P52 Week 52: Photographer's Choice (December 24 - December 31)

[mollyc]

Welcome to our P52! This project is designed to get you out with your camera once a week in a meaningful way. Each week I will post a prompt for you to consider. The prompts are merely suggestions, and you are free to shoot off topic if you wish. All images posted must be taken by you, be safe for work, and be taken with this project in mind. Please do not post archive photos. For a further discussion of the guidelines, please refer to this thread, and you can find the previous weeks linked there if you missed them. Feel free to join in at any time of the year, and you may go back to missed weeks if you still wish to participate.

Week 51: Photographer's Choice

Well, we made it! An entire year of photos, week by week, theme by theme. Of course, themes aren't necessary for a P52, but it's not really that difficult to manage one photo a week if you are a dedicated photographer (I mean, in the film world, 52 photos isn't even two rolls worth!). Working through themes helped you grow, exposed you to new techniques and ideas, and broadened your perspective to new concepts. I am proud of each of you, no matter how many weeks you participated; because even if you didn't manage to complete each week, you still pushed yourself for more knowledge.

Your reward this week is to photograph whatever you want. Just a single photograph to finish out the year. Congratulations for making it through, and thank you, each of you, for joining me on this journey. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Although this project is over, I look forward to seeing your photos in 2024!

 

[katbel]

I loved to be here! Still love it 💗

 

[oldBCguy]

.. a view from our apartment's balcony at 9 am on this 'Boxing Day' December mornng.

 

[katbel]

 

[piatigorsky]

A small garden light beside a tree on the sidewalk near our apartment in Taipei. Took this on the way home earlier this week, and immediately developed and scanned the film the same evening. Shot with a Nikon F5 on Ilford Delta 400 Pro and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens with a star filter.

 

[katbel]

 

[katbel]

Wooden eggs from Austria

 

[Janichsan]

View attachment 2329664
Wooden eggs from Austria

Just three months until Easter.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

So my main computer, an ancient MacPro 4,1, sort of died on Christmas day. Probably a video card and I've ordered a 5770 on eBay. Otherwise I will be shopping for a 5,1. Anyways the post imaging work on this was done in Preview on the laptop. That's a chem trail not a power line upper left side.

Moonset

 

[svish]

 

[katbel]

 

[_timo_redux_]

 

[OldMacs4Me]

First usable pic from the new Nikon Z50 which I picked up late this afternoon. This using the 50mm macro lens focused nearly as close as it will go. Marginal lighting, camera grabbed an ISO of 7200. Unfortunately JPEG quality was set to normal rather than fine. Cropped to about 65% of full vertical dimension. Some noise but quite liveable. Off the bat I've found two items that annoy me to some extent. Exposure bracketing requires a double menu dive both to activate and to deactivate, needlessly complex as compared to the Lumix. The viewfinder level indicator is very clear but works only in the horizontal plane. On both the Oly and the Lumix those levels also work when pointed downwards. Other than that I really like how it feels. The 18-140mm zoom is looking like it will be a pure joy once I get into normal daylight. Interestingly it focuses down to less than 3 inches wide at 140 mm, but only down to 5 or 6 inches wide at 18mm.

 

[katbel]

First usable pic from the new Nikon Z50 which I picked up late this afternoon. This using the 50mm macro lens focused nearly as close as it will go. Marginal lighting, camera grabbed an ISO of 7200. Unfortunately JPEG quality was set to normal rather than fine. Cropped to about 65% of full vertical dimension. Some noise but quite liveable. Off the bat I've found two items that annoy me to some extent. Exposure bracketing requires a double menu dive both to activate and to deactivate, needlessly complex as compared to the Lumix. The viewfinder level indicator is very clear but works only in the horizontal plane. On both the Oly and the Lumix those levels also work when pointed downwards. Other than that I really like how it feels. The 18-140mm zoom is looking like it will be a pure joy once I get into normal daylight. Interestingly it focuses down to less than 3 inches wide at 140 mm, but only down to 5 or 6 inches wide at 18mm.

View attachment 2330256

Congrats on your new camera!
What is the mysterious object? Xmas decoration?

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Congrats on your new camera!
What is the mysterious object? Xmas decoration?

Thanks I think!

Part of a small Christmas 'tree' made from gold foil garlands.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

A couple in fairly close with the zoom. Horizontal was taken at a nominal 140mm and the vertical was taken at ~60mm.

Another minor beef. When reviewed on camera pretty much zero info as to ISO, aperture or shutterspeed. Still doing menu dives to see if there are alternative ways to display. NOTE: Resolved

 

[OldMacs4Me]

A couple of quick scenics, only minor post image work in Preview. I did try to correct a slight cyan bias, which is fairly typical this time of year.

 

[_timo_redux_]

 

[OldMacs4Me]

A couple of subjects I've done before. Both fairly close in, at or near the long end of the 18-140 zoom. So far images have shown good latitude, even though I'm working from JPEGs and using Preview to fine tune them.

Depth of field is fairly thin shooting more or less wide open. Camera likes to go for the fastest shutter speed possible, whereas my technique is steady enough to shoot down around 1/30 or even 1/15th. Need to start using aperture priority.

 

[oldBCguy]

.. making apple sauce .. a favourite time, and especially so when gifted with fresh & crisp, locally-grown BC apples, purchased directly at an orchard in Osoyoos, Okanagan, BC ... and yeah, delivered from a friend just in time for the holidays this year.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

So a couple this AM. Moonshot was at 140mm cropped in to 550pixels vertical, then interpolated back up to 1000pixels. IOW a fairly severe crop. Lets be brutal a 140mm focal length is not ideal for moonshots. -2ebv, ISO was 140. I used the curves to push the sky all the way to black as there was lots of noise after I interpolated upwards. Even with max sharpening it's still a wee bit soft, but not bad given the lack of a long telephoto. The other was routine morning alpenglo at -2ebv and an ISO of 125. Cropped about 50%. then reduced to 1000 pixels vertically.

 

[r.harris1]

 

[OldMacs4Me]

Still playing. In fairly close using 140mm @ƒ-6.3, 1/250, ISO 2800. Pretty much as it came from the camera. Almost noise free. I'll probably go ahead and peg maximum ISO at 1600, although 6400 would work just fine for anything where I'm not being super critical.

 

[mollyc]

Still playing. In fairly close using 140mm @ƒ-6.3, 1/250, ISO 2800. Pretty much as it came from the camera. Almost noise free. I'll probably go ahead and peg maximum ISO at 1600, although 6400 would work just fine for anything where I'm not being super critical. View attachment 2330936

seems like you will get on well with this kit. 🙂

 

[OldMacs4Me]

^^^Yep, some minor software design flaws as mentioned earlier. But overall a fun camera to work with.

So just finished doing a quick slide test. Worked on a set that had given me trouble scanning. Set the picture control to 'Neutral' rather than 'Standard' and did a 0, -1, -2 bracket. Results were about the same as with the scanner but less than a minute per set-up versus 10+ minutes per scan. Can go back and reduce the contrast in camera by up to 3 steps. Hopefully that will let me deal with this string of backlit slides which have the sun reflecting off water.

The 50mm macro seems perfect for this chore. Grabs a solid focus every time.