Lensbaby

First night out with the beautiful Muse and Zone Plate optic. 15 second exposure.

Thanks for looking!

I like the idea. The image is well composed. I think the image would've been stronger without the light above the subject. My eye is drawn to the bright light instead of focusing on the subject.

Igor.

Thank you, Igor. I will try shooting it again or cropping it to compare. This new bending technique takes some time to get used to! :)

I'm surprised at how much I like dirty sensors with the pinhole/zone plate. I never expected that.

My first reaction is that this is strong and well excecuted. After reading Igor's post it does feel like some unnecessary competition between the figure and the light. Did you sharpen the pattern around the light? I'd like to see this pattern not as crisply defined as it is in this image. When everything else is without sharp edges the sharpened (?) highlight takes on an even stronger presence in the scene.

-Craig

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.
Heraclitus of Ephesus

Craig, the whole image has been sharpened, hence the sharp point of light. It seems the Lensbaby is making my usual post-processing habits obsolete :P

Oh, and does the Zone Plate only exaggerate dirty sensors, or is this part of the Optic? I like to think I keep the inside of my camera rather clean, and the specks are not visible with traditional lenses (though that could be due to refraction vs. diffraction in this case). I do like it though.

Thanks for the feedback! I'm going to try shooting again without such a strong light source and see which I prefer.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2008 06:05AM by Daifuku Sensei.

Wow, I am impressed at holding the Muse stationary for 15 seconds. Great stuff, the jury is out with me on the light still.
David

David Akoubian
www.bearwoodsphotography.com

"Time is a wonderful healer, but a really bad beautician" - Unknown

Hold on, the funk is part of the message.......life is a merry-go-round ........it's all part of Zoning Out !

I like what you did here. I will address only the technical aspect of a dirty sensor.

A pinhole or zone plate have such a huge depth of field; it actually extends all the way back into the camera to the sensor. I learned this lesson the hard way with a pinhole aperture fashioned out of a camera body cap. I was sure that the dirt was on the clear plastic film that covered the pinhole to reduce the dust attracted to the charged sensor. I had a mental block about it actually appearing on the surface of the filter directly in front of the sensor! It was not until I 'wet' cleaned my sensor that I was rid of it all.

Craig finds the sensor dirt in your picture adding something positive. I found the dirt distracting for the series of images I was composing at the time. It really depends on what you want to include and express.

The dirt did not show up when I used a lens for the same scene. While the overall effect of a pinhole is soft (zone plate is even softer), the extreme DOF is a killer when it comes to dirt.

David, actually the Muse was on a tripod as I sat against the wall. Some fine job sitting still for that long it would have been though :)

Ran, very good observation... Zoning out, I like it!

Mark, thank you for the very insightful explanation. I understand now how it functions. Cheers!