What do Gizmodo readers photograph when they can photograph anything? Abstracts. Wildlife. Stars. Microscopic particles. In short, a lot of really neat, diverse stuff that's sheer fun to look at.
Lead Shot - Advent Warp
Taken on Bahnhofstrasse here in Zürich. Wanted to capture the beautiful Christmas lights the city has put up but unfortunately there were many many people today as it was the "erste advent" and there was a parade. This was an attempt at something less boring and I pretty much like the effect. Nikon D90, 55-105 kit lens starting at 105 down to 55 during a 0.8 second exposure at f9.0. ISO 200.
-Nils Rohwer
Moses and the Red Sea
I had to pee really bad and luckily I had my camera with me. Just kidding, I was just walking over a bridge and this section of the spillway caught my eye. I used Lightroom to crop and do some tonal/color adjustments but nothing else. Panasonic-Lumix GH1, ISO 320, 140 mm, f/5.8, 1/640.
-Kenny Voelker
Open Mic Night
I got bored during a band rehearsal so I decided to start taking pictures of some of the equipment. I had borrowed a friends 50 mm lens so I decided to see what it could do. I made the aperture as low as possible to get the smallest depth of field and this is what I got. Canon T2i with 50 mm prime lens. Aperture: 1.8 Shutter: 1/50 ISO: 400.
-Nate Holland
Pollen Meets UFO
Taken with an Olympus microscope mounted camera. This is a 40x zoom on a pine pollen (upper left) and an unidentified airborne particle. Taken for SUNY Geneseo's (the school that made the Human vs. Zombies video that you featured a while back) aerobiology lab.
-Jeffrey Levine
Tunnel Vision
I took this picture out looking out the window at the end of a NYC Subway car on my way to see the Thanksgiving Day Parade, and naturally, take pictures of it. I was really just looking for a shot of the station receding away from the train as we went down the tunnel, but I didn't factor in the reflection of the inside of the car on the window, and I ended up with this. Pentax K-x with a Sigma DG 28-300mm F3.5-6.3 lens at 29mm and F 3.5. 1/13 sec., no flash, ISO 2000.
-Arnab Banerji
Tree, Night, Cloud, Stars
Ever since getting my DSLR earlier this year I've wanted to try astrophotography. Unfortunately, living in NYC, it's near impossible, so I wanted to take advantage of my Thanksgiving trip to try. Day 1: cloudy. Day 2: cloudy. Finally on the night before I left it cleared up. By the time I got outside the clouds were already coming back but I got this picture when about half the sky was still clear, giving me the few blue blue specks on the left. I used Photoshop to color the cloud trails green, making them resemble the aurora. Canon EOS REBEL T2i, EF50mm f/1.8 II, 8 second exposure, f/1.8, ISO 100.
-Jeremy Neiman
Baby Bunny
This is one of the five bunnies I took care of over the weekend. Their mother was killed by a stray dog last week. I took several shots but this odd pose he made as he groomed himself is my favorite. Shot with a Canon Rebel XSi, Sigma 17-70mm 2.8-4 Macro Lens @ 70mm, ISO 200, Shutter Speed 1/400, f/4.
-Esmer Olvera
Highland Cow
I was home for Thanksgiving vacation and for my Photo 100 class I have to take 10 pictures of a culture that I relate to. I decided to go with a country culture. I took this photo of a photogenic Highland cow the day after the first snow of the season at my uncle's farm. Canon EOS 20D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens, 1/200s , f/5.6, 100 ISO.
-Justin Ross
Not Your Mother's Windex
I used a Sony Cyber-shot camera with 7.2 mega pixels on auto. For this picture I shot through a container of Windex to achieve the bubbles and the blue tones. After playing with some angles, I held an orange light above the bottle; creating an orange blue sea short lasting bubbles.
-Kelly Cook
Self-Portrait In Pink
I shot this the morning of the announcement of the competition. I got my BA in photography a little over a year ago now and have been working full time for a tech support company from home to provide for myself. I just recently bought this house from a old lady (hence the pink paint) and today (coldest day of the year) my furnace has gone out. I am without heat and it's under 50 degrees in my house, which isn't bad if you don't consider I just sit at my desk for a solid 6-8 hours a day. Decided to capture the story of my ridiculous work uniform for these next few days until the furnace is operational and I can browse Gizmodo at a reasonable temperature. Shot with a Nikon D700, stock lens 24-120mm, ISO 400, F 5.6 @ 1/60 Raw. Lighting was the two side lamps of the mirror and a little daylight for fill. Photoshopped for color and digital effect.
-Piero Taico
Orange Oil
I took this shot on my Nikon D3000- I wanted to do some work with the oil on water theme, because I missed it the first time. I put some olive oil in a clear glass, a couple drops of water, and finally some orange food coloring. Then, I balanced the glass on top of a hefty Maglite, and shot using my lens reverser, getting some pretty cool macro. Obviously aperture was at 0 because the lens wasn't attached, shutter speed was 1/250 sec. [More photos like this here]
-Rachel Weiss
Snowflake
I shot this with my Nikon D90 and my newly acquired Tokina AT-X 100mm Pro D f/2.8 macro lens! Settings were as follows: No flash, ISO 800, f/8, exposed for 1/500 in Aperture priority mode. Snow came pretty early this year in Denmark, and I've never taken pictures of snow before (not with a DSLR anyway) - so I rushed out the morning of the first snow and shot some. Depth of field is pretty tricky when doing hand held macro photography so I didn't manage to get the snow flake on the tip of the beech leaf in focus, but this is the best I could do! Pretty pleased with the result. Did some post-processing in Photoshop CS5 and in Aperture. Played with NIK Software's plug-in suite as well.
-Mads Færch
The Family Sawdust
Over the holiday, I was photographing my dad woodturning. I never appreciated how truly unique and spectacular his pieces were until recently. Observing and photographing the process is incredible - watching something with so much difficulty, precision and concentration involved seem to come so naturally. Canon EOS 20D, Canon 18-55mm lens, f/5.6, ISO 1600, 1/800.
-Nick Switzer
Winner - Xtreme Koi
I was at the Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village walking around the Koi Cherry Blossom pond when I saw a food dispensing machine. I noticed the koi went totally nuts when anyone just held their hand over the pond (pretending to drop food), so I asked my sister to drop some food pellets in while I shot. They went crazy! I took about 40-50 shots, but this one was my favorite because of the huge open mouth in the middle and the fish just flying all over top of each other. Since this is a FFA, I decided to make it into an HDR image. I shoot in raw, so I exposed the same photo 5 times in Photoshop CS4 (-2, -1, 0, 1, 2), then combined and tone mapped them in Photomatix Pro. I finished it off slightly in Lightroom 2.7, reducing noise. Canon T1i, Canon 18-200 IS lens, ISO 400, f/4.5, 1/250 sec.
-JT McGrath
To all of those who spent some of the holiday (or if you're outside of the US, just your weekend) on pursuing your hobby without any guidance, that's what it's all about, right? Thanks for sharing. The full galleries are below—and there are a lot of worthy shots inside that aren't featured up top. Find large, wallpaper-worthy versions on flickr.
Gallery 1 (one-page view)
Gallery 2 (one-page view)
You can visit Life, Panoramic to see more collections photographed by you and curated by me. Yes, I have a great job.