Daybreak pearls

What technical feedback would you like if any? any

What artistic feedback would you like if any? any

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

Nikon D850
Nikkor 70-210 @ 110mm
ISO 1400
1/1600 @f5
50% crop
manually focused

I awoke this morning to a heavy fog, wishing I had the ambition to go pursue images in such a photogenic atmosphere, my daughter called me to see a dew covered spider web in front of the house.

I used the live view, view finder on the D850 for the first time (I’ve had this camera body for a little over a week now). I had to get very low to avoid some background distractions. Without the articulating view screen, I would have been laying on my belly in mud and water. I didn’t realize how useful the movable screen could be in getting difficult perspectives.

It would be nice to have had some item of focus, but as simple as this image is, I find it pleasing to me. I’ve never taken an image like this before. Thinking of ways to make a dew covered spider web such as this really special. . .

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David, this is not bad for a first of this type of image, as it isn’t an easy one to achieve, and to have been shooting with a new camera as well. To me there are a couple of things. It seems a bit flat, so I downloaded it into LR and tried a few things, and I wasn’t doing so well with improving the image, so won’t even bother posting it.

I think the droplets are blown out, as I couldn’t dull down the brightness in them, so I think the camera was exposing to the darker background, so if you had pushed the exposure compensation over to the right (+) a notch or so, would have helped with that.

You didn’t mention if you were using a tripod. Almost a must with a shot like this.

You probably didn’t need such a fast shutter speed, which would have lowered the ISO, or given you the option to raise your f-stop number a bit. It is nice having the background as smooth as you have it, so depending on how far the background was away from the web as to how much you would change that.

I still think you did a great job considering this is your first try at capturing the pearls. Maybe the web will stay there for the next rain and you can try again.

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Thank you so much. You are correct. Yes the waterdroplet highlights are blown. I did not use a tripod. Last evening my tripod broke. One of the legs no longer locks. . . lol. . . so, I have a new tripod on order, but this was hand held. Truthfully I had never taken a fog spider web before and I had no idea how it would turn out. Maybe no surprise to anyone else, but the camera would not focus on the web. I had to hand focus it, and the camera was still set up in manual mode for the bird flight pictures that I had been taking the evening before. Thank you again for your tips.

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Hi David, I think that Shirley makes some very good points, so I would just like to add that overall this strikes me as an really pleasing image, almost abstract, of these ephemeral creations

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Well done for being handheld. If you get the opportunity again you might consider a stacked image. Yes it would probably require a fair amount of editing to eliminate ghosting. But you would achieve increased clarity and more control of your exposure. Since you have a D 850, you can let the camera do the work. If you’ve never done this before you’ll need some stacking software that works better than Photoshop.

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David, this is an outstanding collection of drops on a web. The heavy covering of drops and uniform sizes only occur in or after a heavy fog. There looks to be the same degree of sharpness throughout the frame, which is also hard to get. You might try some heavy burning-in of the background, with all of the bright drops, that might make for a very dramatic and somewhat abstract look.

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At web size, this is looking great to me. Great collection of droplets and a great pattern. No nits from me.

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