359: Gold Sparkle

Settings: f/2.8, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Pentacon M42, 1mm extension (by adapter,) 1/4 flash (bounced.)

340: Space-Time Ice Bubbles

I brought a plastic jug full of ice indoors from the garden. (As you do.) It was full of tiny frozen bubbles, in many shapes and sizes. I took various angles, with different lighting (lamp and flash,) and chose this shot because I thought it had simply the most interesting bubbles. The droplets contrast nicely with the streaks, suggesting a sense of movement.

Settings: f/8 (approx,) 1/8, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 25mm extension, fluorescent lamp, black velvet, foil reflector, cable release, tripod. Colour and levels adjustment, square crop.

320: Confection Racket

I drop the M&Ms and try to trigger the camera at the right: Not easy to do, especially when you consider that all digital cameras have a slight delay between pressing the button and the shutter opening. Okay, DSLRs are pretty damn quick, but the delay is nonetheless there. Out of about fifteen tries, I got two-thirds fairly well timed, but I really could have done with more M&Ms to fill the frame. Like a whole bowl next time!

Set up with a large mirror on a table, black velvet cloth hung over from behind at a slight angle, and a barrier of upended VHS cassettes around the perimeter.

Settings: f/7.1, 1/180, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm, 1/4 flash, mirror, black velvet, tripod. Levels adjustment and crop to vertical 16:9.

314: Green Dome Matrix

The rubber keyboard dome: A nice example of cost-cutting industrial design. Glued directly to the membrane, these things not only save weight, cost and complexity over older individually-switched designs, but are also quieter to press.
I'm even using examples of these as I type this post...

Cheap rubbish! Where is my good old clicky keyboard!?

Settings: f/4, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 33mm extension, 1/4 flash, white card, tripod. White balance, colour & levels adjustments, slight cropping.

246: Hanging Out

Settings: f/1.4, 1/15, ISO 400, P-FA 50mm.

184: Six Jets, Smoke Trails

The Red Arrows, performing at the Waddington Air Show. I'm not sure if they were supposed to only be flying six jets that time; maybe some of them were not ready. I also can't tell if there are five of six smoke trails here, but I reckon it's probably five.
I particularly like how the sun shines brightly though the peak of the smoke trails.

Settings: f/6.3, 1/1000, ISO 200, P-FA 50mm.

165: Clouds 2

Settings: f/10, 1/80, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm.

156: A Gap in the Lilac

Settings: f/1.8, 1/4000, ISO 100, P-FA 50mm.

143: Blue and Yellow Flowers

Nothing special here, I just like the gentle, bright colours and detail of the small flowers.

Settings: f/5.6, 1/50, ISO 100, Photax-Paragon 35mm f/3.5 M42. Some cropping.

135: Skull Profile Cloud

Settings: f/22, 1/200, ISO 100, EOS D30 & Tamron SP 28-105mm f/4-4.5, luminance curve adjustment.

124: Blank Film

This particular roll of film was supposed to develop properly, but alas came to nothing. Only now I've realised that the developer was no good; I should have been more suspicious when I noticed flecks of something floating in it! I also got a bad feeling when the fixer looked a bit too colourful when draining from the drum. There's not a speck of black on the film, proof that the developer was totally stale.
I reckon I lost quite a few decent shots there, but I can't dwell on the loss. It seems to me that's part of the philosophy of film. If it screws up, just let it go and move on.

Some one-shot developer is really what I need now!

Settings: f/11, 1/2.5, ISO 100, 50mm Cosinon M42, 25mm extension, 1/4 flash, white board and foil reflector.

123: Yellow Under Blue

Everybody needs to shoot a by-the-numbers landscape to understand how they can improve their technique. I certainly need to do more of them as a matter of practice. Although I could really do with a better wideangle lens too; that DA 12-24 looks awfully good, but not for the horrendous price Pentax is asking for it now. In fact, rule out any of their lenses, they just seem like a rip-off nowadays. Some have almost doubled in price over the last couple of years. I really wish I had bought some more before so I could flog them at a profit now! Of all the lame reasons to want to go back in time for..!

No excessive tweaking, mind you. If there's one thing I can do with less of, it's those artfully-bodged-looking scenes with too much contrast and colour saturation.

I think I captured those clouds at a nice moment.

Settings: f/16, 1/80, ISO 100, P-DA 18-55 (18mm.)

106: Grape Hyacinth

Muscari botryoides, or the common Grape Hyacinth - in very close-up detail. The camera was pointed right downwards on the flowerhead, almost touching it due to the extreme close focus. I found it difficult to get the flash to illuminate adequately the areas I wanted, but I got an okay result - "different," you could call it.
Another reason to find myself one of those offboard flash hotshoe boxes that have a PC socket; I have the other bits I need.

Settings: f/11, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm Cosinon M42, 88mm extension, full flash, foil reflector, tripod.

079: Shakers Embracing

Oops, I missed the 20th technically; I was out until very late and didn't do the photo earlier. This was taken on the 21st, but it still feels like the 20th to me. Photo no. 80 will now be an extra taken later on the same day.
Going to bed very soon, but need a hug first...

Settings: f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, 50mm M42, 17mm extension, white reflectors.

068: Dried Starfish

This mummified sea creature looks as if it may have had a challenging life with its gimpy arm, but I'm sure it managed, for a while at least. It may have been one that was regrowing.
It's really not gained much dignity in death, folded over and sand-riddled, but it's not like it cared or understood about such a complex social concept in life. It would have been too busy crawling around looking for other tiny sea creatures to engulf and digest.
mmmm, sea creatures. Nom nom nom.

Settings: f/16, 1/180, ISO 200, 50mm M42, 19mm extension, low flash, foil & white reflectors.

062: Lavender Buds

I've been sticking a lot of small objects onto blocks of plasticine this week. Tonight here is a collection of short, dried lavender stalks from last year.
I tried a much wider (but still close-up) shot before this one, but I didn't get good results from any flash lighting I tried, so I went for this closer shot. This turned out more detailed and contrasty, showing the fuzzy parts of the buds nicely.

Settings: f/8, 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 50mm M42, 29mm extension, low flash, foil reflector, white background.

028: Red, Green & Blue

These acrylic paints are in the colours we would usually associate with the additive primary colours, but here they are displayed as subtractive ones. (Although only at the origin of the paint blobs - we see them now as a collection of RGB pixels.) The green doesn't look particularly bright, but it's just the pigment mixture in the paint.
The red doesn't look so neat because it was thicker than the others and took a bit of 'styling' to make it's blob look more like the other blobs. Now the edges look a bit wet, but at least it's the most blurred. The blue looks neatest, so that's good that it's in focus. It's got a nice gloss to it.
Shot at f/8, 1/180 sec. ISO 100, low power flash, 27mm extensions, also a slight crop and neatening.

024: Hyacinth Blooms

It's gloomy and raining. But today the hyacinths have come into full bloom, despite having been nibbled my hungry mice a few weeks ago.
The blue ends of the fresh flowers have a lovely satin sheen - they look like the kinds of things that squeak when you rub them together. The subtle variety of blue tones are very pleasing.
The image was shot using the usual manual flash macro setup I have been addicted to for the last week or so, this time with one 16mm extension ring. Settings are f/9, 1/180 sec. ISO 100. The background was white, but now slightly blue - most likely because the flash fired mostly on the flowers and reflected blue light to it. The background probably should have been closer, but I think the tint is fine.
I took some earlier photos of hyacinth flowers (2008, I think,) but those were not taken using a flash and it clearly shows. The colours are crisper, brighter and more contrasty this time. Especially with the distinction between the blue and violet ends, which was murky without flash. The white balance is quite accurate now - I remember that I had to tweak the earlier photos a lot to get them looking okay, and even then they were not quite right. I'm getting to appreciate the judicious use of flash light a great deal more than when I started using a digital camera a few years ago.
This is also the first photo I have posted that I photoshopped - but only to clone stamp out the most obvious dust blobs. I couldn't live with keeping them on this image - they made it look dirty when it should all just look crisp and pure.

022: Bright Paint Pots

A colourful collection of small paint pots lie in a drawer, waiting for their crusty lids to be prized off again one day. Some of them may now be too dried up to be of use again, but their bright tops still attract my eye when I open the drawer.
Shown here are a collection of the more vivid ones, most of the others being dark, fleshy or earthy military-type tones. (I'm sure some of them are getting on for fifteen years old.) I took several tries at this photo before I was satisfied, the reasons ranging from the exposure to the position of the pots. I quite like the result, although I would have preferred to have a better selection of bright colours to use. But that's my fault for not buying them, I guess.
f/8, 1/180 sec. ISO 100, low power flash, 50mm M42 & 8mm extension ring.

014: Shards of Toffee

I'm savouring a piece of this delicious stuff as I type this.
Toffee is a curious confection when broken in such a way, as it resembles shards of obsidian - or even Neolithic flint tools. Although it's definitely the opposite of sharp in the mouth.

There are many ways of capturing such a simple scene like this, and this is just one of them. I thought the blue paper would make an interesting contrast with the golden brown toffee, but I am not so sure now. I reckon a yellow background might have been better, just to give an extra golden glow to the sugary chunks. Also a lower angle and wider aperture could have been more desirable to get a shallower depth of field, and pick out certain details on a few bits.
But it's just one photo, No more. I'll save any experiments for something else tomorrow.