Flowers Anyone?

[Ken Lee]

Sorry - I changed my mind and deleted the post. I'm not sure if I like the photo.

[mdm]

Thats Ok. Its your picture. The link goes out with the feed, if you want to keep the picture unseen you need to break the link to your server, but you know that already.

David

[dynamo]

Hi,

some peonies.



5x7 (13x18) Linhof Super Technika V, Apo-Ronar 9/300, Agfa APX 100, Rodinal 1+50

[Ken Lee]

Tulip
Sinar P, 240mm Fujinon A
4x5 HP5+, Divided Pyrocat HD

[Jim Cole]

Ken,

Nice!

[gth]

Marsh thistles. Altandhu, Scotland.

Struan,

Very nice!

I have a row of weeping willows along a stream I'd like to capture like that. I assume you let the wind and enough exposure time create the effect.

Care to share exposure time?

/gth

[Struan Gray]

Thanks gth. The blur is mostly movement of the flower heads in a gusting stiff breeze, but there are also some out-of-focus effects. I laid the focal plane along the ground, so that the rushes and bog cotton would be mostly in-focus and provide some texture, and that threw some of the nearby thistle heads out of focus. I took a few of these at different times, and I haven't scanned the whole series yet, so I'm not fully sure which exposure this is, but it's somewhere around thirty seconds to a minute.

A tree in a wind will probably require bracketing to get the mix of blur and texture that is most pleasing. I rarely bracket exposure, but I do bracket out-of-focus and blur effects as I find them really hard to predict on the ground glass. I like to aim for several cycles of whatever is moving - in this case I waited for a large gust and exposed while the resulting oscillations died away. It's taken in twilight, so no need for ND filters.

In the trees thread I posted a photo of a rowan taken in a similar breeze (stiff enough to try and steal my darkcloth, but not to rattle the tripod). That was a two minute exposure (again, in twilight) which gave a nice mix of blur when the tree was shaken and leaf detail when it was standing still. What looks good is a question of taste, but you have a lot of options to play with - at least, in good light.

[gth]

It would be interesting to see it with just a motion blur.

[Struan Gray]

I love this one by Alan George:

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...9&postcount=82


There is, of course, no one type of motion blur. A pure oscillation, like a pendulum, gives a double image with a streak in between. More random, natural movement tends to produce more streaks and 'fluff'. The interplay between the dynamics of the motion and the shutter speed can be complex, especially if you add in aberrations and out-of-focus effects from using large apertures. You can also change the look of the final photo quite radically by using several short exposures instead of one long one - texture tends to be preserved better this way.

It's all fun :-)

[cjbroadbent]

Struan, Fascinating - I like the oscillation idea. I've done something similar with a flash bulb (the big blue one) on the end of a pole to get a freeze at the end of the swing.