This image is of moss and tiny air bubbles trapped in water but under a thin layer of ice.
The ice was clear but it had a wavy surface texture, so, the blurriness was there naturally.
The blue color is from the bottom of a blue ceramic coated metal pan where I had the moss stored.
This scene wasn’t intentionally setup, I just happened to see it when I was on my way out to find something else to shoot.
This was shot in direct sunlight, no diffuser or polarizer, I wanted the bubbles to sparkle (is sparkle the right word?).
Specific Feedback Requested
Any general thoughts as well as any specific thoughts are appreciated.
Technical Details
a7r iv, 90mm macro, 1:1.5 magnification, 1/60s, f22, ISO 1250, tripod w/camera pointed straight down so the sensor was parallel with the ice, Lr for levels and color grading, cropped 50%, minor spot removal.
Reduced file size by 50% for posting as jpeg.
I really like this, Merv. It makes me think of shots of the earth from space with the green and blue. I don’t know why, but the colors in it gives me that impression and I think my brain just fills in the gaps to make it bigger. I really like the sparkly bubbles too. Nicely seen!
Just curious if its out of focus or blurry on purpose? I think you had a great idea here. The bubbles are super cool, but I think you needed a faster shutter speed to freeze them in place (assuming they were moving)… and the bright areas upper left are a bit of a distraction for me, as is whatever that orange thing is at bottom right. I like the blue and green color combo!
Matt,
The following was in the description under the image:
This image is of moss and tiny air bubbles trapped in water but under a thin layer of ice.
The ice was clear but it had a wavy surface texture, so, the blurriness was there naturally.
This was also in the description:
This was shot in direct sunlight, no diffuser or polarizer, I wanted the bubbles to sparkle
I intended to have the bright spots and the orange thing in the LRC was left there on purpose.
Those brightest spots were caused by larger bubbles and the blue around the top one resembles a star burst.
I could fix the bright spots and I could remove the orange thing but the blurry bubbles are another story.
I’m sorry you didn’t like it but thank you for the kind words.
Sorry I misunderstood you =)
The description did say they were trapped but I’ve seen trapped bubbles under ice move quite a lot, so I didn’t assume they were static. I see the effect you were going for now, but upon first inspection it just looked as though you missed focus. There does seem to be some artifacts around the lights / highlights too, not sure if that is from processing, or something else?
I apologize since this isn’t a normal subject for me to photograph! =)
I thought the same thing when I was processing this so I looked at the original to try and figure it out but it was in the original as well. What looks like artifacts is actually the texture that was in the layer of ice, it’s just more noticeable around the bright spots than in other areas.
I “Think?” the pinkish color in some areas was from some chemicals that my wife uses on her plants but I’m not sure, that color was also in the original but when I increased the saturation levels it made that color more noticeable. That pinkish color sorta looked like a weird sun corona so I just left it.
And as a general non-defensive comment, I haven’t had any issues with artifacts since my time with a 12MP camera, I shot this with a Sony A7R IV with an FE, f2.8, 90mm Macro G lens. The sensor is ca 60MP and the lens is sharp so artifacts aren’t really an issue unless it’s an extreme crop and enlarged.
This image was shot at 1:1.5 magnification with a 50% FF crop.
Unless I’m mistaken, don’t you shoot with a Sony A7R IV as well?
No problem at all, Matt!
I took it as constructive criticism and if this were a normal subject where the focal points are supposed to be in sharp focus…and make sense , I would have totally agreed with you.
This isn’t even close to my normal way of shooting either, it’s just one of my very few attempts at abstract.
Hi Vanessa,
After you mentioned that, I tried looking at it from that perspective and I got that impression as well (had to squint my eyes first though).
My first impression was of divers swimming in Sea Kelp with the air bubbles coming up from their air tanks.
The bright spots in the ULC made me think of those bright spotlights on underwater cameras.
It’s amazing what we see if we let our minds wander
Thank you so much for the wonderful comment, Vanessa
I like this very much - it has a magical, fairy-tale quality to it. Just I can’t see any reason to not clone out the orange LRC blob. Then it would be perfect to my eye.
, I would have totally agreed with you.
