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Ducky's first beach party ...
Ducky's first beach party ...
MrAnalogy


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Rubber Ducky (Basic Editing III*)
Camera: Nikon D70
Location: My kitchen ... Michigan, USA
Date: Apr 1, 2005
Aperture: F6.3
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/50 sec.
Galleries: Humorous, Animals
Date Uploaded: Apr 1, 2005

 I made a small 'beach' on a table top and used a drink umbrella and a "Homie" figure to add atmosphere. I placed the grapes around the Homie so their presence and quantity could be confirmed and then used a small glass vial with cork stopper as the water container and hung a blue sheet a few feet behind it all for the background.

All that remained was to figure out 3 identifiable light sources. I was using window light as the main source and needed 2 other sources that would be visible and in line with the idea of the composition. For one, I set up an empty bottle with a green filter and diffusion plate behind and to the left of Homie and used a small mag-light focused on it from behind to create a distinct green spot-light of sorts in an attempt to simulate a lighthouse. I'm not sure that came off as well as I'd hoped but time was running out and I still needed another source.

As it was a beach party, a small camp-fire seemed suitable as ambience and light source. I placed a tea-light in the background and surrounded it with twigs to help with the illusion and ultimately decided to actually break off a few small twig fragments and add them to the 'fire' to get more realistic flame.

Then I took a couple of test shots in RAW to see how it all looked and finally set the camera to Jpeg FINE for the submission shot.

I left it uncropped and resized to 640 x 426 and then adjusted levels slightly to lighten a bit followed by USM and finally saved for submission.

I hope a few find it as enjoyable to view as I found it fun to create.

Statistics
Place: 15 out of 125
Avg (all users): 6.0866
Avg (commenters): 7.2308
Avg (participants): 5.6622
Avg (non-participants): 6.2069
Views since voting: 1424
Views during voting: 555
Votes: 335
Comments: 18
Favorites: 1 (view)

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AuthorThread
 04/30/2005 06:11:01 PM
Congratulations! Pretty impressive placing for the first submission.
Great focus. This is really funny!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/08/2005 09:14:35 PM
Congratulations on your 15th finish. very well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/08/2005 08:19:09 PM
I'd like to say thanks to everyone who voted and/or left comments on this -- my first submission here! I had a great time making the photo and drove myself nuts watching the vote tally over the last week.

For the benefit of the few who wondered about the shallow DOF given the aperture range allowed, I was using a Nikkor 60mm Macro lens and was close enough to the entire setup that the area of focus would be pretty shallow. I did take a couple of shots stopped down as far as F10 but they just didn't have the same 'feel' as the one with the shallower DOF @ F6.3.

Thanks again,
Gary
 Comments Made During the Challenge
04/08/2005 03:27:02 AM
A duck with attitude, hey dude how 'bout bumping u up a bit?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/07/2005 06:57:03 PM
I would have loved to have lowered this from a 7 to a 6, but the duck and the water bottle grouping is just too well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/06/2005 05:49:54 AM
Cute concept. I just wish the duck had been in the zone of sharpest focus instead of the bottle. Good Work.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/05/2005 05:24:10 PM
I would have like a deeper level of detail
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/05/2005 03:11:18 AM
Original composition
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/04/2005 10:03:12 AM
Good picture. How did you get such a shallow depth of field for such a small aperature?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/03/2005 09:10:31 PM
i like it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/03/2005 04:20:12 PM
This is funny! The bottle is perfect and I like the blurred background.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/03/2005 07:41:27 AM
Not enough DOF
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/02/2005 02:26:36 PM
The focus on the duck's beak should be stronger, perhaps using a smaller aperture would have got better results in terms of focus around the duck and the bottle.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/02/2005 09:57:14 AM
very cute.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/01/2005 10:08:47 PM
This is awesome!! Great idea, perfect focus and good use of lighting!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/01/2005 09:14:47 PM
quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack !quack ! quaaaaark
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/01/2005 08:44:25 PM
Good bokeh in this photo. Nice job in meeting the challenge!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 04/01/2005 08:11:12 PM
This is the winner in my opinion.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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