Picture of the Week-Week ending 3rd Feb

[Saphire]

The Moderators Choice for Picture of The Week this week is "Match" by Nils K

[Canis Vulpes]

An extraordinary image, captured perfectly.

This week was tough to choose with so many great images posted. 'Match' is a worthy winner of our Picture of the Week.

[yelvertoft]

Well done Nils for a great picture requiring lots of skill, and a bit of patience too.

[Christine]

An amazing shot,really "lights"up the screen.Congrats,Nils.Very good.

[Jiffers]

Definitely a worthy winner . . . . .quite mesmerising

Jiffers

[Joe]

I missed this shot when it was posted...
If I were a moth I'd be flying into the monitor right now!
Was this one shot? was there any post processing done?
Great picture, would be great to find out

[yelvertoft]

Joe, there's some more information with the picture, which you'll find in the "Picture of the Week" gallery.

[Nils K]

Hi all, I just posted on the shot itself, but I'll give some more info. I didn't have a clue that the shot was selected for pic of the week, I'm very ashamed and shall check back on this site twice daily
First of all, thank you very kindly to choose my modest efforts at a pic I tried to reproduce.
I saw a similar shot at photo.net wich was actually brilliant where this one is at most a good try. See for yourself, it's one of Martin Amm.

Anyway, the setup was a small gripper used for welding electronics to set the match in. I put it on a table edge and placed a tripod wit the camera in front of it. I used a D300 and a Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro, at first with extantion tubes but I took those off after a couple of tries.
Lighting the match was done by touching it on the back with a bent out paperclip wich I heated in a flame of a candle. The lighting was tricky as the match tends to move slightly when touched. But after a couple of times it worked pretty well.
I took a series of shots with the camera on continuous high speed, but the problem is that the front gets underexposed. So I took a SB600, put the camera in commander mode (love that, no wires) and placed it in front and a bit to the side, very close to the match. Now you get only one shot per match, in stead of 5 to 7, so timing is crucial.
I started out with a familypack of matches and used quite a lot of them. Funny thing is that it took less matches then I expected as after each shot you get the chance to 'dial in' more.

Normaly shoot nature and wildlife, this was a whole new way of photographing for me, sitting down nice and warm, cup of coffee, bit of music. Liked it a lot and will try more in-house shooting for sure.


Cheers!!
Nils

[Dutchy]

Grats Nils, I know how much time and effort it took youo to experiment with this.

[Joe]

Thanks Nils.
It's great to know how it was done. It's a prime example of the advantages digital has with ease of experimentation....without having to send off loads of film etc.
A great shot