sweet webinar and Nik Software webinars.
A couple of hours with a borrowed Lensbaby with macro set has — at least temporarily — guided me toward using my current lenses rather than buying a Lensbaby. I recognize that a number of photographers have been getting excellent results with their Lensbabies.

I'm curious why you re going with current lenses instead of lensbaby. :)

[denise ippolito]

Thank you Anita, It was a fun to free myself from traditional compositions and focus more on forms and colors:)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Denise,
OK.....you know my love of the crop tool!!!!.....the UL cprner was drawing my eye....so i whipped out the crop tool:D......not everyones cup of tea......but we'll see what others chime in!
I love the soft colrs.....yes....even me:D:D:D!

[Stuart Frohm]

Re: I'm curious why you re going with current lenses instead of Lensbaby.

Thanks for asking.

The results of my approximately two hours of experimentation, using only one of the available Lensbaby apertures, did not result in images I considered better than what I can do with my lenses. My "failure" rate was high. And a photographer with significant experience and great success with Lensbaby told me, in effect, that my throw-away proportion with the Lensbaby was not necessarily atypical.

Perhaps I need to reexamine my attitude or spend more time with borrowed Lensbaby equipment. But my feeling after the experiment was that if I am going to invest the required sum in photo equipment, I prefer at this time to do it on something with — for me — more likely positive impact for the invested time. If I needed Lensbaby equipment to achieve specific results important to me, that would be another matter.

I'm not trying to impugn the Lensbaby products nor discourage other people from using them. I've seen other photographers' beautiful results.

And I'll be interested to see what additional improvements or refinements Lensbaby makes, as I understand the current products are advances over previous offerings.

[Anita Bower]

Re: I'm curious why you re going with current lenses instead of Lensbaby.

Thanks for asking.

The results of my approximately two hours of experimentation, using only one of the available Lensbaby apertures, did not result in images I considered better than what I can do with my lenses. My "failure" rate was high. And a photographer with significant experience and great success with Lensbaby told me, in effect, that my throw-away proportion with the Lensbaby was not necessarily atypical.

Perhaps I need to reexamine my attitude or spend more time with borrowed Lensbaby equipment. But my feeling after the experiment was that if I am going to invest the required sum in photo equipment, I prefer at this time to do it on something with — for me — more likely positive impact for the invested time. If I needed Lensbaby equipment to achieve specific results important to me, that would be another matter.

I'm not trying to impugn the Lensbaby products nor discourage other people from using them. I've seen other photographers' beautiful results.

And I'll be interested to see what additional improvements or refinements Lensbaby makes, as I understand the current products are advances over previous offerings.

Thanks, Stuart. I was just curious. I've seen gorgeous images taken with lensbaby. At this time, however, I don't have the funds to invest in one, having just bought a Cannon 500D close-up lens.

[Brandy Katzen]

Love this! I like the mysterious, cave-like depths that the large amount of out-of-focus area suggests.

[denise ippolito]

Brandy, Thank you for your comments. Much appreciated.