Photo 150 - Wetapunga

onsplekkie wrote: Phil Wood wrote: Love the moody B&W of Motutara Island. Nice how the eye sweeps through the image to take it all in. The B&W givin it the moody atmosphere. Great!

Thanks @onsplekkie. It's a new area for me to explore and I think it has potential for quite a few different style shots this year.

Week 3 (The Novel Technique shot)

Carnations blended with a texture layer.

Sony a7Riii with Voigtlander 110mm macro

Week 4 (The Wide angle)

Auckland's West Coast

a7Riii with Zeiss Loxia 35/2, ISO800, 1/5000s at f10.
This is looking south toward O'Neill's Bay, Te Henga, then Piha/KareKare and on the horizon, the white caps indicate the entrance to the Manukau Harbour.
Extremely windy conditions with wild gusts where we were standing, so I went for a very short shutter speed.
Fwiw, the black sand in the beaches is the cumulative erosion and deposits of ancient volcanic eruptions further south.


Edited by Wētāpunga - 24 January 2021 at 23:12

Super atmosphere in the Auckland West Coast shot, the slight haze really enhances the mood.

Two small comments, the horizon seems slightly curved as well as slightly tilted CCW. Probably fixing these in PP will help the shot.

Week 4 (Something novel)

I don't do a lot of selfies and haven't tried any with the a7Riii yet. So it's not that creative, but the setup (a7Riii, 85/1.8, phone as remote) was all new to me. So should count as something novel.


a7Riii and Batis 85mm, f1.8, ISO200, 1/4000 sec +1 exposure bias

Yeah I agree, it still ain't easy to get a good self portrait and not end up with a "selfie". Are we all grumpy old men here? :-)

Great shot!

@dCap

Indeed, even with earlier cameras and lenses I wouldn't have dared shoot at f1.8 for a selfie. The face/eye detect algorithms built into Sony cameras now have really changed our options. I think it also vindicates my decison to get the Batis. That bokeh looks pretty good.

Good spotting of the phone, I confess I didn't quite spot it but I do want to use this as a 5x4 crop, so a solution suggests itself.

@eddyizm

Nga mihi. I thought it seemed like a passable attempt.

I found if I tried smiling too much it looked like a grimace. I suspect it is hard to stare into an empty space and produce a genuine smile. Much easier if there is a person to engage with. A slight smile seemed to work...