Great shot, good lighting and captured in the right moment, his expression is priceless. cheers Thomas

I agree with Rork and Wolfsnap, macro with the F4 works like a charme.

Just bought me a used Novoflex bellow and a 12mm Extension tube.
With my 24mm lens reverse mounted it gets me down to aprox. 7:1.
Still waiting to get the first film back.

AFAIK, you'll need a 12mm extension tube to mount the bellow on all modern Nikon AF cameras,
for sure for the F4 and F5.

A cheaper way is to use extention tubes, a reverse adapter (BR-2A) and a good wide angle lense.
here are some test shots with this gears:

http://t-bernt.de/Foto2/macro.jpg

If you just want to shot macros up to 1:1, a good macro lense will do the job,
even the Sigma and Tamron macro lenses gets good reviews.

cheers
Thomas

I use these work lights for table top sometimes. Here's a picture of such a set up:

http://cg-area.de/lightset/aufbau.jpg

And here some examples of my first attempts:

http://cg-area.de/lightset/lights.htm

I'm not sure if these lamps gives enough light for portraits or shots of larger subjects.

However, take the advice of Alpha very serious.

Besides of electrically problems these lamps are getting very hot
and there is a high risk to burn down the house if you don't act very carefully.
Never let them switched on if you're not around and also make sure that there is a
fire extinguisher nearby, as you shouldn't extinguish electrically equipment with water.

cheers
Thomas

I don't want to take a point of view here but add some stuff for pondering.

If you say "recording what you see", I'll go a bit further and ask, "what do one see"?
You can't see the world like a (still) camera because the image you believe to see
is a sort of an imagination, made out of a lot of single informations and fit together
in a kind of postwork process by your brain.

The brain adds informations from pictures you saw before, skip subjects,
visualize sounds and odour, correct colors temperature, lighting and even the perspective.

So even with the most realistic approach to photography you'll still have to abstract
and do changes to show how your eyes, or better your brain saw a certain view.

Now an example and a question:
You take a walk on a beach, you saw some perfect shells, parts of an old boat and so on
and then after some walking, there's a place that gives a perfect composition for a photo.

Now, if you add some of these perfect shells you picked before to the foreground,
do you change what you see, or do you just "summarize" the imagination that is "stored" in your mind
and associated with this very beach?

cheers
Thomas

Congrats! Looks really great, the picture as well as the scan-job. Keep 'em up! Thomas

Great shot and congrats to the new machine! Good lighting and framing, but to be honest I don't know what it is either? cheers Thomas

Wow, great shots!
So here we go with the critic:

#1 Excellent, vivid colors, good composition, good lighting.
The horizon is a bit tilted, but this can be corrected easily in postwork.

#2 Good shot and a nice framing.

#3 Phantastic!!!!!!

#4 Great vivid colors again, nice peaceful mood, good framing.
The picture seems to lean a bit to the left and on my monitor
the right side seem to be a bit to dark.
But I don't trust my monitor anyway and on a print this shouldn't be
a problem at all.

#5 another great shot, aplies for the challenge IMO, but to be honest,
I agree with Bsteph, I miss a certain "umph" maybe try to add some
bells and whistles in PS?

My favourite is #3, technically perfect, nice peaceful atmosphere and a great
composition.
keep 'em comming and thanks for sharing

cheers
Thomas

I thought about the same thing lately,

I use slide film and an old Nikon LS 30 filmscanner.
That gives me only 2700 DPI, but with a bit of postwork
this should be sufficient for prints up to 20 cm x 30 cm.

I'm not sure about the printer, are these prints durable enough nowaday?
I mean, no problem if you just use them on your one
but if it comes to selling prints or use them as a gift?

My plan is rather to scan my slides and then get them printed
at one of this online labs that make prints for digital cams.
I think if I allways use the same lab, I could orientate my postwork
towards their workflow and get a good control over the result?
It's also cheaper than printing at home.

Just an idea, but I think I'll give it a try.

cheers
Thomas

An excellent image mysnapz!

As for the question,
I tend to agree with the others, the photos in this picture
were rather used as a sort of "raw material",
e.g. like one would use a photo textures in a 3D-software.

I would set the limit about what I would call a photo:

1. If "recording light" is still the main purpose.
2. If all that I did in postwork could have been done in a real world darkroom as well.

But that's just me and my 2 cents. ;-)

cheers
Thomas

Still working on the other picture.
I hope I'll accomplish something in time and
don't burn down the house with my lightset. ;-)

Here's a very basic WIP

cheers and thanks again :-)
Thomas

Great shot!

Excellent shots!

"So how do you like photosig?"

Well, I'm relatively new there, got a lot of good feedback
and I'm grateful for that.
I don't belive in points or thumbs anyway, so that's no problem for me.

"...nice stuff....post it HERE!!"

Thanks a bunch :-)) blush, I'll post some more in the forum.

cheers
Thomas

Great depiction of the theme, I like it. cheers Thomas

uhm, my gallery here at 'rosity consist of 2 pics. Guess I first have to mess up the house a bit, before I can start cleaning... ;-) (just kidding) cheers Thomas Ohhh wait, a good oportunity for a shameless plug: My Photo Gallery is here: http://www2.fotocommunity.de/pc/pc.php4?mypics=12711 and there are some pic over at PhotoSIG too: http://www2.photosig.com/userphotos.php?portfolioId=29429 ;-)))