St. Michael's in Dumfries

One of a series taken in this churchyard in Dumfries.

Robert Burns was originally buried in a plot here, and it still has a Robert Burns mausoleum on site.

I think the Pentax 10-17mm fisheye works well here, any opinions ?

Agreed. Great picture.

G

I quite like it apart from the enormous expanse of grey path on the left. I can't help feeling I'd prefer to see the path either cropped to the same proportion as on the right hand side, or the camera position moved right a little.

But I'm not really into the whole fish-eye thing, so probably best to ignore me.

The shot certainly has some drama about it but being completely honest the distortion spoils the shot for me.

Coincidentally I've just bought a wide angle lens, the Sigma 10-20 & whilst 10mm offers a "different" take on things I do find that the distortion doesn't work for me most of the time. Fortunately at 12mm any distortion all but disappears !!

simon

And even at 10mm, it's not too bad once corrected:

As taken

With most of the barrelling removed in PhotoShop

You lose a tiny amount of the frame (but nowhere near as much as you lose going from 10mm to 12mm), so you wouldn't want to go right to the edge with your composition, but it's worth persevering with, I think.

Hi Chris,

Not wanting to go off-topic from the OPs original post but...

I use PTlens which is a great plug-in & works well most of the time, didn't quite explain myself well, by distortion I meant more the "goldfish bowl" effect that happens sometimes when you get very close to foreground objects etc.

At 12mm this rarely happens, at 10mm it's there quite often...the effect definitely adds drama, as in the OPs shot here with the fisheye, it's just not my own personal taste. I usually take the shot at 10mm & 12mm & keep the one I prefer - so far 90% of these have been the 12mm version

cheers

simon

Thanks George, although we have never met, I have started to think of you as the ' Simon Cowell' of PentaxUser.com,

You are not afraid to speak your mind, and quite able to call a spade a shovel.

Any words of wisdom from you are welcome.

( p.s. if you are Simon Cowell and have Cheryl Tweedy on your knee, could you give her my number )

ChrisA and Simon, I tried to give the impression that there was two ways to get past the church, the long way to the right and the short, ( more travelled ), way to the left, to the original Burns plot.

Sorry it didn't work for you.

Good grief, I hope I'm not that bad. He's a sort of male Anne Robinson.

I am thoroughly consternated.

Still, you could have compared me to Gordon Brown. Or Hitler. Or Pol Pot.

G
(Heading off to whisky cupboard for a burra peg).

I'm off to finish the Glenfarclas, so happy that the K10 is up and running, enjoy your dram George. ( Simon C. )

I like the composition & your idea works well - it's only the distortion that I don't find appealing

simon

You love your fish eye Galoot, as I do mine. you did well to control the exposure of the sky. In the absense of your explanation, my first thought was, 'I wonder if that would be better right in the centre?'
But it's a great shot, and really nice colours.

Thanks 'Darkmunk',

I have a hard time removing the 'fishy' from the K10, I love it.

I have no problem with the distortion, to me, it's part of what I am trying to capture.

I am not trying to make 'record pictures' I'm trying to lean to the "art" side of photography.

I have no problem using any and all tools available to me to create the final image, and the 'fishy' is a good start.

It's like the explosion of 'bug macro' pictures on the forum, most are fantastic, and would look good in a university bug book, but they leave me cold.

Lets see some 'arty' bug macro's, this is my humble effort,





I now sit awaiting harsh criticism.

Nice... I would have to remove the dust on his eye though
I suspect we see eye to eye on several things... here's my effort at bucking the trend, you may have seen this before. (I don't actually have a macro lens). high-key glamour shot (sorry about the watermark)