FundyBrian’s Explorations

Saturday afternoon it was just on the edge of raining, a light wet mist was falling. The coloured leaves had mostly all fallen as a result of a couple of days of heavy rain and then strong winds. In just a couple of days the leaves were gone. I went looking for colour on the ground. Fallen leaves around brooks, etc. I came across this patch of Hay-Scented Ferns, gone beyond their fall golden colour to cinnamon after a couple of frosts.
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It was fairly gloomy in the woods. My exposures were around 1/15th second in this open area.
PureShot DNG HDR, Affinity.
Wow...that green is intense!
 
Saturday afternoon it was just on the edge of raining, a light wet mist was falling. The coloured leaves had mostly all fallen as a result of a couple of days of heavy rain and then strong winds. In just a couple of days the leaves were gone. I went looking for colour on the ground. Fallen leaves around brooks, etc. I came across this patch of Hay-Scented Ferns, gone beyond their fall golden colour to cinnamon after a couple of frosts.
View attachment 115944
It was fairly gloomy in the woods. My exposures were around 1/15th second in this open area.
PureShot DNG HDR, Affinity.
Beautiful image Brian.
 
It seems to me I spend a lot of time pushing at any limitations in the mobile photography system. As soon as I find something that doesn’t work I try to find a solution.
The past few days I have been working on making an adapter to attach my 37mm accessories to my Moment Tele lens. I really want to be able to use it more for close-ups but by itself it doesn’t focus close at all - about 36” (on the 2x lens).
Sure, tape works well enough to temporarily attach filters but I worry about the alignment, etc. I also have other things in mind coming up. Like neutral density filters for slower shutter speeds, and that requires a light-tight fit.
The adapter needs to be a slip-on thing although permanently attaching an empty 37mm filter ring would be easier. So here’s my solution.
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Here’s the Moment Tele lens, some 37mm close-up lenses and a polarizer, and the adapter on the right. It started with a standard step-up ring to the desired 37mm size. I had to grind away the centre of the step-up ring until it just fit exactly outside the Moment Tele. A bit fiddly but that was the easy part. Finding a piece of tubing the exact diameter to slip over the Moment Tele was much harder. Fortunately I have lots of raw materials, leftover stuff from dismantled, salvaged, um... junk. I mean useful stuff. It needed to be rigid plastic not soft plastic in order for the glue to bond securely.
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On the left is my plastic sleeve with the filter holder glued to the front with cyanoacrylate glue made by Gorilla glue. In actual fact, the piece of tubing I found was just a bit too tight to fit in and I had to resize the inside diameter about 1/2mm. That was fairly painstaking with lots of checking along the way. Now I’m quite happy with the fit. It presses on smoothly without scratching the lens barrel.
View attachment 115394
Here it is in place on the Moment Tele with a Tiffen close-up lens neatly screwed on in front. I was fortunate enough to find a piece of tubing with a slight flange on the end which provided more surface area to glue the adapter ring.
If you look at this a minute you can see that once it is slipped on there’s nothing left to hold onto to pull it off again. So that means it has to be able to push all the way through until it slides off the other end. It works as slick as you like.

Now wouldn’t it have been easier if the lens came with filter threads in the first place?
I really love your ingenious set up here but it's not going to work for me because I don't have any parts to start off with so I will have to throw some money at it a anyway. If I buy the Moment 62mm adapter for the telephoto lens plus some 62mm macro filters, would this work? Also I see that Moment have just brought out a new 58mm telephoto lens. Is it worth paying the extra for this rather than the now cheaper 60mm telephoto lens? I would have to check that the adapter still works with this.
 
Yes I’m quite sure the 62mm close-up lenses set would work just fine. Might as well get a polarizer while you’re at it.

I saw the notice about the new Moment tele, too. On one hand I think its great to get a better tele lens. On the other hand, Since I recently bought the new version 2 tele having another new one come out so soon is rather annoying. But of course I will have to buy it because the one I have is more suited for portraits than scenery. I just wish they had brought out the better lens in the first place. It appears they have a 30% rebate for owners of the previous tele lens.

Even if the new tele is bigger in diameter the adapter will still work. There is just a rubber insert inside the filter adapter used to fit it to the different sized lenses so the new sized insert would no doubt be available.
 
Yes I’m quite sure the 62mm close-up lenses set would work just fine. Might as well get a polarizer while you’re at it.

I saw the notice about the new Moment tele, too. On one hand I think its great to get a better tele lens. On the other hand, Since I recently bought the new version 2 tele having another new one come out so soon is rather annoying. But of course I will have to buy it because the one I have is more suited for portraits than scenery. I just wish they had brought out the better lens in the first place. It appears they have a 30% rebate for owners of the previous tele lens.

Even if the new tele is bigger in diameter the adapter will still work. There is just a rubber insert inside the filter adapter used to fit it to the different sized lenses so the new sized insert would no doubt be available.
Thanks, Brian. I think I'm going to go for it. The new telephoto should be out by the time I get home. I think the macro filters I was looking at came with a polarizer as well and they weren't expensive.
 
Thanks, Brian. I think I'm going to go for it. The new telephoto should be out by the time I get home. I think the macro filters I was looking at came with a polarizer as well and they weren't expensive.
It’s a good idea to get lenses with anti-reflection coating on them. Sometimes the cheaper ones are not coated.
 
Some frost this morning. I put on my Moment Macro and went out to play.
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All with PureShot DNG & Affinity.

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This looks like B&W but it really is a colour photo.

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Frost Flowers.
I decided to add a little sparkle with Sparkle Cam, and used duotone processing to add green to the shadow tones to assist the grassy field look.
 
Some frost this morning. I put on my Moment Macro and went out to play.
View attachment 117632
All with PureShot DNG & Affinity.

View attachment 117631
This looks like B&W but it really is a colour photo.

View attachment 117633
Frost Flowers.
I decided to add a little sparkle with Sparkle Cam, and used duotone processing to add green to the shadow tones to assist the grassy field look.
Fascinating. Waiting for some cold weather here to do something similar but happy that it’s not too cold!
 
I’m busy working on something that I hope will appear here before long.
In the meantime, as much as we enjoy the bird’s that are attracted to our bird feeder, the increased density of bird traffic means the occasional bird stuns itself hitting our windows. Today it was a Downy Woodpecker.
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It was a bit stunned but soon recovered and flew off.
 
I’m busy working on something that I hope will appear here before long.
In the meantime, as much as we enjoy the bird’s that are attracted to our bird feeder, the increased density of bird traffic means the occasional bird stuns itself hitting our windows. Today it was a Downy Woodpecker.
View attachment 117821
It was a bit stunned but soon recovered and flew off.
Oh.... such a sweet face...... glad it's okay. :inlove: :inlove: :inlove: And what a gorgeous, up-close photo.
 
Where do ideas come from?
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I was sitting at the supper table when this idea came to me. There weren’t even any candles on the table. After I decided the idea was worth pursuing I scanned backwards through my thought process trying to find the originating thought but couldn’t find it. I’m sure I have never seen a picture combining a candle and mushroom before.
As anyone who has tried to make a composite image knows, the images you have made in the past never quite fit the image you have in your mind. Wrong angle, wrong size, not the right background, etc., etc. In this case the width of the bottom picture is the original image width and there wasn’t enough room at the top for the candle flame. So then I went looking for a matching background image. What I found was too sharp but it needed to be blurred in two steps to create the proper progression with the existing photo. I ended up duplicating the background and masking it at two levels to do the job. The original image ends after the fallen leaves.
The candle seemed simple enough. I found one with a suitable colour and burned it for a while to get the desired appearance. It seemed obvious that photographing the candle against a black background was the best idea but this turned out to wrong. Even at -3 the flame was still overexposed. Even my -1 2/3 bracket for HDR (starting at -3) was too bright. The problem was too much black outside of the image area. I used a white scoop instead, but not directly lit so it was closer to 18% grey. That made it much easier to get the flame properly exposed and the background was still dark enough for good separation. Even so it took another try to get the proper angle on the candle in relation to the mushroom.
I also did a lot of localized “painting” throughout the background, and foreground, to bring the mushroom into greater prominence.
At that point I was finished. But then I started to wonder what the candle or flame was doing there. I had visions of adding a mouse toasting marshmallows but I was fresh out of pictures like that. Instead, and running short of time, I added the deer in the background, more as something humorous. Altogether there are 5 layers and 4 masks.
I’m still looking for a mouse toasting marshmallows. A toad would do in a pinch. I don’t seem to have any photos of little fairies, either. They are probably out there all the time while I’m not there.
 
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Where do ideas come from?
View attachment 118090
I was sitting at the supper table when this idea came to me. There weren’t even any candles on the table. After I decided the idea was worth pursuing I scanned backwards through my thought process trying to find the originating thought but couldn’t find it. I’m sure I have never seen a picture combining a candle and mushroom before.
As anyone who has tried to make a composite image knows, the images you have made in the past never quite fit the image you have in your mind. Wrong angle, wrong size, not the right background, etc., etc. In this case the width of the bottom picture is the original image width and there wasn’t enough room at the top for the candle flame. So then I went looking for a matching background image. What I found was too sharp but it needed to be blurred in two steps to create the proper progression with the existing photo. I ended up duplicating the background and masking it at two levels to do the job. The original image ends after the fallen leaves.
The candle seemed simple enough. I found one with a suitable colour and burned it for a while to get the desired appearance. It seemed obvious that photographing the candle against a black background was the best idea but this turned out to wrong. Even at -3 the flame was still overexposed. Even my -1 2/3 bracket for HDR (starting at -3) was too bright. The problem was too much black outside of the image area. I used a white scoop instead, but not directly lit so it was closer to 18% grey. That made it much easier to get the flame properly exposed and the background was still dark enough for good separation. Even so it took another try to get the proper angle on the candle in relation to the mushroom.
At that point I was finished. But then I started to wonder what the candle or flame was doing there. I had visions of adding a mouse toasting marshmallows but I was fresh out of pictures like that. Instead, and running short of time, I added the deer in the background, more as something humorous. Altogether there are 5 layers and 4 masks.
I’m still looking for a mouse toasting marshmallows. A toad would do in a pinch. I don’t seem to have any photos of little fairies, either. They are probably out there all the time while I’m not there.
It’s brilliant and one of my favorite images!!! :inlove:
 
It’s brilliant and one of my favorite images!!! :inlove:
I’m pleased you like it. I can never be sure what other people might think of my flights of fancy. Actually, I don’t think about it at all while I’m making the image, but afterwards I wonder.
 
Where do ideas come from?
View attachment 118090
I was sitting at the supper table when this idea came to me. There weren’t even any candles on the table. After I decided the idea was worth pursuing I scanned backwards through my thought process trying to find the originating thought but couldn’t find it. I’m sure I have never seen a picture combining a candle and mushroom before.
As anyone who has tried to make a composite image knows, the images you have made in the past never quite fit the image you have in your mind. Wrong angle, wrong size, not the right background, etc., etc. In this case the width of the bottom picture is the original image width and there wasn’t enough room at the top for the candle flame. So then I went looking for a matching background image. What I found was too sharp but it needed to be blurred in two steps to create the proper progression with the existing photo. I ended up duplicating the background and masking it at two levels to do the job. The original image ends after the fallen leaves.
The candle seemed simple enough. I found one with a suitable colour and burned it for a while to get the desired appearance. It seemed obvious that photographing the candle against a black background was the best idea but this turned out to wrong. Even at -3 the flame was still overexposed. Even my -1 2/3 bracket for HDR (starting at -3) was too bright. The problem was too much black outside of the image area. I used a white scoop instead, but not directly lit so it was closer to 18% grey. That made it much easier to get the flame properly exposed and the background was still dark enough for good separation. Even so it took another try to get the proper angle on the candle in relation to the mushroom.
I also did a lot of localized “painting” throughout the background, and foreground, to bring the mushroom into greater prominence.
At that point I was finished. But then I started to wonder what the candle or flame was doing there. I had visions of adding a mouse toasting marshmallows but I was fresh out of pictures like that. Instead, and running short of time, I added the deer in the background, more as something humorous. Altogether there are 5 layers and 4 masks.
I’m still looking for a mouse toasting marshmallows. A toad would do in a pinch. I don’t seem to have any photos of little fairies, either. They are probably out there all the time while I’m not there.
Perfect. Just perfect :thumbs::)
 
Friday (Dec 14) I participated in our local Christmas Bird Count and part of my “territory” included this section of coastline with ice-draped cliffs.
Some of the icicles were 10 metres long (high?) 33 feet. The recent cold weather created the perfect conditions for icicles. I didn’t get any pictures of birds.
3E3D4501-7746-4FCD-B1CB-52B81FCCB330.jpeg

PureShot DNG HDR, Affinity.
 
Friday (Dec 14) I participated in our local Christmas Bird Count and part of my “territory” included this section of coastline with ice-draped cliffs.
Some of the icicles were 10 metres long (high?) 33 feet. The recent cold weather created the perfect conditions for icicles. I didn’t get any pictures of birds.
View attachment 118165
PureShot DNG HDR, Affinity.
Wow, although I don’t envy the cold, this is such spectacular scenery.
 
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