November 2024 - P52 Challenge

[Cassel]

Do you want to challenge yourself to take photos every week for a year?

Maybe you want to practice your photography skills, or just try to capture "ordinary" daily occurrences.

Let's just encourage each other.

This is a no-pressure thread, and you can share the photos you took or the theme you are going for (if you are going with a theme).

And if you don't want to share the photos yet, and only showcase them once they are in a montage or a scrapbook page, you can just say that you did it.

And it is ok to start your 52 weeks at any time. It does not have to start in January!

[Ann Seeber]

Here's mine for Week 43 - an original watercolor by my daughter, Debbie Lennox, titled "End of Summer at the Mendo Zendo" (that is the new name for Big River Farm that actually started life as a Buddhist retreat, complete with gong.) It is now an Airbnb and art gallery.

[Sue Thomas]

Week forty five.  Well it's that  time of year again, winter is moving in.  We are already getting frosty nights, giving way to  bright sunny relevantly warm days.  Shooting  hoar frost at  this time of year doesn't give the best results, so this photo  was taken last January when the temps plummet to 30 below and colder.

Edited November 8 by Sue Thomas

[Sue Thomas]

Seeing as I didn't take the frost  photo one day this week, here is a shot I took last night. First quarter, waxing crescent moon.  

Edited November 8 by Sue Thomas

[Corrie Kinkel]

4 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Week forty five.  Well it's that  time of year again, winter is moving in.  We are already getting frosty nights, giving way to  bright sunny relevantly warm days.  Shooting  hoar frost at  this time of year doesn't give the best results, so this photo  was taken last January when the temps plummet to 30 below and colder.

Sue I love that frost, we almost never have that over here any more because the temperatures don't drop that low any longer; climate change.......

[Corrie Kinkel]

This week we have fog or low clouds, it is grey! Monday we had just a small glimpse of sun for a couple of minutes only, when I passed the stretch of grass in front of a building bloc. I have taken some mushroom photos there lately and just noticed some fly agaric (amanita muscaria). Btw is there another common name for this mushrooms? I have the new iPhone 16 which has gotten a great camera update which allows you to select the f value and exposure time by hand. I'm experimenting with it and here it worked great; foreground and background are blurred. When the weather improves..... I want to do more experimenting, however the grass has been cut and all mushrooms are gone for now.

[Sue Thomas]

1 hour ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

This week we have fog or low clouds, it is grey! Monday we had just a small glimpse of sun for a couple of minutes only, when I passed the stretch of grass in front of a building bloc. I have taken some mushroom photos there lately and just noticed some fly agaric (amanita muscaria). Btw is there another common name for this mushrooms? I have the new iPhone 16 which has gotten a great camera update which allows you to select the f value and exposure time by hand. I'm experimenting with it and here it worked great; foreground and background are blurred. When the weather improves..... I want to do more experimenting, however the grass has been cut and all mushrooms are gone for now.

Lovely depth of field achieved in this shot.

[Sue Thomas]

2 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

Sue I love that frost, we almost never have that over here any more because the temperatures don't drop that low any longer; climate change.......

Neither do we in the UK.  I will have to wait for the temps to really drop, before taking frost and snowflake shots. 

[Julie Magerka]

8 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Week forty five.  Well it's that  time of year again, winter is moving in.  We are already getting frosty nights, giving way to  bright sunny relevantly warm days.  Shooting  hoar frost at  this time of year doesn't give the best results, so this photo  was taken last January when the temps plummet to 30 below and colder.

Please, can you explain the camera settings for this pic?

[Sue Thomas]

9 hours ago, Julie Magerka said:

Please, can you explain the camera settings for this pic?

In order for me to take macro photos, whether they are insects, frost, leaves, lichen, or anything else I  use what is called a conversion lens. It's a small round lens which I attach to the camera. It is the Raynox 1.50 or 2.50 macro lens. Not all cameras support a conversion lens. Mine being a Panasinic FZ300 bridge camera does. As for the camera settings I use AFS/AFF mode. Setting is aperture. F4, which is the sweet spot for my camera. ISO 100. 2 second timer on stills.  Aspect ratio 4.3. I  can increase each image 4 fold, without  loosing quality. When taking macro  photos I  concerntrate on the depth of focus. Making sure that that camera isn't  in the slightest bit tilted. As I don't use a photo stacker program.

Edited November 9 by Sue Thomas

[Ann Seeber]

7 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

photo stacker program

Sue, is that the one that is now a part of PSP2023? (screenshot below)

[Sue Thomas]

1 hour ago, Ann Seeber said:

Sue, is that the one that is now a part of PSP2023? (screenshot below)

It is. I choose not to use a photo stacker, as it is a tedious process. Where you have to take a series of shots at different focal lengths using a tripod.  Which also takes accuracy. That doesn't work  so well when shooting moving insects. There isn't  anything which is completely  flat to obtain  perfect depth of focus of a subject, hence I  opt for trying to  keep the camera absolutely flush with whatever I'm  shooting, whilst more often than not positioning  myself to achieve it. Which works for me. There are lots of photo stacking programs out there, many of them are free to download. When shooting macro, one has to understand the difference between depth of field and depth of focus. Mind you not choosing to use a photo  stacker over the technique I  opt for is my own personal choice. So I  may have part of a subject  slightly out of focus, like an antena of an insect, due to it being slightly angled away, so be it. 

Edited November 9 by Sue Thomas

[Michele]

13 hours ago, Corrie Kinkel said:

Btw is there another common name for this mushrooms? I

It might be Fly agaric. It has hallucinogenic qualities and can be poisonous, but rarely deadly, to humans. The image is used a lot in fairy tales.

 

[Julie Magerka]

14 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

In order for me to take macro photos, whether they are insects, frost, leaves, lichen, or anything else I  use what is called a conversion lens. It's a small round lens which I attach to the camera. It is the Raynox 1.50 or 2.50 macro lens. Not all cameras support a conversion lens. Mine being a Panasinic FZ300 bridge camera does. As for the camera settings I use AFS/AFF mode. Setting is aperture. F4, which is the sweet spot for my camera. ISO 100. 2 second timer on stills.  Aspect ratio 4.3. I  can increase each image 4 fold, without  loosing quality. When taking macro  photos I  concerntrate on the depth of focus. Making sure that that camera isn't  in the slightest bit tilted. As I don't use a photo stacker program.

That's quite technical for a non-camera person like me, but interesting to read. I really admire macro photography. But don't have the equipment to do it.

[Corrie Kinkel]

5 hours ago, Michele said:

It might be Fly agaric. It has hallucinogenic qualities and can be poisonous, but rarely deadly, to humans. The image is used a lot in fairy tales.

 

Here too and if you ask a child to draw a mushroom you will in most cases get something like this one. Red with white dots! I know it is poisonous and we always told our kids. But in the calendar for this year I used a photo of an Amanita phalloides or death angel that is deadly if you eat it and every year there are cases reported of people dying after eating this mushroom! 

[Corrie Kinkel]

16 minutes ago, Julie Magerka said:

That's quite technical for a non-camera person like me, but interesting to read. I really admire macro photography. But don't have the equipment to do it.

Me neither, at least no longer, but I understand the technical bit of this process. Our camera became out dated, we had one that needed an actual roll of film. And it was heavy with all the different lenses. But when I buy a new cell phone I always go with the one that has the best camera. It is becoming amazing what you can do with your phone nowadays and for me that has to be enough; besides that I always have it with me!

[Sharla]

Week 45 Fuchsias in bloom at the start of November! It has been so mild here in England that these flowers have kept on going. I usually lose them with the first frosts in October – last year it was on the 3rd. Amazing to still have the colour in the garden.

 

[Ann Seeber]

Week 44 - Sun Nov 10 - Mendocino (CA) Halloween - Photo by (Grandma) Debbie Lennox | Family= Dad, Will; Mom, Lucy; Magic, Age 4; Raja, Age 1. Font=Witch Mystery

[Sue Thomas]

The Snowberry bush,  is a low growing native bush. The flowers are quite insignificantly tiny, yet produce an abundance of food for  pollinators.  The berries start out black, then turn to white, to sustain small creatures throughout the winter months. The Snowberry Sphynx moth caterpillars  feed on the leaves. Photo taken on Wednesday.

[Corrie Kinkel]

The weather this week is a repetition of the weeks before, foggy and gray! The best place to take a photo where you can see this, is the railway crossing in our small station. I have to cross the tracks almost daily because the shops, pool, library are all on the opposite side from where we live. The only color in this photo comes from the trees that still have their leaves. 

[Susan Ewart]

On 11/8/2024 at 1:23 PM, Corrie Kinkel said:

Sue I love that frost, we almost never have that over here any more because the temperatures don't drop that low any longer; climate change.......

Sad face, because of the climate change.  we just had our first real snowfall, about 1 month late.  a week ago it was 17 Celsius, the next day, below zero.   

[Susan Ewart]

On 11/8/2024 at 1:41 PM, Corrie Kinkel said:

This week we have fog or low clouds, it is grey! Monday we had just a small glimpse of sun for a couple of minutes only, when I passed the stretch of grass in front of a building bloc. I have taken some mushroom photos there lately and just noticed some fly agaric (amanita muscaria). Btw is there another common name for this mushrooms? I have the new iPhone 16 which has gotten a great camera update which allows you to select the f value and exposure time by hand. I'm experimenting with it and here it worked great; foreground and background are blurred. When the weather improves..... I want to do more experimenting, however the grass has been cut and all mushrooms are gone for now.

Wow Corrie!  This is stunning.  

[Susan Ewart]

On 11/9/2024 at 1:28 AM, Ann Seeber said:

Sue, is that the one that is now a part of PSP2023? (screenshot below)

Apparently (I heard), that it wasnt that great.  I'm curious to see if anyone has tried it.  A tripod is a must and a program to line up the images because you are changing the angle of view each time it focuses on a different spot.  

oops, I should have read ahead, I see the question has been answered.  I've seen some stunning results of photographers using this technique.  It is tedious, I agree.

Edited November 16 by Susan Ewart

[Susan Ewart]

Week 45

I was in such a hurry I ripped the darned sticker.  I think the tutorial is called Torn Photo.  It's a quick and easy one too.  Gradient background, nice and light for a change, with a little texture on it.  

[Susan Ewart]

Week 46

I used Effects> photo effects> Time Machine>Early color.  The frame doesn't have transparency on the outside of the scalloped edged, I wonder why.  I had to do some selecting to delete them.  I'll be asking that question in the next Q&A, how I can use that effect but have transparency past the outer edge of the frame.  Wish it also put the frame on another layer, I was able to select and do it, but I'm sure I did everything the long hard way.  Still I like the effect.  I used an art deco background with a another color above and used a blend mode.  Picked an Art Deco font.