White Lotus

[Don Ellis]

Tired of infrared shots? Well, you should have told me. There's always the slim possibility I would stop -- but not before posting this one, which is notable for being handheld at 1/20th of a second while I'm stretched out over the pond shooting down.

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/lotus1024a.jpg

Canon G1, Hoya IR filter, f2.0, in Bali.

Cheers,

Don

[Leighow]

DON

Well .. you could have fooled me...when I opened the post it looked pure wedding white .. like heaven .. or an MC's white tux! THis is simply a gorgeous shot. Say not more!

HOWIE( Ottawa, Canada)

[Lance]

what a great shot, it looks almost man made and synthetic, infrared is always welcomed, especially with examples like this!

Good stuff
Lance

[Griffin]

GREAT!

[oops]

I will never tire of your IR shots! I havn't seen two alike even though IR is IR the way I take them. You have set some new standards for me.

IR or not, I know your posts will be top notch. This one is no exception. IR seems to prevent the brain from being distracted by color so we tend to focus on texture and subject to a much greater degree.

This being said, my brain actually tried to fill in the colors for me! Interesting.

[Don Ellis]

Thanks for taking the time to write, guys -- and especially for describing your reactions (well, except for you, Griffin, but capitals count for a lot). :)

Like you, I take a lot of pictures and, also probably like you, I go through them and think, "Yeah, ok, hmmm, not bad, dreck, keeper." But I must admit that the lotus popped off the screen. Even after converting from RAW, you don't really know how dramatic a shot will look until you auto-level or set the black and white points. Some shots just sit there, saying, "Why did you bother?" while others just leap out at you. For me, this was a leaper.

Because of the sun or or foliage or custom white balance or something in the Bali air, I'm getting a lot of light green complementing the whites. I like the look, so I've left it. When I convert to grayscale, most of the shots drop back into the humdrum category.

Here's a young lotus that will blossom in another day or two (nothing spectacular; just something for comparison)...

http://www.kleptography.com/dl/lotusbulb.jpg

Cheers,

Don

[gandini]

Wonders will never cease with Don around! As I keep saying, and Don keeps providing me with great examples to bolster my case, the G1 (for IR) and G2 (for color) in the hands of a talented photographer are easily the match of much more powerful and expensive cameras. This particular photo of the young lotus shows the subject in wonderfully crisp focus with very blurred background (and no evidence that it was done in Photoshop!)--something that many people say is not possible with the great DoF of the point and shoot cameras like G1/2.

Mind you, lest you all think I am blinded by the powers of these little cameras, I was at the duck pond yesterday with my 2 girls (1 and 7 years) and gee, I'd really like a camera that focussed just a little faster -- like in this century, perhaps!

cheers to all,

[Don Ellis]

Hi Philip,

Guaranteed...no Photoshop depth-of-field manipulation.

Occasionally I'll clone or mask bits out, but I've never resorted to DOF changes -- perhaps because I've never seen one done in Photoshop that couldn't be spotted a mile away by looking at the seam between the foreground and background.

I also can't be bothered to do that much work on a photo. With very rare exceptions (none in my experience), I believe that if you don't get it right in the field, you go back and do it again. And if it can't be done again, throw it away -- there's still a world of other pictures waiting to be taken.

Cheers,

Don

[Griffin]

Don, wouldn't it be better if the exposure of the 2nd one would be down a little so the viens on the pedals could be more pronounced? A striking photo anyway. Okay, I would hold on with my capitals. :)

[Don Ellis]

Hi Griffin,

You may be right...but we'll never know. The sun was on the bud and I was in a hurry and there wasn't as much detail as you might imagine in the young flower. I didn't really take it to be a masterpiece. I took it as an afterthought just to show another stage in the flower's development. Thanks for your comments, though; they're always welcome.

As for your capitals, if the word is GREAT, capitals are always welcome. It's AWFUL that we prefer in lowercase. :)

Don

[Roger_Cavanagh]

Don,

This is a really beautiful image.

Thank you,