CHAT - The Third Dimension - Weekly Competition 25/31 January 2010

[stevebedder]

The subject for next weeks competition is .....

The Third Dimension

Photographs are very much a two-dimensional medium, but the content within them can depict and highlight that the world around us is very much three-dimensional.

Your challenge is to highlight by a 2D medium that world around us very much 3D.

Rules:

Pictures to be taken between 00.01am Monday 25th to Sunday 31st January.
Pictures to be posted in the entries thread no later than 23.59pm Monday 1st February.
Poll will be up Tuesday 19th January until 23.59pm Friday 22nd January.
Winner to be announced Saturday 30th (winner should post the new topic no later than 23.59 Sunday 31st January).

The Rules for the weekly competition are...

By entering you agree to take responsibility to
post a topic on the Sunday following your declared win
create an entries thread
create a chat thread
create a poll for that weeks comp and declare the winner on the Saturday
(if for any reason there is a problem and no subject is posted by the winner by Monday night admin will advise second place winner to post the topic asap, do the poll etc)

In case of a tie, the first entry posted wins.

photos to be taken during the specified dates, ie sunday xx to Monday xx

pictures to be posted in the entries thread no later than 23.59 Monday night

Poll to be created Tuesday to run till Friday, winner declared Saturday

Editing limits to be specified by the person choosing the competition subject, if nothing is mentioned then there is no limit to editing allowed.

Montage images should only contain images taken within specified dates

Please don't vote for your own entry

Everyone is welcome and comments and critique on the entries are also welcome

Posting your entries, and settiing up the poll.  Instructions are here: http://cameracraniums.com/forum/index.php?topic=382.0

[oRGie]

Gratz for last weeks win Steve    really interesting topic, usually an idea springs to mind when i read the subject, this one has me initially stumped     What made you think of this subject ?

[Forseti]

when i read the subject, this one has me initially stumped    

This is one competition that I'll definitely be keeping an eye on. It will be interesting to see how members photograph something in the 3D world using a 2D medium and then making it appear as 3D once again. Maybe members should participate in a few of these   prior to voting - everything appears multiple D's then.   Oh, and congrats on the win Steve.  

[stevebedder]

Gratz for last weeks win Steve    really interesting topic, usually an idea springs to mind when i read the subject, this one has me initially stumped    What made you think of this subject ?

I work for a software company that develops 3D design software for manufacturers, architects, games developers, movies etc. I've been talking about augmented reality today (wiki link) which in the not too distant future will be very common place. It's all about displaying a 2D medium to a webcam and on the TV\PC display a 3D image\movie is shown in place of the original 2D medium in your hand - it's already starting to creep it's way into product marketing. Lego have done a great example where you hold the product box up to a webcam in the shop and what you see is the build up of the lego kit in the box on the screen.

So it got me thinking about how we can use "traditional" photography to highlight 3D in a photograph - perspective, composition, lighting etc can all make a photo "jump out" to exemplify the 3D aspect.

Cheers

Steve

Edit: I should also highlight that the comp is not about making a 3D photograph, it's about highlighting that we live in a 3D world and trying to exemplify that via the 2D medium. 

[stevebedder]

Anyone got any plans for an entry for this week?

[Hinfrance]

Well yes, but . . .

I admit I am struggling with how to emphasise the 3 dimensions in an image. Obviously (well to me anyway) almost any 2d image conveys a 3d message. Shade and depth are the keys.

I will definitely be in with something by the deadline, but it might be a bit lame. Apologies.

BTW how are you getting on with that toilet thing?

[stevebedder]

Yeah pretty good, although the flush keeps sticking.......ooops, wrong toilet thing...... 

The filter is really good, I've not done a great deal with it as yet but what I have done I've liked the results. The gel filters work well too, I wish I'd had had them for the week of the droplets comp!

The blow up filter is good too, it diffuses the light really evenly and ends up with a nice soft lighting.

"I admit I am struggling with how to emphasise the 3 dimensions in an image" - I was hoping that it would be a bit of a challenge. I've got a few ideas that I will be trying to capture over the weekend.

I was presenting at an event at Warwick Uni earlier this week and one of the other presenters did a talk all about HDR imaging and video and he was saying that HDR emphasises 3D and depth within a photograph so might have a go at putting togther an HDR.

Steve

[Delamanda]

Well someone had to go first!  I was looking for a geometric shape that would convey the idea of three dimensional, and would represent the way 3D objects are drawn in two dimensions.  This crane reminded me of one the shapes we used to have to draw in maths and so I chose it for my entry. 

[oRGie]

This entry took quite a lot of effort    I decided early in the week that DOF was going to be how I went for a 3d feel, then with mars discussions this week I decided to put mars in the hands of my little sis, but she is doing exams at uni, so I had to come up with a way to do this by myself..

The prop is a matmos led lightball that I've had for years, camera on tripod and self timer used, matmos ball on other tripod, close focus, manual focus on ball, lowest f stop to get shallow dof, tried various exposures to get it dialled in and then lots of attempts to get myself in shot the way I wanted. I shot raw+jpeg as usual, but in the end my entry is the jpeg straight out of the camera bar a 1 degree rotation, very slight crop to square it up again and a layer to make the frame.

The ball has a rechargable battery, I tried at first with just that for power, but it meant the shutter had to be too slow and you could see my slight movements, so I plugged the ball into the charger so its was brighter to enable a faster shutter speed, but that meant I had to use a roll of electrical tape to sit the ball on to be able to run the white power lead down the back and ballance the whole thing on the tripod, oh what fun lol..

here's a screen grab of most of the shot attempts in bridge



and here is the final result as entered..  you can see in the bottom left corner of the matmos ball a slight bit of what looks like an imperfection in the globe, thats actually the raised matmos branding in the neoprene skin. The hotspots are the leds inside the globe.



Can we have something easy next week please 

[Hinfrance]

I was going to do an architectural shot, and took a few. Then yesterday afternoon in the car park of the shopping mall the light and clouds grabbed me, so I took a snap with my ancient battered and CCD failing compact. Really must get another one soon, but there is the macro lens first on the list.



This has had the shadows brought up a tad, a crop, and a tiny bit of sharpening. That and the branches of an inconveniently placed tree in the bottom of the picture cloned out.

[stevebedder]

"Can we have something easy next week please" - wheres the challenge in it being easy?   

[stevebedder]

Just added my entry for this weekend:



Like oRGie I was thinking that DoF as well light\shadows was going to be key to this one and was trying to use both to help the picture come out. Hope it's worked.

Hopefully we'll get some more before the close of tomorrow, some good ones already in.

Steve

[jimthetrain]

I did a similar shot about 3 years ago so had another crack. I've tried making something 2D into something 3D. Fits the subject at a push 

[alan1572]

tried to get the frame work to look 3d but it never quite came off, here's a couple from today of Runcorn Bridge.

[jimthetrain]

Gratz for last weeks win Steve    really interesting topic, usually an idea springs to mind when i read the subject, this one has me initially stumped    What made you think of this subject ?

I work for a software company that develops 3D design software for manufacturers, architects, games developers, movies etc. I've been talking about augmented reality today (wiki link) which in the not too distant future will be very common place. It's all about displaying a 2D medium to a webcam and on the TV\PC display a 3D image\movie is shown in place of the original 2D medium in your hand - it's already starting to creep it's way into product marketing. Lego have done a great example where you hold the product box up to a webcam in the shop and what you see is the build up of the lego kit in the box on the screen.

So it got me thinking about how we can use "traditional" photography to highlight 3D in a photograph - perspective, composition, lighting etc can all make a photo "jump out" to exemplify the 3D aspect.

Cheers

Steve

Edit: I should also highlight that the comp is not about making a 3D photograph, it's about highlighting that we live in a 3D world and trying to exemplify that via the 2D medium.  

Only read that bit after I'd posted my pic.