#50 - Challenge Yourself (congrats nvitalephotography)

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/Nat...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/8393/8...db4e668c_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/8534/8...ae7a9e31_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/7313/8...ff4c8386_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/7374/8...a8d6e6df_b.jpg



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

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/Nat...A39Q2191-L.jpg

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

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/8249/8...4186f618_z.jpg
Erigeron pulchellus by budrowilson, on Flickr

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.

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 :-)

Attachment 1810

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/8535/8...d7a50af6_b.jpg
small-2923 by kayaker72, on Flickr


http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8523/8...8eb9874f_b.jpg
small-2920-2 by kayaker72, on Flickr

Thanks for viewing....Brant

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/8393/8...db4e668c_z.jpg
Going Home by B_R_T, on Flickr

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

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jonathan Huyer

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

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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.