As promised: after 24 images with the Nikon 24/2.8, I needed something new, and I really went with the fish.
One of the three blog posts of yesterday was made in the morning and, being pretty much in a hurry, I took the Underground for work. I saw this image in the morning, took two versions, but none was usable. One even included my feet and the paper bag with my breakfast 🙂
That’s the hardest part when using the fisheye: keeping out what you don’t want in the frame. I returned after work, and I was very thankful for the image, because in mid-afternoon it had begun to pour down, making outdoor photography a little inconvenient.
That in post-processing I went for toned B&W again was not planned from the beginning, but when I tried it, it worked so well to play down colorful peripheral elements like a red emergency telephone at the upper end of the elevator, that I stuck to it.
All these last images had a B&W conversion layer, usually with a filter like “Maximum Black”, a gradient map with the same tri-tone gradient, all had a layer with a strong 50px gaussian blur applied liberally along the edges, all had 10% monochrome gaussian noise added at 70% opacity, and in all cases I have applied levels and contrasts in normal blending mode after the gradient map, thereby intensifying colors where I have accentuated contrast.
This has become more or less a recipe and it works exceedingly well. In yesterday’s image I have mixed it with distorted edges, today I have increased local contrast, but the basic recipe is always the same. I should really turn this into an action 🙂
The Song of the Day is “Something New” from Tanita Tikaram’s 2005 album “Sentimental”. I’ve just heard the whole album while working on this post, and I think it’s really a shame that I seemingly did not sell so well. It is temporarily out of stock at Amazon, but some Amazon market place dealers have it for reasonable prices around $10, from at least one, Caiman (in Florida, where else), I have bought in the past.
Enjoy the song on YouTube. You won’t regret it.
There are 6 comments
Ted (2009-03-07)
Holy S%#T! This is an explosion. It... it is spectacular. It turns WOW! into an understatement. Yes... yes... Das ist gut.... REEEEEEEEELY gut! And if I knew what schön or schnu meant... I'd probably mutter them as well.
Juha Haataja (2009-03-07)
I'm not into fisheye, but here, what can I say, this works really well.
The image is somehow more than real, like in a dream where you stand in an stairwell and all things connect and have a hidden meaning (which you have forgotten and desperately try to remember).
Thomas (2009-03-07)
I can only chime in - this is definately my favorite from your tricolor series, great stuff! The perspective really sings...
@Ted: Hey, this is almost black and white, at least not much of "real" color in it. You're not supposed to like that type of pictures... 🙂)
Andreas (2009-03-09)
Schnu? Oh, that's one of the names we gave our cat, and they tend to turn into adjectives 🙂
Juha, I guess part of this is the perspective (circles and spirals always work well with the fish), and the other part is the strong local contrast enhancement. I really like it as well.
Glen and MJ (2009-03-06)
Tremendous!! I seldom like fisheye perspective but this is wonderful!
PS ... if you DO make an action can I be first-in-line!?!?? hehe
Cheers,
Glen
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