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A New Thread - matthew - Jul 9, 2007

A short series that I did today, working with light and composition. All shots were taken using the E-510 and manual focus in 'live view' mode. Comments an critiques are always appreciated.

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(#1 - E-510, 50mm macro + 1.4TC, iso100, f/18, 4.0s)
(#2 - E-510, 50mm macro + 1.4TC, iso100, f/16, 2.5s)
(#3 - E-510, 50mm macro + 1.4TC, iso100, f/11, 1/2s
(#4 - E-510, 35-100 + 1.4TC @ 117mm, iso100, f/25, 5.0s)

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A New Thread - Irma - Jul 10, 2007

I like your pictures a lot Matt...
Very nice macros! and you took them with manual focus...
In macro photography I am always a bit afraid to take them with manual focus because I don't have good eyes anymore. I trust more the auto focus, however, sometimes I don't have good contrast and I have to use the manual focus. I find it a bit difficult then.

You have great detail and the light is beautiful!
They look to me as if they were taken near a window and you bounce the light from the window to lighten the shady areas. The light looks also neutral, if there is a term like this for light. It doesn't affect the colors.

The colors match nicely.
Did you work with the colors to match so well?

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A New Thread - matthew - Jul 10, 2007

Thanks, Irma, I appreciate your comments.

My eyes have always been bad, so I never trust the viewfinder for manual focus. My E-510 has the ability to use the LCD as a viewfinder, and tripod-mounted manual focus is one of the few real uses for it. It lets me select a very small area of the screen and magnify it 10x, which is enough to let me see the individual fibers fraying from each thread. The auto focus was actually just as accurate, but my camera doesn't have enough focus points to give me the control that I needed.

Irma Wrote:You have great detail and the light is beautiful!
They look to me as if they were taken near a window and you bounce the light from the window to lighten the shady areas. The light looks also neutral, if there is a term like this for light. It doesn't affect the colors.

You've called the lighting exactly right. This was shot about 4-5 feet from a large north-facing window, and I used a silver reflector for most of the shots (and its white side occasionally) to add fill. #3 also had some screens added to stop the window from highlighting some of the spools.

These were taken with a manual white balance, which is why the light is so neutral. I actually had to re-balance the camera after some clouds came in -- one hazard of working with natural light instead of strobes.

For processing, I was looking for consistency and accuracy, so I didn't change any of the individual colours, and applied the same settings to all four images. My favourite approach to colour is to turn the Saturation down to -5 or -10, and push the Vibrance up to +40 to +70. Vibrance is designed to increase the more subtle colours without causing clipping, and I really like the effect that this has.

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A New Thread - Pat - Jul 10, 2007

I have a sewing cabinet full of the same threads and would never have thought of photographing them I definately do not have an imagination great images Matthew

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A New Thread - matthew - Jul 11, 2007

Thanks, Pat, but it's not a matter of imagination. These spools are new to me, so I can still look at them as just light, colour, and shape. I simply haven't gotten used to seeing them yet. I'm surrounded by dozens of fascinating objects that I ignore, just like everyone else.

This thread, so to speak, is an outgrowth of the Common Objects assignment. If you have a spool of thread handy, it might be something worth checking out.

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