ARPS #3 – Glowing Leaves

More nature/flora pictures from my ARPS panel… (Not all of them are flower/plant pictures, just that the first few in the panel are, that’s all!)

Glowing Leaves of the peacock plant was taken at the Singapore Botanical Gardens too. In this shot, backlighting was used to good effect to light the leaves, giving a transluscent feel to the leaves. Strong and sharp patterns in the variegated leaves add interest to the picture. The background, originally of dried leaves/soil/weeds was digitally removed and darkened in Photoshop to remove distractions from the shot.

Exposure information – Camera: Canon Powershot G3, ISO 50, Shutter: 1/100 sec, Aperture: f/5, 35mm effective FL: 88mm, Metering mode: Evaluative, Exposure Mode: Manual

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One of the banes of using zoom-lenses is that of barrel-distortion at wide angles (especially for the cheaper/budget lenses). I came across a link to two interesting free software tools to correct these distortions: RadCor and PTLens (upon which RadCor is based). Digging out a shot that was previously badly affected by barrel-distortion, I tried out RadCor with impressive results. Additional Photoshop tinkering that led to the above image: Channel Mixer tweaking for the monochrome / IR look, followed by adding Noise for a slightly grainy look. Taken more than a year ago outside the ESPRIT shop at Raffles City.

ARPS #2 – Figure of 8

Figure of 8 was taken at the same session as Emeralds of Spring at the Singapore Botanical Gardens. The strong repetitive “figure of 8” arrangements of the lily pads attracted me. The lone blooming flower bud helped to serve as an anchoring main subject for the shot against the interesting background of the leaf pads. The gentle nature of the evening sunlight warmed the whole scene dramatically.

Exposure information – Camera: Canon Powershot G3, ISO 50, Shutter: 1/125 sec, Aperture: f/7.1, 35mm effective FL: 77mm, Metering mode: Spot, Exposure Mode: Manual, Flash: Off