Picture of the week 27 July 2006

[stubbsy]

This weeks picture of the week - taken by Steve (avkomp) is an interesting image that has an equally interesting back story. Back in April Steve rescued 2 abandoned kittens and hand reared them. Despite his best efforts to find a new home for them he still has both cats. This week he posted a delightful image of one of them and it is that image I have chosen.

This image has a lot going for it excluding the subject matter. It was taken using available light so the bakground is dark and the subject stands out that little bit more. It also has superbly controlled depth of field. The cat's eyes and face are in razor sharp focus with the image blurring away nicely at the edges. Like many good portraits this masterful use of DOF really focuses the viewers attention on the most important part of the image - the face. Things are then rounded off nicely by the eye contact between the cat and the viewer and the catchlight in the cats eyes.

Interestingly the image here is straight out of the camera with no sharpening etc

Well done Steve. The original post is HERE

[radar]

Great shot Steve,

I missed that one when you first posted it. As Peter says, great DOF, use of light, etc, just beautiful.

I know that Peter loves cats but I don't think he was biased here since it is a great photo. I'm a dog lover and still love this photo

Well picked Peter,

cheers,

Andre

[admajic]

Good choice Stubbsy! Love the background on the cats too. Well done avkomp, on POTW!!

Adam

[Oscar]

Lovely shot Steve. Good choice Stubbsy.
Cheers,
Mick

[ABG]

Congratulations Steve. Great shot.

[moggy]

When I showed it to my two cats they thought it was pretty good too! Nice shot Steve.

Bob.

.

[wendellt]

congratulations

beautiful available light shot

[Geoff]

Wow! I'm not generally a cat lover, but this is a top image.

I too missed it the first time around.

Congrats to Steve and a great choice Peter.

[johnd]

Sure is a great shot. Well done Steve, great choice Peter.
Cheers
John

[avkomp]

thanks for the comments guys.

I am surprised but none the less pleased.

for those interested in how this was done here are the details:

Basically I noticed afternoon light coming thru the back door of the house and the door has a sun film stuff on it to reduce heat etc in summer.
it had the effect of softening hte light quite a lot so I wanted to try some shots using it whist the cat was sunning himself.
I set a 1M silver reflector at right angles to the way the light was coming in to even out the scene. no light at all was falling on the background.

Initially I was going to try and get the light coming from behind the cat so that the incident sunlight gave a rim light effect, alas he wasnt going to pose for that so went with what I had.

incident sunlight is essentially coming from behind his left ear and towards his right eye, almost 90degrees to the lens axis (maybe 85degrees?)
and the reflector was pretty much exactly opposite that.

exif: d2x 105micro nikkor 1/125 f3.2 iso 100.
there room behind the subject was in shadow but definitely didnt want the background in the shot because it was distracting so narrow DOF was used for that,
but also
I used centre weighted metering for determining exposure because I felt that matrix mode would have attempted to expose for the backgroud also and thas wasnt what was needed.

I think fine white curtains would provide this sort of diffusion for portraits by a window if you didnt have this stuff on the door. I have seen many nice portraits produced in this manner.

when I put usm on this image it made the facial details sharper but somehow ruined the dreamy light effect so I went back to the original raw image and ran the border action on it, resized for web and converted to srgb only. no usm on the image. sharpening is set to none in camera settings and stays that way (according to recommendations in thom hogans guides.)

finally,
Stubbsy: we didnt try awfully hard to find homes for these guys. I am a sucker. probably deep down I knew that we were keeping them from day one




Steve

[ozimax]

Steve,

I hate cats, but great photo nonetheless. (Actually, I wouldn't hate them so much if they were more like dogs, but then they wouldn't be cats, they'd be dogs, or dots, or cogs... )

This is an excellent image, you sure have some versatility in your photography, well done!

[blacknstormy]

Steve - I kind of thought you'd be keeping them too
Beautiful portrait of a very lucky puss
And well picked Peter
Hugs
Rel

[avkomp]

max,
to my great surprise the little patchy one is like a dog in many ways.
she often plays fetch, where if you throw something, she keeps retrieving it and bringing it to your lap.
minus the drool. and cats dont hump your leg

Steve

[ozimax]

max,
to my great surprise the little patchy one is like a dog in many ways.
she often plays fetch, where if you throw something, she keeps retrieving it and bringing it to your lap. minus the drool.

Can't argue with this!! But I still love mini dacshunds, even tho some would say they're not a real dog

[gstark]

To those who prefess to hate cats...

marinate them in a 50/50 mixture of olive oil and orange juice, and then cook them over the bbq antil they're medium rare. Serve over a bed of penne with sundrenched tomato, shave some reggianno over the top and finally, fresh cracked pepper to taste.


Peter, great choice, and Steve, as discussed, this image has wonderful properties.

For the rest of you, Peter's bringing the wine; dinner's at Steve's at 7:30.

[Murray1006]

Congratulations Steve. Great shot, you really can't go past natural light and a reflector. You've used them well and the black backgound and shallow DOF really makes the image.

[ozimax]

To those who prefess to hate cats...

marinate them in a 50/50 mixture of olive oil and orange juice, and then cook them over the bbq antil they're medium rare. Serve over a bed of penne with sundrenched tomato, shave some reggianno over the top and finally, fresh cracked pepper to taste.


Peter, great choice, and Steve, as discussed, this image has wonderful properties.

For the rest of you, Peter's bringing the wine; dinner's at Steve's at 7:30.

Gary, you're a sick man...

[marcotrov]

Subject is beautifully enhanced by the delicate lighting. Congratulations.
cheers
marco

[macka]

Excellent shot, congrats.

[Sir Tristram]

Very nice shot Steve, they are little buggers to get to stay still.

Well done.

[mark]

Congrats Steve. Great choice Stubbsy.

[Slider]

Well done Steve. Great portrait and as many others have said excellent use of DOF.

[johndec]

A worthy winner...