Pentax K20D, SMC-M 100mm f/2.8, small extension tube.




Best wishes, Kris.

Much improved although I would be tempted to clone out the vertical OOF line behind the bird's head too.

Good job. K.

This statue is right next to where I go for coffee most days. They were inspired by Paulyrichard's latest series, although not a patch on his excellent images.







K.

The first one is great, weird and whacky! Lovely stuff. Your doronicum has lost most of its petals though, poor thing!

Best wishes, Kris.

Just in case anyone is interested...

1. I set up the shot by draping black velvet over the radiator and setting up a tripod next to it. I dangled the interceptor from the tripod in front of the velvet using green cotton as close to the interceptor in colour as I could.

2. I then two took shots, one from as far away as I could get, and one a bit closer, bouncing the flash off the ceiling to the right.

3. I then removed the missile and moved the tripod yet closer and took the third shot.

4. The fourth shot was just the missile, again dangling in front of the velvet. This was a pain as the missile kept rotating so getting the shot when it was in the right plane involved a bit of timing!

5. The fifth shot involved making lots of small holes in a piece of card with a dart, and setting that up in front of the camera. I aimed the flash attached to the camera completely away and set to minimum power while I held the second flash, set to slave mode, behind the card pointing directly towards the camera.

6. Initial editing was done in Lightroom 3 beta 2, mainly making sure the blacks were completely black. Images, including a "stock" one of the moon exported as jepgs.

7. A new blank image was created in PS and flooded black. Each of the first four images had the cotton cloned out and then cut and pasted into the new image. The moon was selected using the magic wand tool, then cut and pasted.

8. By the early hours of the morning I was incapable of complex selections so to get the third interceptor in front of the moon so I simply duplicated that layer, selected and cut out the missile, then made sure the full interceptor was behind the moon and the missile in front of it.

9. The "stars" created by the card with hole was resized and then cut and pasted multiple times into the image and rotated/scaled so it didn't look too bad, although I wanted to retain the feel of bad Gerry Anderson special effects.

10. Image flattened, resized, exported, submitted and I then crashed as it was about 3.30 in the morning!

This was actually great fun, I just wish I hadn't had to do it in the wee small hours!

Cheers, Kris.

I live in the middle of nowhere and all the towns are a little bit of a ride away but there a camera shops in several of them (including SRS). Internet sales are impacting on many areas, not just camera shops: books and CDs are good examples. My lady love has purchased everything from shovels to underwear from amazon.com!

Best wishes, Kris.

Ahhh, excellent, the coveted second place!

Excellent judging and there were some lovely images in amongst this lot, definitely quality not quantity I feel. I would have been hard pressed to pick a winner from this lot.

Best wishes, Kris.

Surely a camera might be useful too?

I shall be taking the Horseman so don't expect too many shots from me! I am still pretty slow setting the thing up and working out exposures etc. It should, however, be a superb place to get some practice. I have a feeling it might raise an eyebrow or two!

Looking forward to re-visiting my old haunts.

Kris.

The clock image is lovely with the mixture of the decoration, the clock and the reflections.

Best wishes, Kris.

I particularly like the third shot, but as a bibliophile I would, wouldn't I?

K.