Challenge - July - Close Up

[Foothill Fotog]

An Annas male ... Gettin HIS GROOVE on!



I recently got a new hi def 42" 3D TV and Panasonic 3D1 dual lens camera so I am now "in-to" shooting 3D video and stills of the hummers that come to my feeder. So I'm sort of newly tuned to a 3D mindset. Sometime in the past I learned 3D depth effect can be achieved by quickly flashing two slightly offset overlayed images. It's also been a longtime thought of mine on what to do with the many leftover multi shot burst sequences I've done trying to capture the best "pose" of the birds I shoot.

So using FastStone Image Viewer to quickly browse my un-sorted collection I noticed just switching between two images with slightly different hand held camera offset I could see a 3D effect. I then found I had four similar frames in this sequence. After viewing these four up and down quickly in FastStone Viewer I decided it was worth carrying this experiment further.

I opened all four images in Photoshop CS5 then copied and pasted three of them as new layers on top of the fourth. Now I had one image file with the four in a stack that I could crop and resize all at once without disturbing alignment. Each image needed brightness, color, and sharpness enhancement so before I began that task I initiated a new "Action" which would record the steps I'd use. Once I finished on one layer I stopped recording and then jumped down to the next layer to activated the same recorded steps. Then from pre-recorded actions I already had in my library I added the border and logo text.

FastStone Image Viewer (a FREE program) has a feature called "Create> Multi Page File Builder. It will make a repeating animated GIF file from JPG images you feed it. I first tested different speeds which is determined by duration each image shows before going to the next. 15/100 of a second was too slow and 10/100th a bit too fast. I settled on 11/100th. There was a very noticeable big jump between the last image when it went back to the first. By dragging to reposition a middle image at the end it improved the look of the overall motion. And that's what you see!

Mark

[icassell]

Originally Posted by conradtan

Wild bird. Got a good tip from a buddy of its location!

Now that's a great buddy!

[Shazam]

Great photo

[Shazam]

Wow, this is fantastic. Love the idea we may just give this a try. Thanks for the heads up.

[bill_w]

Been away for a bit, but thought I'd contribute here

Tree Swallow


Killdeer


Black Vulture

[bill_w]

Osprey


White Pelican


And probably my favorite,
American Bittern

[Shazam]

12-07-06_043.jpg

12-07-06_070.jpg

Taken in the garden today.

[UgashikBob]

Immature Bald Eagle

[Foothill Fotog]

Bill - Welcome Home! GREAT buncha eye shots! ARGH! That Black Vulture is so UGLY and so close I can almost smell rotting flesh breath!

Sue - SUPER SHARP close-ups of what I'm thinking must be tiny birds. The first, the gray one with red breast is my favorite because of it's unique (for me) coloring and great composition.

Bob - You must be hand feeding those to get 'em close enough for a shot like that! Hope you're wearing stainless steel gloves!

Like always I'm enjoying the GREAT diversity and quality being shared. THANKS to ALL!

Mark

[UgashikBob]

Mark:
They come by my front deck often at about 30 feet cruising the river bank and I finally got lucky. Have a lot of shots of eagle parts.