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P52 Week 52: Photographer's Choice (December 24 - December 31)
- Thread starter mollyc
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I was testing out a roll of Harman Phoenix color film in a Canon Demi EE17 half-frame camera. This is supposed to be four different shots of Christmas decorations in a park in Taipei (I have no idea why there's a Santa Claus holding a sign saying "Bienvenido" in a random park in Taiwan, where very few people know Spanish), but for some reason the film advance lever wasn't doing its job, and I ended up with this crazy multiple exposure hodgepodge… good way to end the old year I guess? As before, this was developed and scanned at home.
![IMG_1494.jpg]( "IMG_1494.jpg")
Stretching the rules a bit here. Slides were shot in August or September of 1998. However they were copied last night. First attempt at slide copies with the new camera.
So first attempts at slide copies.
First was a properly exposed slide with normal contrast. Second slide had wicked lighting with barely discernible shadows. Skies were grainy on the slides, but I may be picking up additional noise by having slide too close to light source. Will fix that before doing another test run.
First slide was as good as I was getting from scans, just minor tweaking to get what I want.
Second perhaps a shade better, but only after some manipulation in AffinityPhoto. Will tweak in camera settings as I have several like this and would like to get the best results possible. Thinking if I reduce overall contrast it will be easier to control things, either overall or on a selected basis.
![DSC_0029a.jpg]( "DSC_0029a.jpg")
![DSC_0039b.jpg]( "DSC_0039b.jpg")
So first attempts at slide copies.
First was a properly exposed slide with normal contrast. Second slide had wicked lighting with barely discernible shadows. Skies were grainy on the slides, but I may be picking up additional noise by having slide too close to light source. Will fix that before doing another test run.
First slide was as good as I was getting from scans, just minor tweaking to get what I want.
Second perhaps a shade better, but only after some manipulation in AffinityPhoto. Will tweak in camera settings as I have several like this and would like to get the best results possible. Thinking if I reduce overall contrast it will be easier to control things, either overall or on a selected basis.
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Last photo from me this year - our year ends in 40 minutes ;-)
I want to thank everybody here in this community for this great year in the P52! It was fun and exciting to watch all your photos and interpretations of each theme. Special thank goes out to @mollyc for coming up with the idea, organizing it and running it. Your topics and examples were stunning.
It is safe to say that I would not have done something like this without all of you. I learned very much. Thank you.
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One last old slide. Eau Claire part of downtown Calgary from the north side of the Bow River. The reduced contrast helped a bit getting a usable image from the backlit slides, but also makes it easier working with good slides. Always much easier to add contrast than to spill it. The results I am getting are solid enough that I will be using the camera as a slide scanner going forward. I did this image as a test to be sure I had sufficient depth of field to handle a slide that was not as flat as most.
EDIT: This was from a strip of slides I shot on a 1951-ish Braun Paxette camera. Little thing that fit in the palm of your hand but has a superb lens at least by 1950s standards. I was trying to figure out how the 'extinction' meter worked.
![DSC_0076a.jpg]( "DSC_0076a.jpg")
EDIT: This was from a strip of slides I shot on a 1951-ish Braun Paxette camera. Little thing that fit in the palm of your hand but has a superb lens at least by 1950s standards. I was trying to figure out how the 'extinction' meter worked.
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Since the year 2023 is now extinct time to thank @mollyc for a very interesting and fun project. One that did on occasion push me quite a ways outside of my comfort zone. As long as that does not mean shooting weddings, going outside ones photographic comfort zone is a very good thing.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Gonna miss P52; I joined macrumors to participate in it. Definitely a photo highlight of the year. Sincere thanks to @mollyc for organizing and her warm encouragement.
what?? i didn’t know that! glad to have met you through this. 🙂
It had been a very interesting, motivating 52 weeks and one of the best things I have followed in 2023
T H A N K _ Y O U @mollyc .
It will be something that will stay with me forever 💖
T H A N K _ Y O U @mollyc .
It will be something that will stay with me forever 💖
Well thank you indeed @mollyc for a well thought out and crafted challenge for 2023! ❤️ While I didn't make every week, each week did make me think, for sure, and I'm a different photographer than I was at the beginning.
yes being a thinking photographer is a great goal. 🙂
Catching up 
Thank you @mollyc for a great challenge, I didn't make every week but I did enjoyed it thoroughly ❤️📷
![444C1875_20231226 1.jpg]( "444C1875_20231226 1.jpg")
Thank you @mollyc for a great challenge, I didn't make every week but I did enjoyed it thoroughly ❤️📷
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Infrared photography
So, there‘s a little story behind infrared photography for me. I‘ve had an infrared filter (Hoya R72 720nm if anyone‘s interested) for almost ten years now and I played around with it from time to time. I always liked the idea of shooting the invisible, but rarely did my photos turn out to be anything special (at least for me).
Out of camera, all my infrared photos have a strong red tint to them. At first, I mostly converted them to black and white. That‘s when a pitch black sky contrasts nicely with white foliage in the foreground. Then later, I found out how to tweak the white balance in post processing and convert them to colour infrared photos. This usually gives you two colour to work with: A blueish hue for the sky and one contrasting colour that can be, more or less, freely chosen. I mostly go for a orange-reddish hue, even though this is a completely arbitrary decision. Only recently I thought about keeping the red tones and basically working with a monochrome image.
The whole process of shooting in infrared is somewhat unintuitive for me: Not only does the filter (at least on my camera) require exposure times of around 20-30 seconds in bright daylight, I can only see the final result after the editing back home, which is at least hours if not days after the shooting. So this is still a lot of experimenting and trial and error.
To turn my infrared photography into something more than just looking ‚cool‘, I‘m still working on my creative vision.
![P52_WEEK52_INFRARED_IMG_6554-NR Ps_FF.jpeg]( "P52_WEEK52_INFRARED_IMG_6554-NR Ps_FF.jpeg")
![P52_WEEK52ALT_INFRARED_IMG_6460 Ps_FF.jpeg]( "P52_WEEK52ALT_INFRARED_IMG_6460 Ps_FF.jpeg")
![P52_WEEK52ALT_INFRARED_IMG_6449 Ps_FF.jpeg]( "P52_WEEK52ALT_INFRARED_IMG_6449 Ps_FF.jpeg")
![P52_WEEK52EXTRA_INFRARED_IMG_6449_FF.jpg]( "P52_WEEK52EXTRA_INFRARED_IMG_6449_FF.jpg")
Furthermore, I‘d like to thank you @mollyc for setting up and this whole project! It was a really fun, sometimes stressful but always creative 52 weeks and I‘m kinda proud I made it til the end. Even though my entries here on the forum were sometimes a bit late, I tried to go out and shoot once a week. Of course, this didn‘t work out every week as life gets in the way, but at least I caught up on all the themes and ended up with 52 photos (or actually quite a few more as I mostly shot three or more photos for each week).
What I take away from this project are a few topics I‘d like to focus on more in the future, especially colour theory, also colour contrast, and, as mentioned above, infrared photography.
So, there‘s a little story behind infrared photography for me. I‘ve had an infrared filter (Hoya R72 720nm if anyone‘s interested) for almost ten years now and I played around with it from time to time. I always liked the idea of shooting the invisible, but rarely did my photos turn out to be anything special (at least for me).
Out of camera, all my infrared photos have a strong red tint to them. At first, I mostly converted them to black and white. That‘s when a pitch black sky contrasts nicely with white foliage in the foreground. Then later, I found out how to tweak the white balance in post processing and convert them to colour infrared photos. This usually gives you two colour to work with: A blueish hue for the sky and one contrasting colour that can be, more or less, freely chosen. I mostly go for a orange-reddish hue, even though this is a completely arbitrary decision. Only recently I thought about keeping the red tones and basically working with a monochrome image.
The whole process of shooting in infrared is somewhat unintuitive for me: Not only does the filter (at least on my camera) require exposure times of around 20-30 seconds in bright daylight, I can only see the final result after the editing back home, which is at least hours if not days after the shooting. So this is still a lot of experimenting and trial and error.
To turn my infrared photography into something more than just looking ‚cool‘, I‘m still working on my creative vision.
Furthermore, I‘d like to thank you @mollyc for setting up and this whole project! It was a really fun, sometimes stressful but always creative 52 weeks and I‘m kinda proud I made it til the end. Even though my entries here on the forum were sometimes a bit late, I tried to go out and shoot once a week. Of course, this didn‘t work out every week as life gets in the way, but at least I caught up on all the themes and ended up with 52 photos (or actually quite a few more as I mostly shot three or more photos for each week).
What I take away from this project are a few topics I‘d like to focus on more in the future, especially colour theory, also colour contrast, and, as mentioned above, infrared photography.