...And happy about it ;)

#MacroMondays
#Embossed

Who would have known that the "dishwasher-proof" symbol that you can find on the underside of food containers (usually made of plastic) reveals a somewhat quirky, but definitely cute and smiling face? It's pareidolia time again :) Mr. Dishwasher-proof's face is 6x6mm / 0,23x0,23 inches "big", so the entire frame isn't much bigger than that. Illuminated with the usual suspects of make-shift colour filters, and photographed in 2:1 magnification with the Laowa 50mm f/2,8 macro lens. I was able to get about the same magnification (cropped) with the Oly's High-Res Mode and the M.Zuiko 60mm (1:1) macro lens, and the tiny 30mm F2.5 macro lens is somewhat in-between the two with its native 1,25x magnification which was interesting to see.

I'm very busy today and will catch up with you tonight.

HMM, Everyone, and have a great week ahead!

Tags:   Macro Mondays HMM! Embossed close-up macro extreme close-up 2:1 macro photography pareidolia face smile eyes dishwasher-proof symbol pictogram plastic colourful spülmaschinenfest Pareidolie Gesicht Augen Lächeln bunt Piktogramm garanti lave-vaisselle Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III LAOWA 50mm f/2,8 2X Ultra Macro APO DXO PhotoLab 6 Nik Collection Color Efex Analog Efex Micro Four Thirds ThroughHerLens

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...already Halloween?

#MacroMondays
#Stone

This wasn't on purpose, believe me ;) It was just another one of these difficult "free" themes that I didn't want to skip because I am a stone/mineral collector of sorts (I have been fascinated with minerals, rocks, and stones since childhood), and I have so many of them (some of which I've already photographed for MMs ruled out for this theme, of course) that, once again, I was overwhelmed. I had a few ideas which I couldn't get right the way I had envisioned, but late yesterday evening I thought "One last try!", and picked the dullest and at the same time weirdest-looking mineral that is in my collection. Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name of this specific mineral, and last night's research yielded no results. I can best describe its smooth, tumble-polished pattern as reminiscent of giraffe skin, oddly shaped greyish-brown opaque shapes segmented by semi-translucent white/light-grey, quartz-like "lines" that look like a net or mesh of river branches washing around the greyish-brown "islands". The closest type of mineral I found was septarium, so maybe that's it, but I'm not sure at all. I think, however, if you zoom in, you can see that it really is a tumbled gemstone and not some oddly-shaped Halloween pumpkin accessory ;)

So yesterday evening, when it already was completely dark outside, a miracle happened. I knew that the white "rivers" were a little translucent, but when I had backlit the stone in daylight, the effect wasn't particularly impressive. But in the darkness, with only a single small light source in the entire room, the rivers started to glow which totally transformed the dull-looking mineral into something almost alive. Hooray :) Maybe I should have done focus stacking instead of taking several single shots, turning the stone around to find its most "attractive" side (this weird-looking pumpkin face, obviously), but I think there's enough sharpness here, and the blurry parts add a somewhat molten look which, for me, enhances the impression of a red hot glow.

The orange-yellow glow is from the LED flashlight that I had placed directly behind the stone (the streak of blue behind the stone is also from the flashlight). I enhanced the saturation and overall vibrancy with the primary color sliders in LR, and in Color Efex, I used a few "Detail Enhancer" control points to bring out the texture. Size of the "maybe septarium, definitely pumpkin face": approximately 3x3 cm / 1,18x1,18 inches.

HMM, Everyone, and have a great week ahead!

Tags:   Macro Mondays Stone close-up macro photography low-key mineral gemstone septarium ID not clear tumbled gemstone Halloween pumpkin face glow lava hot orange black weird grin pareidolia Septarie Trommelstein Kürbisgesicht Glühen Grinsen Pareidolie pietra burattata Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8 Macro DXO PhotoLab 6 Lightroom Nik Collection Color Efex Micro Four Thirds ThroughHerLens

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#macromondays
#Heart

The Look of Love, or rather the hazy gaze of love, which it often is, isn't it, when we fall in love with someone or something, and all of a sudden our mind turns off, and the yummy, yummy, yummy butterflies in our tummy take over...

When it comes to "Heart", I have already shot my bolt, or rather Cupid's arrow, with my image for last week's MM theme (which you can find in the first comment) ;) So I had to find something else for the actual "Heart" theme today because I didn't want to use the small silver heart pendant so soon again for another MM. I don't have many heart-shaped things at home, so at first, I considered buying something for the theme, but then thought "No, put your thinking cap on!" I have this sachet full of white, pink, and purple coloured Swarovski crystals in many different shapes (which I have already used for a few MM themes before), and among them are a few heart-shaped stones. That was my starting point. But I didn't want to present the crystals in a too kitschy way – and that was the difficult part ;) To make it short, a small two-in-one pocket magnifier with two plastic loupes came to my rescue. I have no idea where I have it from, it must have been a giveaway maybe at a DIY shop (the imprint says "Coilcraft, Cumbernauld, Scotland), I really don't know how it came into my possession, and I also had completely forgotten about it, when I stumbled upon it last week while looking for something else. It started with "Now where is that darn thing?!" (the one I was actually looking for), and happily ended with "Oh, what have we got here?" Because when you pull out both loupes from their protective plastic casing and arrange them in a certain way they form a heart shape. Nice :)

The width of the frame is 6 cm / 2,36 inches. Setup: I "glued" the two heart-shaped crystals onto a piece of gold-coloured carboard with modeling clay. Then I placed the loupe right in front of the two hearts, very, very close because otherwise, the hearts would have been a mere pinkish blur. I did some focus stacking, but it didn't look nice at all with everything in the frame sharp. So I went for a "single photo approach" with focus on the "eyes" (and once again that was my last photo). That did the trick ;) Processing-wise, I didn't do much this time, just the basics in DXO, some masking in LR, and as a finishing touch I applied a Film type in Analog Efex, one from the "Subtle" palette – and only today did I discover that these different film simulations have names, not just numbers, so from now on I can always tell you which of the simulations I have used exactly: here it was "Asai 2" :)

HMM, Everyone!

Tags:   Macro Mondays Heart Valentine's Day HMM pocket magnifier Swarovski heart-shaped crystal rhinestone goggles goggle-eyed pink golden white bokeh pareidolia macro photography Herz herzförmig Valentinstag Swarovski-Kristall Taschenlupe Doppellupe Augen Pareidolie M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1:2.8 Macro Olympus E-M1 Mark III DXO PhotoLab 6 Lightroom Nik Collection Analog Efex Asai 2 Micro Four Thirds owl bird Valentine's owl :)

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Explored 1, February 2022

#Laowa
Laowa C-Dreamer 7.5mm F/2

It's been a while since I've uploaded anything but images for Macro Mondays, and since I also didn't really have time for taking my photo for this Monday's "Currency" MM theme, this is my substitute Monday upload: an image that I've taken of the small, but very "pretty in flashy pink" staircase at the Futurium that leads up to the so called "Skywalk", a panorama walk on the Futurium's roof that offers a very nice view across Berlin's government district (please see the first comment). I've taken this image with the tiny Laowa C-Dreamer 7.5 mm ultra wide-angle lens that isn't quite as wide as the fabulous M.Zuiko 7-14mm, but is definitely capable of much, much nicer aperture stars.

"Kaleidoscoped" to bring out the fun pareidolia that is apparently hidden in that staircase – and seriously, have you ever seen such charmingly "angry" stairs? It would explain the pink "complexion", though ;)

Have a nice week ahead, dear Flickr friends!

Tags:   Berlin Deutschland Germany Futurium staircase stairs pink aperture stars windows skylight eyes pareidolia angry fun kaleidoscoping Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III Laowa 7.5mm F/2 MFT C-Dreamer rectilinear ultra wide-angle prime lens DXO PhotoLab Angry Bird Oberlicht Treppe Blendensterne Pareidolie Gesicht Wut Spaß Fotomontage escalier lucarne visage face fureur scala lucernario faccia

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#macromondays
#Holes

Golden holes of grate value? In the kitchen: yes, otherwise: not really, because the material here isn't gold, but stainless steel.
To not keep you in suspense too long as to what type of holes I've photographed here: This is a detail of a 4-sided miniature grater (7,5 cm / 2,95 inches high; each hole, without the grating part, is 3 mm / 0,11 inches long). Some of these shapes remind me of that creepy "Scream" mask, but that wasn't intended, and I think it works nicely as a purely abstract image in its own right.

It was not easy at all, however, to get the focus right, the autofocus of my camera was hunting, and more than once even focused on the inside of the grater. Which, again, made the final choice easy, as I only managed to get three sharp images of these grater holes.

Sidelit with a single lamp from the right. The golden hue was achieved by the use of the yellow bottle cap colour filter. Image taken as an 80 MP high-res shot (just for fun), and processed in DXO PhotoLab 5 and Nik's Analog Efex.

I'm very busy today, so I hope I can catch up with you tonight.

HMM, Everyone!

Da ich heute nur ganz wenig Zeit habe, fasse ich mich ausnahmsweise mal kurz: Zum Thema "Holes" habe ich die Löcher auf einer Seite einer Vierkant-Mini-Reibe (die gesamte Reibe ist 7 cm hoch, die Löcher, ohne den scharfen Reibeteil, sind 3 mm lang) fotografiert.

Es war gar nicht so einfach, hier zu fokussieren, der Autofokus lag sehr oft daneben (zum Teil auf Stellen im Innern der Reibe), was allerdings die Wahl des MM-Fotos enorm vereinfacht hat, da ich am Ende eh nur drei vernünftige Bilder zur Auswahl hatte ;) Beleuchtet ist die Reibe nur von rechts; den goldenen Farbton hat wieder einmal der gelbe Flaschenverschluss als Lampenaufsteckfilter erzeugt. Bearbeitet in DXO PhotoLab 5 und Analog Efex aus der Nik Collection.

Ich wünsche Euch einen guten Start in die neue Woche und hoffe, dass ich irgendwann heute Abend bei Euch reinschauen kann.

Tags:   Macro Mondays Holes macro close-up pareidolia face scary light glow gold metal stainless steel abstract shapes patterns 4-Sided grater miniature grater grater Scream Pareidolie Gesicht Leuchten Glanz Metall abstrakt Mini-Vierkantreibe makeshift colour filter colour filter sidelit râpe grattugia răzătoare tarka ralador rivejern rivjärn rasp rende тёрка グレーター 礤 कद्दूकस High-Res shot Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III M.Zuiko Digital ED 60mm 1: 2.8 Macro DXO PhotoLab 5 MFT Analog Efex Pro Micro Four Thirds

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