The Beautiful Woman At The Bar

[imikej]

I find metal just about as unobtainable as that beautiful....  But, with metal, I can keep trying.  And, each iteration isn't as embarrassing as the previous because the metal doesn't remember my prior attempt.  Or, so I think.  Cameras are where we started and we can't get away from them.  A historic beauty here from Leica. 

If this is cool to you, you might want to view it at 100% as smaller image seems to be a bit over compressed.

[imikej]

One of the things that I had trouble with was getting the depression for the etched letters and numbers to show in an orthographic view without displacing the material. (Displacement wasn't possible given there are multiple sets of labels on one material; not to mention the effect that would have on render time.) So, to help create the illusion of the etching, in a couple of places I put a subtle, 1px stroke on the letter or number in Photoshop. You can see what I mean in the picture below. Close-up it works. Far away, it sorta works.

[RRIS]

Ooffff, that's beautiful!

[Josh3D]

Ha! Lovely analogy, Mike :-) Looks AMAZING. Pointing out the challenge on the dial numbers makes me appreciate the subtle attention to detail... and how much the III-series shutter speed dial layout bugs me Speaking of, should the shutter speed dial have the same radial pattern as the winding knob?

(Could be a coffee table book on camera dials over the ages, I'm sure... sold with complementary dial coasters.)

[imikej]

@josh3D: yes the dials are typically the same on each camera, but each camera tends to be slightly different.  I took a liberty here to convey "hand-built."  But, in hindsight, I think they should be the same.  Was not able to get the dials 100% to my liking; so, I may revisit before the coffee table book goes to press!  Love the idea of a coffee table book.  I'm pretty sure we could team up on this and between us we could ensure the sales of at least 14 copies. 

[TGS808]

The average person (and even some of us here I believe) would have a hard time distinguishing between that image and an actual photo. It's stunning work for sure.