Thread: Hmmmmm....dunno?!?!

Originally Posted by rsser

...I can picture it working better shallower and wider, but who knows.

Yeah, I thought the same when I looked at Gils photshopped versions.

how do you do the texturing on the top? . i would like to do that to one of my bowls. bob

Originally Posted by robyn2839

how do you do the texturing on the top? . i would like to do that to one of my bowls. bob

I use those little carbide burrs in the Dremel Bob - rip a lot of meat off very quickly but are easy to control. Bought them direct from the maker in Sawtell (Coffs Harbour) once but cannot remember their name

Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

Any way to take some photos with a different background.

Any better on white Jim??!!??

Thats better now you can see the wood for the trees.

The top is hiding the bottom, there is good color and feature in the bottom part but you are unable to see it because of the lip.

You have 2 different features with this form.

The top looks good on its own and the bottom looks good on it own but both together sort of looses one to the other, {does that make sense}

My have been better as a platter to show of all the features. Or in a sandbag shape to give you the height, but show of all the color and feature.

How does it feel in the hand, is the edge too sharp.

This is a good peice to experiment with your background colors and lighting.

The top really comes up well with the black background but the base is lost, maybe different levels on the lighting would help.

The softer back ground shows of the true shape but does nothing for the real color of the peice.

All comments taken aboard Jim. Couldn't explain how it came out of the log so I did a rough cross section sketch. Hard to show the way this branch had split away at the fork resulting in the shape I've drawn. The highlighted area was all sapwood - very pale and bland and cracked a fair bit. The only way I could see to show the little bit of colour the log had was to have at least one surface (the top) following the medullary rays which worked well I thought. Anything flattish like a platter would not have shown nearly as much figure. To my eye, the grain and colour of the bottom was unattractive and better hidden from sight slightly.
?? 'sandbag' shape ??

On the photography side, any suggestions as to how to get rid of the 'fuzziness' ??? Doesn't seem to matter what background I use, I still get that softened look - or is it just my camera - or not enough light - or......

The fuzziness may be a depth of field problem. Too little.

If you can manually adjust it then go to a higher f stop. That will prob increase your exposure time requiring a tripod and/or flash.

A flash will wash out the 3D so you need a bounce flash or two flashes; or else photo lights.

Had enough? ;-}

Like Ern said, you probably need more "depth of field" or "depth of focus." Google with the quotes to marry the keywords for more than you ever wanted to know.

With a film or digital SLR, the easiest way to maximize DOF is to pinch the aperture way down. (Largest f-number; it's a divisor, y'know.) Optimum focus point (with the lens wide open) is at 1/3 or 2/3 (I forget which) of the depth of the object. Then stop down and expose as long as needed to dump enough light to the film/sensor. Obviously best on a tripod, and the self-timer helps too, to reduce jitter.

[BTW, your eyes work the same way. Easier to focus in daytime (automatic iris opening tiny) than at night (automatic iris opening large). Also why squinting sometimes helps.]

With digitals only slightly better than the ones from cereal boxes, there's less control over the settings. If mode and zoom are available, consider these pics from an experiment I did. The first group are with no zoom, camera at about 90mm from the end of the ruler. The second group are at 2.5x zoom, camera at about 300mm. All use the automatic focus, and the mode indicators are default, landscape, and macro. ISO adjustment may also be available in manual shooting mode. Lots of variables to manipulate (camera location, zoom, mode, ISO, etc.), and digital "film" is cheap enough for experiments.

These are from a Canon PowerShot A300, with the resolution set at minimum quality for automatic file size for uploading. In addition to the variables listed above, you can also shoot at higher resolution with more background, and crop to reduce the file size.

Joe

Mate, a well done piece.
Different in form, the ebonised part sets of the rest of the form and grain well. I'd be happy to say that was one of mine!