Pinto Mountain in Joshua Tree NP. This is located in the lower, eastern half of the park. This is pano from 6 shots of FP4+ film.

Maybe it's just an impression of mine, but I feel like the photo is slightly tilted clockwise.
The right side of the photo has very little contrast (I understand that this is probably due to the sun's position), maybe some more would help (while still keeping it "weaker" than the left side).

Clyde, this is great - what are details on this shot? I bet this thing looks great as a big print!

Best,
Jon

Hey Jon, wow haven't gotten a comment or any other activity here in months!! I keep wondering if Brandon is ever going to do anything again???

Thanks, I actually haven't printed this one. I am way behind on printing anything recently.

This is a raindrop nestled in a small succulent plant just outside my home office. Shot with a Nikon d90 and Nikon 60mm Micro, tripod and cable release. This is a Photoshop treatment that I have been experimenting with some recently where I convert the image to b&w (usually using Nik Silver Efex Pro) and then reapply the color with a layer above that has the transfer mode "Color". Sometimes this color layer has also been thru Nik Color Efex. I just love the depth and rich tones that this approach creates.

Here are a couple of other examples:

www.clydebeamer.com/?p=579
www.clydebeamer.com/?p=495
www.clydebeamer.com/?p=208

Clyde, I know you have the D70s - what about the D70...was thinking of picking one up as a backup camera for wedding work - guy i know is selling one with only 200 clicks for 350 - does this seem reasonable for the D70?

Thanks,
Jon

And, yeah - where has everyone gone...and what happened to Brandon?!

I shot for almost 3 years with a D70s, gave it to my son last Dec and got a D90. Been shooting mostly film lately F100 & F80. Bought 4 primes, 20mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm. Love shooting film with the primes.

Not much diff between a d70 and d70s, mostly firemware, which I understand you can upgrade the d70's firmware.

$350 sounds a little high. One d70 body on eBay "buy it now" for @229 and a d70s body for $297

Dave Marcis crashing in a NASCAR race in 1975. I know it's soft, but brings back lot's of memories for me.

Very cool classic shot.
They don't use the cars that they used to!

@All: This is a good example of what you gain from 16bit raw conversions. The smoothness of the grad in the sky from left to right and the subtle difference of the tones in the light shafts would not be possible in an 8 bit workflow. I know the file size is huge, but well worth it, imo. I do all my raw conversions to 16 bit and I scan with my Nikon coolscan in 14 bit which gets output at 16 bit. I am in the process of adding more RAM to my pc and upgrading to 64bit Vista to deal with the heavier filesizes created from the new scanner and now the new Nikon d90 I just bought.

Very nice. Makes my eyes zig-zag back & forth down to the bottom.

Multy-layred mountains. Well deserved feature!

All those shades of grey...
I like that the bottom right is quite 'real', whereas the top left is dreamy, fairy tale like, with a gradual transition between them.

WWWWWWOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW

It's a striking image. The clouds are definitely the highlight. (It's strange though that everything on the ground looks pretty sharp and well exposed, but the cloud and sky around have quite noticeable grain. Were you really pushing the processing in this part of the image to bring the cloud out more?)

@Jim: film grain, digital color capture converted to FP4+ profile in Nik's Silver Efex Pro. Glad you like it. This was taken early just after sunrise in Joshua Tree NP.

wow. cool one. the cloud looks like a starship or something different. i like it :)

Nice one! Would have been great if the cloud wasn't blurred, but I guess it was too dark for a "normal" exposure. Well Done!

That cloud look unreal. Very nice capture.

Heheh, thats lovely. Awesome bokeh too :)

Im rooting for the squirrel!

Not so much a critique (but great capture by the way) but a question...do you use a macro flash ring and what do you recommend? Sorry, off topic, I know.

Never used flash for macro. I barely know how to use flash at all...-)! This was natural light.

I thought the squirrel was giving him the bird, maybe its just me.

This is starting to get ridiculous, the image of the page of text most definitely has bokeh. The caption would make no sense at all if it didn't. If the image has no bokeh, how can the image's bokeh be emphasized???

I have never suggested that shallow dof is the same as bokeh. Bokeh, pleasing or ugly, is, however, one result of shallow dof. And my contention is that it is ALWAYS a result of it, regardless of the background. If the background has points of light or other hight contrast areas, then there will be circle shapes in the bokeh. If the background is simple and low contrast like the one above, then there will not be any circles in the bokeh. There are thousands of examples of images on the internet with beautiful bokeh, but no circle or hexagon shapes in it.

This page is a good representation of what I am saying:
www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/662530/2

If you scroll down this page of images, every single image has bokeh, some have circle shapes in the bokeh, some do not. The presence or absence of circle shapes is totally dependent on the content of the background of each shot. But, surely you cannot point to any one image on that page and say it does not have bokeh, can you?

I don't know nothing about nothing. but the person that wrote the description of this topic was asking for:
About "Bokeh"
Created by Syam
Superb blur backgrounds with small depth of field.

:)

Beautiful image, lovely bokeh! :)

Wow. I didnt know that this topic could get subjective. Anyway lets just have fun and creativity with photography!

Also there are such situations when one needs to realize that wikipedia is not a reliable source.

I love this shot!

The grain is intentional as is the vignette, trying to make it look a little vintage, like the plane...

beautiful shot. i think the vignetting is very effective here.

Very nice shot. Very effective in grabbing the user's attention!

Very cool shot. Looks almost as if it was taken during the time these things were actually in use.

Thanks Erik, that is the point!!

It snowed last night for the first time this season in Southern California. This is what I call my "backyard". This is a pano of the Mount Baldy area above Claremont, CA. This is about a 15 minute drive from my house.

its absolutely beautiful!!
itd be nice to have a "backyard" like this one..
lol
but great shot!

So pretty! I live near by in RC and love having the mountains right in my "backyard" as you say! This is a great picture! I love it. The colour of the sky is so nice and it's just so pretty! Good job!

Great panoramic image, perfect view!

Wonderful job!
Wish my backyard was so wonderful... Wait then i'd have to mow it!

Hi,

I love the detail in the mouth. I would have gone for a major crop and come in on that mouth - a completely different photo to be sure.

Best,
jon

I agree that this is both a disturbing and interesting shot. Perhaps, though, I would like to see a little more of the "guts" side because the detail there looks absolutely fabulous. Well seen and taken.

I can't get my head round whether this is utterly beautiful or utterly disgusting. Very well done.

i feel like i shouldnt like this as much as i do! it really draws me in and then makes me feel guilty about it (being a SCUBA diver and friend to the fish). Oh Beamer, what have you done to me!

Yeah, I'm not a fan of hunting or fishing, but I do like eating meat and fish, so I guess that just speaks to the paradox... This was like a car wreck on the side of the road...hard to look away.