A wet pet

[Ron Morse]

This guy is very friendly and always come to the front of the aquarium when he sees me coming. Not at all nervous like some.

I always like the shots of these fish to be kind of in the shadows. Others may disagree.





Oh yes -- for those that don't know this is a pirahna.

[Asher Kelman]

Ron,

As you know I always enjoy your fish for somehow they seem to show feelings, like the first one is like a modest almost introspective girl in a party that a guy think he can manage only to find he ends up completely under her control!

Still, I do find it might be much better for the head of the fish to be perfectly focused unless there's a reason not to do so. By making the scales on the side of the fish in focus, one is drawn away from the head and the purpose of these fish, predation, is not even imagined. I would still like the whole face, eyes and lips to be perfect and a swathe of scales sharp to the tail with the rest blurred to give immense power.

At least that's my approach but then perhaps I'd no longer like your pictures!

Asher

[Ron Morse]

What I always aim for is to have the eye in focus first and formost. I believe it is in both photos. The fish has no scales on its face and the face is lighter. I believe the first photo is pretty close to right. In the second it obviously has to much flash on the face. I believe both were taken at f/16 so DOF should not be a problem.
Because of where the aquarium light is on this tank it is the hardest of my tanks to get my flashes positioned where i want them for the proper lighting.

Take a close look at the first picture and see if the eye and face are not in proper focus. I believe the flash brightness at the front of the fish is causing what you see. I am really interested in what you think.

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Ron,

I have worked out what's going on. It's sharpening! There is considerable room in the images for sharpening and then it pops. It's a a matter of tasted, but your files are robust enough to sharpen a lot and also take a modest S curve.




© 2007 Ron Morse

This sharpening is just a variant that may be worth considering sometimes.

My 0.02 cents worth!

Asher

[Ron Morse]

I think that you are onto something.

I,ve been getting lazy lately Asher. I probably didn't even sharpen it. Other than cleaning up some debris in the water that is probably as it came out of the camera. I shot that I believe in Oct.

Although I have it, I couldn't find the RAW. I took the tiff, reduced exposure a tiny bit, added just a touch of contrast, sharpened it before downsizing, downsized and then sharpened again.

I think it pops now. What do you think?

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Ron,

I think that at f16 likely your are getting diffraction hiding some of the detail which sharpening can give you back. Your new image is so much more dimensional. I like it. You can with benefit shapen even more as you have good files.

How do you react to the version I made?

When you don't sharpen you re essetially throwing away a lot of real detail as one has no means to dicriminate between details. Sharpening does not creat detail, of course, but in a picture like yours, there's a lot to be seen. With a combination of selective locoregional sharpening and contrast adjustment the image can be so optimized that this will be ready to swim off or else bite off your finger!

Asher