Its been raining every late afternoon/evening when I have time to shoot. Yesterday I sat on a stool for several hours with my camera/tele lens focused on a hummer feeder trying to capture one of the 4 feisty creatures--with light growing ever darker with the rain--and my shot for getting a decent one of them dwindling--I got 3 decent ones, but they would have been much better with a MUCH faster shutter speed--which became impossible. This afternoon I came quite close to having one of them impale themselves in my forehead as I tried to get some shot in the rain. This palm frond is the result. We moved the palms and other plants off the porch into the rain, and this caught my eye. Diane

Also--I'm afraid I may have let the top few 'blow out' in my zeal for adjusting and getting the contrast to suit.

I really like the composition of this image. I agree that the top right is a bit blown out. When you fix that ; ) you might try to burn the bright spots in the upper left corner too. I might also try to darken some of those other bright spots on the dark background. You wouldn't have to overdo it, just dark enough to not be as distracting. As it is now, I want to look at the palm frond but my eye keeps darting around to those other areas. Just something to mess around with. All in all this is a very nice image, and I think it is worth it to keep working with it.

Thanks, nplus. I did darken most of the light ones somewhat but was a bit unsure of darkening them further. However, as you point, one's eye is attracted to the other spots so I think I will go back to the original (may have saved it in layers though already) and try that. Diane

What was the light source Diane? It looks like thos top leaves were somehow lit differently than the rest. If you have the original still and want to post it, I will see if there is anyhing I can think of to keep the detatil and still get the contrast.

just available light Alpha. It was raining--the light was coming from the left (west) such as it was. Had to go back and find the original color shot. I had 2 and wanted to be sure this was the right one (it is). You can see the rain in this shot--early evening downpour. I shot at f2.5 1/25 ISO 50 handheld. (I think this is the order in which I worked and what I did). I made adjustments in histogram first, then converted to grey. I believe I then duplicated layers, cloned from the darker areas (burning didn't seem to help them) at probably 35% opacity into the light areas(I think). I fiddled with opacity in layers, merged. I then used adjustment layer/curves. Finally cropped, resized, used unsharp mask (I have camera set for low sharpening incamera). Diane

Well, as I look at it now--I blew them out in the original LOL.

That is what I thought... I didnt see any detail there and kind of figured that the detail did not exist... When you try something like this again, you may want to try setting up some sort of difuser above the subject.

Not sure if this is any better but I tried a little tweaking on the levels and curves then selective burning of just the highlights on the top most leaf

Yes I see what you are saying I should do--I'll try that next time (BTW, I have a question about flash/more or less portrait, but won't ask now--I sat for an hour and took flash pics of one of my dogs in a chair for practice--he suffered nicely LOL. The ceiling over that area is about 18 feet, walls were too far away to bounce well. Anyhow I'll post some of the pics this weekend and ask for some help. Gee, bet you didn't figure on being my tutor LOL--AND--you and nplus--if this is a pain, then just tell me nicely). For this one, would have been difficult--it was out in the rain--I was zoomed in to get this shot LOL. I'll suffer some things for my 'art' but getting soaked and taking a chance on our lightning storms is not one of them unless its a REAL important shot S. Diane

IMO the second B/W one is the best. Quick question, Alpha - this is the 2nd time in a few days you've mentioned using diffusers. What do you recommend using, considering protability / ultra-low cost, and what way would you set them up? Dimensions would be nice, if poss! Thanks. (",)

Cheapo sollutions for a home made soft filter. Stretch some nylon stockings over the lense. For a flash siffuser use tissue paper, or very thin butcher paper, perhaps vellum, or just use a white sheet. You know I remember these tricks now but I always forget when I need them. sigh. I could have used one of them last night. Oh well. Bsteph

I have a Sto Fen diffuser for my Canon 420 EX flash, but I didn't use a flash here. I actually went out this evening and did that pic again--with my flash--almost dark and didn't blow it out, but of course, it isn't very interesting--no rain, no droplets to reflect, but I got better settings. Learned something. I need to take it under similar light conditions though and see what I can do about something to diffuse the late evening light from the west. Several weeks ago I did a pano and the first 2 turned out great, the 3rd and 4th were badly blown out and then the 5th, 6th and 7th were fine. I wanted to keep all settings the same--well, in fact the way I was doing it, I was locked into the first setting, but.... I found out that it was important to try and look for the best lighting available for a pano. Nothing post really helped at all--no detail. I took one several days later--in more even light and it was fine.

I'm having problems with jargon here, so, I have a question, or more like a clarification. (I seem to have forgotten a lot of stuff from school-- sigh.) There was a time I used petroleum jelly over this filter that I have (I dunno what kind, though. It really doesn't do much to the photos so I use that so I don't mess up the lens.) to produce this misty/cloudy effect on selected areas of the frame. Does that qualify as a diffuser?

Diffusing light and diffusing the image are two seperate things. In the case of diffusing the image the goal is to add just enough blur to soften the image and (in the case of portrait work) hide imerfections in the subject). This would be like adding a gaussian blur in Photoshop. For diffusing light there are a number of materials that will work. Tracing paper, muslin cloth, fine nylon cloth, even wax paper will work a bit. The trick is to cover enought area to extend beyond your subject. Currently I use a Lite Disk that is made by Photo Flex I think (have to look to be sure). It is white nylon attached to a round flexible plastic hoop. I tan use it to diffuse light by placing it between the light source and the subject, or as a reflector to bounce light back into the shadow details. The nice thing about this is that when not in use it folds down to about an 18" flat circle, but opens up to about 36" when I need it. The biggest thing with using one these is having a way to hold it where you want it. Best to have a stand, or an assistant to get it exactley where you want.

Mother nature also provides good diffusion. Here in the pacific northwest, overcast skies make for one HUGE diffuser. of course you can't tell her where to hold it. Can't help you with flash (correctly anyway). I'm a natural available light person (I don't do studio or set portraiture).

We get a lot of that too nplus... Somedays I feel like I am walking around inside one big soft box :)

Oh! Okay, okay... see? I knew I needed clarification heehee... Thanks, Alpha & nplus :-)