Although I took several pictures trying to capture the brilliant red colour of the alders behind my house in New Brunswick, Canada, this one seems to do it best. Oddly, it is the only one in which the alders are not in focus at all. Comments would be appreciated. Hope it works, this is my first posting here. Technical info: Pentax MZ-5n, Pentax FA80-320mm, cheap Kodak 100 film, exposure unrecorded.

-- Patrick Feltmate (pfeltmat@tupmcms1.med.dal.ca), May 10, 2000

Answers

Seems to be a good week for abstracts around here. Nice job. I'm not sure if the white trees (birches?) are supposed to be in focus; maybe they are and it's just not a sharp scan. Either way, they could be sharper. Interesting use of depth of field, and certainly a gutsy first post.

-- Christian Deichert (torgophile@aol.com), May 10, 2000.

Very nice, indeed. I agree with the comment about the need for the white trees to be the sharpest point in the image.

-- Chris Gillis (chris@photogenica.net), May 10, 2000.

Thanks for the comments. I agree, the scan is kind of fuzzy. It was scanned from a print, in which the birch trees (white ones) are sharper. Does anybody have any tips about getting sharp scans? (aside from "get a good scanner")

Pat

-- Patrick Feltmate (pfeltmat@tupmcms1.med.dal.ca), May 11, 2000.

It's harder getting a good scan from a print; you're taking a 2nd generation image and making a 3rd generation image -- think along the lines of taking a color document, making a black and white copy, and then faxing it.

I had problems with soft scans because I'd scan at a high resolution, get a huge file, then shrink it down to a manageable size. The same thing happened when I scanned too small and needed a bigger image. This may be what you're doing, and you can see how it degrades your image quality. Figure out the size graphic you're looking for, then set the scanning resolution so that you're getting the size you want right up front. For prints, try somewhere between 72 dpi and 100 dpi and experiment for the effect you want.

To give an example from my scanning: here's a resized (soft) scan of an orchid; compare to this properly sized (sharper) scan of Delicate Arch. I know that the orchid shot is sharp, because I can see the sharpness in the 8x10 enlargement on my wall, but it's not so in that scan. Conversely, the Delicate Arch photo looks almost sharper here than it does on the original slide!

-- Christian Deichert (torgophile@aol.com), May 11, 2000.

Oh, and don't I feel like an idiot for not reading the title of your post to confirm that yes, those white trees are indeed white birches...duh. Forgive me, my brain is still recovering from my law school finals.

-- Christian Deichert (torgophile@aol.com), May 11, 2000.

I agree with the other post about this. If the birches were just a bit sharper it would be just right and it is does take some guts to post a non typical shot for your first posting. Look forward to seeing more from you.@

-- Billy Gorum (Herphoto@aol.com), May 11, 2000.

Thanks for the tips Christian. I did reduce from a very large scan, which explains why I lost sharpness. Also, I was mistaken, those are not alders. They are Red Osier (Dogwood).

Thanks again,

-- Patrick Feltmate (pfeltmat@tupmcms1.med.dal.ca), May 12, 2000.