#50 - Challenge Yourself (congrats nvitalephotography)

[Sheiky]

Assignment 50 will be a little bit special. The idea is very simple, accessible to anyone and can also be interpreted in a million different ways so we'll most likely end up with a lot of different types and styles of photos. The only thing you have to do is challenge yourself this time. Of course you need to explain to us what you did to challenge yourself. The level of experience you have will not be a factor since even the most experienced photographers have challenges.

It was hard, but I have selected the following finalists:

Name: Jonathan Huyer
Motivation: I assume this was a challenge you had for a long time and I guess the chances are very little to see them. Let alone see a mum and two cubs. Great shot.

http://www.huyerperspectives.com/Nature/Wildlife/i-DjZtztq/0/L/A39Q2191-L.jpg



Name: bgood
Motivation: I have done a few of these panorma's as large as 50+ photos, however never 84! I know what a challenge it is even if you have access to ptgui and photoshop. Your shot took a lot more time and dedication to make. I'd love to see the original file sometime.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8393/8668761985_0edb4e668c_z.jpg



Name: nvitalephotography
Motivation: Great shot and also a great composition. The surroundings and the burning metal really do eachother good.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8705448339_cfae7a9e31_c.jpg



Name: Andy Stringer
Motivation: I saw a show on NGC once where they did this with infrared sensors and stuff and even then they needed time to get a good shot. I think yours came out really good.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7313/8726940856_08ff4c8386_c.jpg



Name: CLS
Motivation: Streetphotography would also be a big challenge for me and eventhough this isn't really on the public road. It is still a great shot of public life. The emotion in the girl is just priceless.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7374/8727311300_4da8d6e6df_b.jpg



Good luck all! The poll will be opened for 3 days!

[Jonathan Huyer]

My challenge for this assignment was to find and photograph an animal that I have never before seen --- a lynx. Today, I hit the jackpot. Saw a Mom and two kittens, and had about 90 seconds to take a family portrait. It was quite a thrill, and a huge honour to be able to spend a brief moment with these gorgeous cats.

Canon 1DX, 500 mm f/4 II, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6, ISO 500
http://www.huyerperspectives.com/Nature/Wildlife/i-DjZtztq/0/L/A39Q2191-L.jpg

[cls]

Congratulations Jonathan! Those aren't easily spotted and even harder to capture with a camera.

[Sean Setters]

I challenged myself to take a photo that I liked enough to post to my Flickr photo stream that didn't involve flash photography.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8249/8660775213_204186f618_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/budrowilson/8660775213/)
Erigeron pulchellus (http://www.flickr.com/photos/budrowilson/8660775213/) by budrowilson (http://www.flickr.com/people/budrowilson/), on Flickr

[UmiKaibutsu]

I really like the Lynx picture! There's a saying about my own cat that probably applies here : "She has claws and knows how to use them." Otherwise they look very cuddly.

In Sean's picture it looks like its moving! Great detail and bokeh there.

My submission may not be in time, it needs to be redone. I will try to do it this weekend.

[Colin500]

I challenged myself to do a decent still-life. It's a genre that I don't particularly like and that I've never looked into, except for one or two other assignments here (the one with the fractal broccoli comes to mind, but I always felt that shot wasn't usable beyond the assignment it was made for). Anyhow, here's another vegetable...

1DX, 100L, f/11, 8s, ISO 400, and for bonus points using an ikea lamp instead of the studio strobes :-)

1810

[Kayaker72]

I've owned the 100 f/2.8 L macro for about two years now...and basically have used it as a portrait lens. I've tried a little hand held macro, but these are the first shots where I have set it up on a tripod and tried to be at the MFD, etc. The first is my entry.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8535/8667404599_78d7a50af6_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayaker72/8667404599/)
small-2923 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayaker72/8667404599/) by kayaker72 (http://www.flickr.com/people/kayaker72/), on Flickr


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8523/8667404649_928eb9874f_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayaker72/8667404649/)
small-2920-2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayaker72/8667404649/) by kayaker72 (http://www.flickr.com/people/kayaker72/), on Flickr

Thanks for viewing....Brant

[bgood]

For my challenge I wanted to try a multi-shot, multi-row HDR panorama. I bought a pano bracket for my tripod several months ago, but never have been able to make the time to try it out. So, I decided to quit waiting for the opportunity to use it in the perfect place and decided to try a sunset just down the street from my house. In total, I took 84 shots for this image. The result presented here is a drastically reduced and cropped image. Worked out well enough that I definitely want to try it again and learn from my mistakes.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8393/8668761985_0edb4e668c_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bthurgood/8668761985/)
Going Home (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bthurgood/8668761985/) by B_R_T (http://www.flickr.com/people/bthurgood/), on Flickr

[Jonathan Huyer]

Wow Brian... great work. How much computing power did that take? Or did you just let it run overnight?

[bgood]

Wow Brian... great work. How much computing power did that take? Or did you just let it run overnight?

Overall, there were 28 unique positions of the camera and I did three shot brackets (-2,0,+2) at each position for the HDR. However, none of the programs I have is able to do a multi shot stacked panorama in HDR (I'm too cheap to get something like PTGUI Pro yet). So, I had to do each three shot bracket manually in Photomatix. For some reason the batch option in that program wasn't doing what I wanted it to do. Long story short, after doing the HDR manually on each three shot series I only had 28 images left. The freeware Microsoft ICE program handled the compositing easily on a standard PC. Photoshop takes a while with the image file as it is huge, but the computing power to create the image wasn't too bad. I was really excited, not by the image itself, but by the result in that when zoomed to full size, I can make out trees on the mountain in the background. It was fun to learn to do this. Now I need to find a location that's worthy of a gigapixel image.

While I've got you...great shot with the cats. As an avid outdoorsman and hunter, I always look forward to the wildlife images that you bring us. You always do such a good job framing the subjects to give such a natural feel.

[UmiKaibutsu]

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8547/8697890256_db27854423_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93661930@N07/8697890256/)
BL3A3285 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93661930@N07/8697890256/) by shashin_chimeiteki (http://www.flickr.com/people/93661930@N07/), on Flickr

It's 10:45 PM EST, I hope that's ok! I didn't want to be late ;)

[DavidWare]

Oops, 2 and a half hours late. I went out and got this picture tonight. It's a challenge to me because I hardly ever use a tripod, and I've never done an exposure for more than 2 seconds or so. I also have never attempted photographing stars. I took this shot about 5 times over while trying to get it right. I hope you accept my entry!

Portsmouth Naval Prison, Portsmouth, NH
http://i.minus.com/im5cLR7YqDFme.jpg

[Sheiky]

Great input everyone! Unfortunately I have been ill for a few weeks and now I'm really busy at work and in my private life to get back on track. This weekend I will be in Luxembourg, so I won't be able to do anything around here. Therefor I'd like to extend the entry period with 10 days. The new end of the entry-period will be the 10th of May. I hope you'll understand. See you soon!

[nvitalephotography]

I'll take advantage of the extended entry period.

I've been wanting to try this for a long time and finally got around to making myself do it.The trouble was I couldnt think of a good location, then I thought of the perfect place. Very happy with the results (for the first try anyway).


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8534/8705448339_cfae7a9e31_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59342069@N07/8705448339/)

[Sean Setters]

Very cool. I've considered doing that a couple of times but haven't gotten around to it.

Well done!

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[sambisu]

So this was a challenging shoot for me because the environment was completely different than any I had shot in previously. I do mostly outdoor and landscapes. This was at the Chicago Auto Show. So indoors, completely different lighting and surrounded by thousands of people. I also struggle to get good "detail" shots. So I was trying to focus on that while I was there. This was one of my favorite images from that shoot.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8279/8706201535_b961ef5ca0_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambisu/8706201535/)
20130216-IMG_4039_reduced (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sambisu/8706201535/) by sambisu (http://www.flickr.com/people/sambisu/), on Flickr

[yorick]

Double challenge for this picture:
1: I recently bought a macro lens and this is one of the first pictures
2: I'm starting to use Lightroom, so this is also one of the first pictures exported from it

1837

[Andy Stringer]

I know it's been a while since I posted on the forums. Life's been busy and I've had a lot of issues to deal with so photography has taken a back seat lately, but I couldn't resist this challenge. I doubt that my entry will win any prizes for quality. It is, however, the most challenging subject I've ever tried to photograph. Most people find birds in flight are difficult enough, especially those with an erratic flight pattern. Imagine trying to do it in the dark, with bats instead of birds. I had to set the focus manually and judge when the bat flew past at the right distance, then react quickly enough to press the shutter. I didn't get any perfectly sharp results, even at f/22. This was my best shot.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7313/8726940856_08ff4c8386_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/apstringer/8726940856/)
Common Pipistrelle Bat (http://www.flickr.com/photos/apstringer/8726940856/) by Andrew Stringer (http://www.flickr.com/people/apstringer/), on Flickr

I'd be grateful to anyone that can suggest how I might be able to get a sharper result. Please PM me so that we don't hijack this assignment. If it works, I'll share the results in another thread.

[cls]

An area of photography that I really would like to improve on is "everyday street photography". I simply feel embarrassed/awkward when I try to take pictures of strangers in public. When this assignment was announced I decided to make a serious attempt, so over the last month I've been trying hard to fight my inconvenience. One thing I discovered is that people in general are less reluctant to being photographed than I originally thought. I've had only a few "angry eyes" while most people just don't seem to care. I've even had a few smiles and one couple asked me if I could e-mail them a shot I took of them (of course I did). But the results have been poor so far - the really interesting photos of people living their lives that I had in mind haven't showed up (yet). But I've taken a big step towards feeling more comfortable with my camera among strangers. And that's good enough for me. Still I decided to submit my favorite from this month. This was taken at an event where a "magician" mingled with the people in-between concerts and showed them various card tricks. The girl was clearly impressed. (This one may not really be a "street photo", but sort of similar.)

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7374/8727311300_4da8d6e6df_b.jpg

[Sheiky]

Thanks everyone for your imput! The entry-period is now over.
The results are pretty amazing and I see a lot of real challenges. You're all winners to me:D Very well done!
I'll try to select my favorites tomorrow, it's gonna be a hard decision round;)

[Sheiky]

It was a really hard decision, because to me every challenge was a good challenge, but the finalists have been selected and the poll is now opened. Good luck!

[UmiKaibutsu]

Sheiky, do you realize that I literally had to grind the ink stone with the ink stick to make the ink in my photo from scratch? The ink stick is made of ash, held by glue. The ink stone is slightly abrasive and has a well at one end to hold the ink. It must be of a moderate consistency so it does not bleed on the rice paper.

The purpose of the photo was to express that the written words were existing in the ink before they were put on paper with the brush. I had a second thought about doing the photo with a blank page, as opposed to the blurred writings on the page. It would have made the narrow depth of field less apparent and not as likely to be mistaken for an out of focus picture. Hopefully the focal point in the reflection of the ink was obvious enough.

:: little bit of drama :: lol. I wonder what a good title would be? "Thoughts in the ink"?

Back to the drawing board, or bulletin board I should say, awaiting the next challenge.

[Sheiky]

Thanks for your reply. When I was picking the finalists yesterday I could motivate myself at every single photo that has been submitted to make it a finalists photo. Congrats to all of you, because I really enjoyed it. Luckily my girlfriend helped me out a bit by narrowing my choices down.

@Umi, in all fairness I didn't realize that at all and I applaud you for your dedication. I honestly had no idea what your challenge was about. By only looking at your photo I couldn't see it. Perhaps because I was unaware of what was going on in it. I checked your Flickr as well for an explanation, but couldn't find any.

As I said, I liked all the entries and I could really see myself doing most of the challenges as well, which made the choice quite hard.

[Steve U]

@Jan(Sheiky) and @Umi, putting a small description about your shot is sometimes necessary and sometimes not. Most people include a story behind the shot in this forum and that suits the friendly, sharing and encouraging nature. I like to read the captions because it helps me identify with the subject matter and share the thought process of the photographer.
I did this in another forum with one of my B&W's and one persons feedback on my image was that they wished I had just posted the pic and said nothing. I ruined it for them by explaining a bit about the person in the shot. This person said that they wanted to experience the image for themselves and be moved in the direction their own imagination took them and I got in the way of that.
There is no right answer here, just what works for you.
@ Umi, I loved your explanation of your image, but I had no idea that was a reflection on the stone, I didn't even know it was an ink stone because I am not familiar with those objects. The concept of your image is ingenius though and I really like the thought put into your image. Very inspirational and hopefully encourages you and the rest of us to try something different.

[Colin500]

Nice, I had some trouble choosing where to put my vote :-)

[Sheiky]

And we have a winner.... congratulations Nick! :D

[Kayaker72]

Pretty tight contest. Congrats to all the finalists and to Nick for a great shot!

[cls]

Congrats Nick, I've actually never thought (or heard) of this "burning metal rain" before but I'll definitely try it some time.

[Joel Eade]

I'd be grateful to anyone that can suggest how I might be able to get a sharper result. Please PM me so that we don't hijack this assignment. If it works, I'll share the results in another thread.

Here is how it can be done: http://www.phototrap.com/


(oops...didn't mean to hijack the thread:rolleyes:)

[Jonathan Huyer]

Congrats, Nick! Your shot got my vote.

[nvitalephotography]

Congrats, Nick! Your shot got my vote.

And your shot got my vote. I thought you had it for sure.



Thanks everyone

[bgood]

Congratulations Nick and great work. I've always wanted to try a shot like that.

[Andy Stringer]

A well deserved win Nick, and credit to Jan for setting the challenge.

Thanks Joel for the tip on bat photography. If I can find something like that in the UK I may give it a try.