29th Challenge for the days ahead - closed and winners announced!

[bigsteve]

This week the challenge is...

Making the best of the situation

Incessant rain? Down on your luck? Just got the blues?
Some people can provide inspiration by being able to turn things around and reframe their challenges as opportunities.
Show us a picture or three of this in action, interpreted as you will!

Usual rules apply:

All entries must be new photos, taken within the timeframe of the comp.
Maximum of 3 entries per person.
Limited PP, cropping, exposure control, sharpening etc is okay, multi layered cut and pasting is not.
The winner chooses the theme for the following challenge.

Entries can be posted from 8pm on Thursday 20th August until 8pm on Sunday 23rd August, with the winner announced later that evening.

C'mon, extra big effort! Enjoy

 

[tdodd]

#1 I was up in the wee small hours of Tuesday 18th and hoping to catch a nice shot of the crescent moon and Venus. The sky was clear when I got out of bed, but by the time I'd fannied around with tripod and lens swapping there was cloud just edging over everything and screwing it up. I got a few shots in but all utter rubbish and only fit for the bin so I tried shooting a bat instead. It's far from great but I think is a nice example of making the best of a bad situation.

(originally posted in this thread - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=157557)

#2 - the challenge here was that, having posted recently about the "reach" advantage of the 50D at low ISO, some people took the view that for birding, when that reach can be so valuable, nobody would ever shoot at 100 ISO and the "reach" advantage was really moot. So I thought I'd try shooting birds and BIF, today, using only 100 ISO. The weather was mostly broken cloud so I thought I'd mount my flash for a bit of fill and pep. I don't have a Better Beamer so I knew the flash would not have much reach at shutter speeds faster than 1/250, so I tried to shoot at that speed when I could. With only my 100-400 lens I really needed to shoot wide open, at f/5.6, in order to grab enough light at 100 ISO. Here is one of the resulting shots at 400mm, 1/250, f/5.6, 100 ISO. It is cropped a bit so including the crop factor of the camera body this is equivalent in angle of view to shooting with an 855mm lens on a full frame camera. I would call that some pretty good "reach", hand held too

This following image isn't an entry, but simply a 100% crop of the bird I focused on above. I think that is pretty good reach, although I suspect that had I used 200 ISO and 1/500 it might have been sharper. A prime lens would have probably helped too. Still, I think I will continue to practice at lower ISOs and shutter speeds rather than often aiming for 1/2000 and needing 800 ISO to achieve it.

 

[SarahLee]

Interesting theme this week.
OK - Here's my first one. . . I may get another one or two in.

No.1

Day off work today and I was planning a walk along the canal with the dog . . . take the camera along . . . maybe get a shot for my 52. No such luck. Absolutely torrential rain and thunder

Hmmmmm - there are some pretty raindrop patterns on my kitchen window though - so here's making the most of the rain today!

No.2

Slightly different interpretation in this one.

The one thing I always seem to be short of is time . . . there's never enough.
So I appreciate how important it is to make the absolute most of the time you have. Every minute counts.
Having said that wouldn't it be nice if you could make time run backwards? . . . just for once . . . and just for a little while.

So here's my second entry - Making the most of the time that we have (and maybe trying to squeeze a few more minutes out of it)

 

[oskanoears]

Well im stuck at home with laryngitis but downloaded the startrails program yesterday and lft the camera in the garden for 30 mins last night as an experiment... its not perfect but im pleased i got a fair result for a dry run and now need to perfect it and take the technique out into the field... cheered me up anyway and helped with my blues!

 

[jennyb]

Why do deer only appear when it is too dark to photograph them?

Why do deer look away on the only reasonably sharp photo that you manage to take?

It had just stopped raining and I screwed up the ISO to 1000 and managed a shot of this little chap/chapess.

It was born in May and appears regularly under our apple trees with its Mum. You can see it still has its spots, albeit very faint now.

Jenny

 

[Comfy]

I got to where I wanted to take a few shots of the sunset about 10 mins too early, so decided to try out the range of my new remote shutter release. And now you lot know what I look like too hehe

 

[GarynLea]

I went for a walk along the canal on Friday and got caught in the incessant showers. The only place to shelter was under a large oak. Anyway, after about 15 mins of sitting waiting, I heard rustling on the opposite bank. I couldnt see anything due to the jungle-like foliage so fired a couple of shots off, this was the best but still had to be brightened quite a bit in PS. The result ...... my first mink

 

[bigsteve]

And the results are...

In 3rd place, jennyb made me smile with the un-cooperative deer that turned its head when the only opportunity for a good photo occurred.

In 2nd place, tdodd was clearly making the best of a self-imposed situation.

But the winner this time around is SarahLee with an excellent pic of a good interpretation. We could all do with more time, but have to make the best of what we have available!

Well done to jennyb, tdodd and SarahLee!

A good effort from everyone else too, it's just a shame we didn't have more entries this time around.

Good luck to everyone for the next round, and keep taking pictures!

Over to you, Sarah!

 

[tdodd]

Congrats, Sarah and Jenny. Thanks, Steve, for placing one of my entries

 

[jennyb]

Many thanks, Steve, for the third place. Congratulations to Tim and Sarah. That's a very interesting idea Sarah. It would be nice to make time go backwards! Tim, I loved your birds in flight. I am completely hopeless at shooting things that move but would love to be able to do it.

Jenny

 

[Comfy]

A big well done to all, especially the winners

 

[GarynLea]

Congrats winners ... a fun round

 

[SarahLee]

Thank you Steve - totally unexpected! There were some great photos there this week.

Congratulations to Tim and Jenny.
Tim, I thought your bird photo was stunning and Jenny I love the way that the deer's head almost looks like it's on backwards. That one really made me laugh

Well done to everyone else too.

I suppose this means that I have to put my thinking cap on for this week's theme.
I'll start up a new thread a little bit later.

Thanks again.