escimo's vault or randomnesses

[escimo]

It's all gone for now. I may put something back up at some point.

[Daniel E.]

Gratz on starting your thread escimo!

I like how you have a bit of everything here, it reminds me of Inno's thread.

And just out of curiosity.... is that you on the opening image? If I remember correctly, you were using a similar avatar not too long ago.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Daniel E.

And just out of curiosity.... is that you on the opening image? If I remember correctly, you were using a similar avatar not too long ago.

Well not exactly me. The Dude from the film The Big Lebowski. Some of my friends say that I'm personality-wise a spitting image of him so I'm bit of stuck with that alter-ego.
Actually my physical appearance is starting to carry some resemblance as well. Nice way to say that I look like a bum.

[Daniel E.]

Originally Posted by escimo

Well not exactly me. The Dude from the film The Big Lebowski. Some of my friends say that I'm personality-wise a spitting image of him so I'm bit of a stuck with that alter-ego.

Oh, I see.

I guess it shows that I dont see that many movies. >_< !

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by escimo

Something Just Caught My Eye

Holy crap, that is some nice macro photography! I'm not a huge fan of monotone pictures but the ones you've shown do have a very nice presentation - a very artistic feel to them. What type of camera are you using? "Need for Speed" also came out very nicely.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

Holy crap, that is some nice macro photography! I'm not a huge fan of monotone pictures but the ones you've shown do have a very nice presentation - a very artistic feel to them. What type of camera are you using? "Need for Speed" also came out very nicely.

Pictures are taken with very varying equipment.
Canon EOS 300D/Digital Rebel, Canon AE-1 film camera and some are even taken with an old crappy Canon Poweshot S40.

[Izayoi]

I love your need for speed one, don't like the trees though; cut them down please. And the sky kind of looks odd but umm that just me. The cat eye looks fake, it is shopped right?

[Marina]

Congrats on opening your own thread here in fan creations
I must commend you on your black and white photos, they're lovely!
(and I disagree w/ Setsilya about the cat eye, 'tis real eh? )

Look forward to seeing more from you since you appear to be a jack of all trades. On your may sotm work, looks go so far! My only criticism of it right now is that it looks too matchy matchy with the same patterned background matching the pattern on the clothes. There's so much pattern it sortof puts me off, like if someone were to wear a full suit of hawaiian shirt material - cheesy, no?
*welcome cookies!*

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Setsilya~

I love your need for speed one, don't like the trees though; cut them down please. And the sky kind of looks odd but umm that just me. The cat eye looks fake, it is shopped right?

Actually the only thing I did to the eye in photoshop was removing a hair the little guy had there. Otherwise it's genuine stuff. Did play around with levels just a bit though.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Marina

On your may sotm work, looks go so far! My only criticism of it right now is that it looks too matchy matchy with the same patterned background matching the pattern on the clothes. There's so much pattern it sortof puts me off, like if someone were to wear a full suit of hawaiian shirt material - cheesy, no?
*welcome cookies!*

I was going after a bit of tapestry like feel. But we'll see what the coming weeks have in store. Right now I'm a bit out of inspiration. And actually the pattern of the clothes matches just some and some to the background so the foreground part of the background being mistaken for a pattern in the render (it's actually very little visible in the first place) can be taken as a bit of a complement.

Pic without the flower-layer to illustrate.

Actually it looks kinda nice like that... Hmm looking into it as soon as I have some free time.

Full suit of hawaiian shirt material. ME WANTS ONE!

[escimo]

Added some random stuff.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by escimo

Pictures are taken with very varying equipment.
Canon EOS 300D/Digital Rebel, Canon AE-1 film camera and some are even taken with an old crappy Canon Poweshot S40.

What sort of lens(es) are you using? I recently came across some amazing macro photography shots, which is why I was really excited by your cat's eye shot (I'll see if I can do something similar with my own cat, or perhaps my dog as he's a bit friendlier). I'm still looking into the mechanics behind lenses, but I've been wondering whether it'd be worth it to go for a macro lens. As of now I have a 14-42 mm lens, a 40-150 mm lens, and recently bought a 70-300 mm lens (for bird and wildlife photography). The first two lenses are kit lenses, and all three are from Olympus' "low-end" line. The main benefit that I can see in using lenses from even one level up is that they're faster and they're dust/splash-proof. Of course, they also cost a fair bit more than the "low-end" lenses but they're not as insanely priced as the pro-level lenses. I've been using my 14-42 mm for instances of macro photography, but Olympus' designated macro lenses are pretty cheap. Their "low end" macro lens is just under $200 (35 mm, 1:1, f3.5), and a macro lens from one level up is around $420 (50 mm, 1:2, f2.0 - that's fast!). But if you can't adjust the zoom, doesn't that mean you'd need to stick the camera up close to anything you wanted a macro shot on?

I still need to read up on all of the lens statistics and what they mean, I suppose. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

What sort of lens(es) are you using? I recently came across some amazing macro photography shots, which is why I was really excited by your cat's eye shot (I'll see if I can do something similar with my own cat, or perhaps my dog as he's a bit friendlier). I'm still looking into the mechanics behind lenses, but I've been wondering whether it'd be worth it to go for a macro lens. As of now I have a 14-42 mm lens, a 40-150 mm lens, and recently bought a 70-300 mm lens (for bird and wildlife photography). The first two lenses are kit lenses, and all three are from Olympus' "low-end" line. The main benefit that I can see in using lenses from even one level up is that they're faster and they're dust/splash-proof. Of course, they also cost a fair bit more than the "low-end" lenses but they're not as insanely priced as the pro-level lenses. I've been using my 14-42 mm for instances of macro photography, but Olympus' designated macro lenses are pretty cheap. Their "low end" macro lens is just under $200 (35 mm, 1:1, f3.5), and a macro lens from one level up is around $420 (50 mm, 1:2, f2.0 - that's fast!). But if you can't adjust the zoom, doesn't that mean you'd need to stick the camera up close to anything you wanted a macro shot on?

I still need to read up on all of the lens statistics and what they mean, I suppose. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on it.

The macro shot was taken with Tamron 70-300mm F/4.0-5.6 macro. Cheap as hell. I'd estimate roughly 150$. However I think it's not available for Olympus cameras. I managed to get a reasonably good specimen so bang for the buck is quite excellent. Other lenses that I have are the basic Canon EF-S 18-55mm F/3.5-5.6 kit lens which is pretty much a piece of shit, FD-bayonet Canon 50mm F1.4 and FD-bayonet Tamron 100mm F2.8. For the FD-lenses I have an adapter for EF-bayonet so I can use them with the 300D as well. Adapterd drops an aperture and softens the draw a bit though which kinda sucks because the 50mm would actually be a really nice lens.

50mm macro can be a bit difficult. You usually need to get really close to the target, if you want shot's like the cat's eye, which can make lighting a bit of a hassle. With that short macro I'd say that macro flash is pretty much a must and they tend to be quite costly. Cheap ones are generally crap. I'd go for one with longer focal length for starters. Much less hassle as you don't need to stick your nose into the target. However the closest focusing distance tends to be rather long especially in cheap lenses as the magnification ratios aren't high regardless of long focal length. In my tamron it's about 35 inches or so. At that distance the magnification ratio at 300mm is 1:2. If I were a rich man I'd buy Canon EF 180mm f/3.5 L USM Macro. 1:1 magnification ratio at 180mm is just insane. *drool*

I think the focal length in the cat's eye shot was around 180-230mm and god only knows the distance. Don't have the EXIF-data anymore.

Actually the crop helps with macro photography quite a bit. I think in Olympus the crop is 2 so you'd get an actual 1:1 magnification ratio with the 50mm as well and the F2.0 aperture is very tempting. Depth of field may be really shallow using the largest aperture size though...

[Evil Rick]

Originally Posted by escimo

Spoiler for Drawings:

8 Balls from GTA3

I like 8-ball

[escimo]

Originally Posted by Evil Rick

I like 8-ball

Seems I screwed up the name. Thanks for the save.

[escimo]

Atsuko Chiba/Paprika render for something I'm working on at the moment.

Feel free to use it if you find it useful.


Quick copy/paste sig made for a friend on a different forum.
Feel free to use here. AS-safe.

[escimo]

Added a photo.
A friend of mine threw me a challenge as we were debating about b/w vs. color photography.
The challenge was making toilet paper look good.
Here's the result. Not sure whether it looks good or not but at least it's toilet paper.

Spoiler for space:

Another pic taken at the same session. Basically product photography test.

Spoiler for space:

[Ledgem]

Toilet paper indeed. At first I caught sight of what looks to be a wet part (the wrinkles) and that wasn't too pleasant, but then I realized that it looked sort of flower-like... almost. Very artistic, which in my opinion is what B&W/monotone photography really exists for. I can't imagine how you could make it look better with a color picture, unless you dyed the toilet paper exotic colors or used Photoshop to color it in.

The violin isn't bad, but it doesn't look quite as artsy. Unless someone's playing on it, I don't think an instrument can really look appealing unless you're taking the shots of specific parts or of interesting angles (sort of like macro photography, actually). Either way, nice work. You make B&W photography look really appealing. I'd previously shunned it as being something for situations where the colors aren't very nice, but I can see its artistic values in your shots. I'll have to start experimenting with it.

[escimo]

^If you're interested in B/W photography I'd recommend checking out Sally Mann's work. Subjects of the pictures may be a bit gross as she's most known for photographing her naked children but the finish of her pictures has been an inspiration to me. That's much thanks to her using glass plate collodion process in many of her pictures. Prehistoric technically but produces extremely interesting shade-scheme.

Guess what differentiates art from pornography (or in Mann's case child pornography) in photography is the B/W finish.

As for violin shot. It was basically just an experiment on lighting and levels (and I think they turned out quite nice). It was shot as a product photo and heavily retouched. Shooting macros is actually a very good idea I'll look into it. As a violinist (at least a former one, I'm trying to pick up on it again) the photo as it is may have a little bit different appeal to me and to me violin is one of the most beautiful instruments visually. Not as much found on it's sound which may be a bit funny. Like cellos more.

[escimo]

Did some tweaking on my SOTM entrysig. Final entry.