Ok - another entry in my Patterns of the Reef semi-abstract series. This one brings yet another Peppermint Goby (Coryphopterus lipernes), but this time sitting on some sort of brain coral (I couldn't get a species ID).

Because I couldn't pick which one I liked better, you get two shots this time...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/32. Image Stabilization on. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port and Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200th sec at f/32. Image Stabilization on. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port and Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

- Bill

Ok - still playing catch-up trying to share the various photos I've taken over this summer. Here's an assortment from a couple car shows I went to...

And one vertical shot for good measure...

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

If you've been following along at home, you'll remember several other entries in this series. I don't know if it a combination of having the macro lens on and really looking at things in more detail, or the slightly reduced peripheral vision I get from wearing my scuba mask (I have a prescription mask, so my peripherals aren't as good), but I just seem to end up being fascinated with the patterns and the beauty in the abstract that I find on the reef...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/100th sec at f/4. ISO 400. Ikelite Housing and Port with dual Ikelite 161 Strobes. Raw conversion in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

We took a day off this week and went to the spring flower show at Phipps. I captured this abstract shot of some pollen stamens and processed it a couple different ways... First the straight exposure, then I pushed the exposure up a bit for a bit of a high-key look, and then I thought they might look nice with a B&W conversion.

Original	Slight High-key	B&W

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/250 sec at f/16. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and cropped in Adobe Camera Raw, B&W processing done with Nik Software's Silver Efex.

- Bill

Ok - I figure I'll continue this series. This entry is a look at the beautiful pattern on a Peacock Flounder. Normally, you don't get to see this amount of color because they stay on the bottom and mute their colors to camouflage on the sand. This one I found up on the reef, so he had all of his colors as bright as possible to blend in there.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/120th sec at f/16. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Ikelite Housing and Port with Ikelite 161 Strobe in TTL Mode. Raw conversion in Photoshop CS5.

Thanks for stopping by!

- Bill

Ok - a quick break from the dive photos to share an abstract taken on a recent trip to Phipps Conservatory.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/100 sec at f/8. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in eTTL mode and bounced through an ExpoImaging Rogue Flashbender. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

- Bill

Just a quick post today. As I said before, I didn't come back with too many great shots from the Grand Prix this year. I took this abstract of some air in-take openings on the side of what I think was an Allard (but I'm not sure). I threw a quick B&W conversion at it to remove the distracting colors in the reflections (mouse-over for original).

Technical Data: Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Tokina AT-X M35 Pro DX AF 35mm f/2.8 Macro 1:1, 1/100 sec at f/8. ISO 400. RAW processing in Adobe Camera Raw.

I'm still not quite sure what exactly draws me to this image, but I like it. It might be able to be improved upon, so perhaps I'll have to look at it again next year before the PVGP and try it again.

- Bill

This year, I started a "Project 52" to keep myself motivated to take photos on a regular basis. I've already hit some rough times getting good ideas of things to shoot, but last week I came up with the idea to shoot a blue jay feather with my new super-macro lens - the Canon MP-E 65mm.

The results were not nearly as good as I wanted, and I almost dumped the whole lot of them. Instead, I kept them and I will use them in the future to refer back to in order to correct the mistakes I made.

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro, bottom-left with Kenko Teleplus PRO 300 "DG" AF 2x Teleconverter, top-left with Canon Speedlite 580EX II, others with Canon Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX in ETTL mode. Assorted exposures. ISO 100.

The shot in the bottom-left is actually a 10x magnification as I had my 2x teleconverter combined with the MP-E 65 set to 5x magnification. The clarity on it isn't as good as I would have liked, so I'm sure I will be retrying that at some point as it certainly is an interesting shot.

- Bill

Here's a couple more of those faux smoke shots...

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200 sec at f/22. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and edits in Adobe Camera Raw (mouseover for original)

- Bill

Ok - I think we'll stick with the abstract stuff today.

A while back, I saw this video from Adorama:

I decided to keep things a bit simpler than Mark did. My setup (which I forgot to take a photo of) consisted of just a clear drinking glass inside our light tent with a single strobe. I used my 100mm macro lens to allow me to move in close enough to eliminate the edges of the glass.

What do you think of the results?

Technical Data: Canon EOS 7D, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, 1/200 sec at f/22. Canon Speedlight 580EX II flash in auto mode and wireless control. Image Stabilization on. ISO 100. RAW processing and edits in Adobe Camera Raw (mouseover for original)

This one reminds me of an abstract painting of some bonsai. Regardless of what you see, I think the technique is pretty fun, and I'm sure I'll try it some more in the future.

- Bill.