Hosta Leafesta Baby

[jcdeboever]

Experimenting with B & W conversions on foliage again. Hosta's seem to like the treatment. Want to thank @Tim Tucker and @Gary A. for their encouraging words that motivates me to explore for better or worse.

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[Gary A.]

In order of viewing preference, #3, #1 and #2.

#1 has almost a chrome reflective texture which gives it punch.

But as a viewer, I prefer #3 over the other two because of the lack of DOF. For me, a repeated pattern image should appear relatively flat ... The DOF of #1 and #2 breaks up the pattern and the viewer focuses on the plants as plants first and the pattern second. #3 the pattern dominates the image and the leaves as leaves are secondary.

A fill flash might be helpful to minimize the DOF caused by the shadows. You may want to go back and try a wider shot of #3 and get more leaves and a greater repetitive pattern. I think that the detail in #3 is quite acceptable. But, (the big but), if this was shot with the P&S I'd like to see a comparison between the P&S and your dSLR. If you have a prime, that would be the lens to use for a comparison of detail and contrast.

 

[jcdeboever]

In order of viewing preference, #3, #1 and #2.

#1 has almost a chrome reflective texture which gives it punch.

But as a viewer, I prefer #3 over the other two because of the lack of DOF. For me, a repeated pattern image should appear relatively flat ... The DOF of #1 and #2 breaks up the pattern and the viewer focuses on the plants as plants first and the pattern second. #3 the pattern dominates the image and the leaves as leaves are secondary.

A fill flash might be helpful to minimize the DOF caused by the shadows. You may want to go back and try a wider shot of #3 and get more leaves and a greater repetitive pattern. I think that the detail in #3 is quite acceptable. But, (the big but), if this was shot with the P&S I'd like to see a comparison between the P&S and your dSLR. If you have a prime, that would be the lens to use for a comparison of detail and contrast.

Excellent, I can go back. So I am on the right track in my thinking that I need a wider cluster of them. I was looking for that(so my vision is correct) but the patch's were not that big and it was difficult to find a non stressed group of them. OK, great feedback. I will post another thread of different foliage to piggy back your direction and my pre-vision. Being new at this, I often come up to roadblocks and kind of put on the brakes.

 

[jcdeboever]

In order of viewing preference, #3, #1 and #2.

#1 has almost a chrome reflective texture which gives it punch.

But as a viewer, I prefer #3 over the other two because of the lack of DOF. For me, a repeated pattern image should appear relatively flat ... The DOF of #1 and #2 breaks up the pattern and the viewer focuses on the plants as plants first and the pattern second. #3 the pattern dominates the image and the leaves as leaves are secondary.

A fill flash might be helpful to minimize the DOF caused by the shadows. You may want to go back and try a wider shot of #3 and get more leaves and a greater repetitive pattern. I think that the detail in #3 is quite acceptable. But, (the big but), if this was shot with the P&S I'd like to see a comparison between the P&S and your dSLR. If you have a prime, that would be the lens to use for a comparison of detail and contrast.

OK @Gary A. , to piggy back on your direction and solidify my pre-vision thought process, this is the track I am going down. A light when on when you talked about wide and prime. However, the widest prime I have is the 35mm and a crop sensor. I do have a 17-50 and should experiment with that as well. If you have a suggestion for a wider prime, I'm all ears. This PS was shot at 21mm (no zoom) on all 4 shots so I see what you mean. I hope @Tim Tucker chimes in as well. You guys are really helping me find my way. Be totally complete if @limr would direct a little too, she is very creative. For what it's worth, these are taking me back to my pen & ink days.

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[Tim Tucker]

I was going to chime in a while back when I saw these on the mobile, but got distracted in other posts (and working...).

My first and considered reaction is that the original posted images are not to my taste, but you have got some clean separation between tones.

Now I'm going off sideways again. LOL

I'm really not sure if this is a concept that's difficult to understand or if I'm just not explaining it very well. Things are not absolute.

Excuse the diversion, there is a point...

Look at the snow on the mountainside in sunlight. It's white and bright. But look closer, the shadowed snow is not white at all, in fact it's not even grey but blue. Lit by the blue sky shadowed snow has not only a distinct blue cast but is noticeably darker, yet when we stand in the valley and look at it we instinctively know it's white. There you have in one vista two distinct tones and colours that we see as both being white.

There is also a really good optical illusion in greyscale, I think it's a striped cone part sunlight and part shade, where exactly the same shade of grey looks noticably darker in one part than the other simply because we perceive the lit part to be brighter than the shaded. The same shade of grey being interpreted as two distinct tones in the same vista.

Now look at your hostas before you took the photo. We look at one leaf and instinctively understand that they are all of similar colour and tone. But look closer, just as we did with the snow... They do not all possess the same tones, some are darker than the others and we just understand them as being the same.

This is one thing I do not understand with digital photography, why do we feel the need to edit our photos in such a way as all the leaves DO have exactly the same range of tones? If you see the different tones in the real leaves as being the same then surely that also works in a photo?

Look at your monitor. The white is nowhere near the brightest thing you've seen, (the snow on the mountainside in bright sunlight?), and the black is nowhere near the darkest thing you've seen. Yet you still see the tones as black and white. Hell, if you looked at exactly the same picture on a monitor with less contrast than yours you'd still see the tones as black and white!

Things are not absolute.

Black and white is just a relative perception of lightest and darkest.

So in your image I see the perception of the tones as being the same as if you've used the digital editing tools at your disposal to push the contrast of each leaf towards the maximum and minimum tones that you have available:

Now seeing as in real life we understand that even when the leaves have a different scale of tones that they are in fact all the same, what would happen if we presented an image that showed just that:

Would we see them as different in a photo or understand that they are the same? What would happen to our perception of depth in the image? What would happen to our impression of light in the image, would you have a greater impression of light just because brightness is not so uniform across the image, and actually there's more dark?

Here is my edit of your edit, and not how I would've edited the original. Not as a definitive correct way but just as a variation. Download them an look at them in your chosen image viewer, but look at each for at least 30 seconds before flipping so you see each image and not just the differences:

 

[zombiesniper]

Nice sets.
I have no critique. Just here to see the pretty pictures.

 

[jcdeboever]

I was going to chime in a while back when I saw these on the mobile, but got distracted in other posts (and working...).

My first and considered reaction is that the original posted images are not to my taste, but you have got some clean separation between tones.

Now I'm going off sideways again. LOL

I'm really not sure if this is a concept that's difficult to understand or if I'm just not explaining it very well. Things are not absolute.

Excuse the diversion, there is a point...

Look at the snow on the mountainside in sunlight. It's white and bright. But look closer, the shadowed snow is not white at all, in fact it's not even grey but blue. Lit by the blue sky shadowed snow has not only a distinct blue cast but is noticeably darker, yet when we stand in the valley and look at it we instinctively know it's white. There you have in one vista two distinct tones and colours that we see as both being white.

There is also a really good optical illusion in greyscale, I think it's a striped cone part sunlight and part shade, where exactly the same shade of grey looks noticably darker in one part than the other simply because we perceive the lit part to be brighter than the shaded. The same shade of grey being interpreted as two distinct tones in the same vista.

Now look at your hostas before you took the photo. We look at one leaf and instinctively understand that they are all of similar colour and tone. But look closer, just as we did with the snow... They do not all possess the same tones, some are darker than the others and we just understand them as being the same.

This is one thing I do not understand with digital photography, why do we feel the need to edit our photos in such a way as all the leaves DO have exactly the same range of tones? If you see the different tones in the real leaves as being the same then surely that also works in a photo?

Look at your monitor. The white is nowhere near the brightest thing you've seen, (the snow on the mountainside in bright sunlight?), and the black is nowhere near the darkest thing you've seen. Yet you still see the tones as black and white. Hell, if you looked at exactly the same picture on a monitor with less contrast than yours you'd still see the tones as black and white!

Things are not absolute.

Black and white is just a relative perception of lightest and darkest.

So in your image I see the perception of the tones as being the same as if you've used the digital editing tools at your disposal to push the contrast of each leaf towards the maximum and minimum tones that you have available:

View attachment 126629

Now seeing as in real life we understand that even when the leaves have a different scale of tones that they are in fact all the same, what would happen if we presented an image that showed just that:

View attachment 126630

Would we see them as different in a photo or understand that they are the same? What would happen to our perception of depth in the image? What would happen to our impression of light in the image, would you have a greater impression of light just because brightness is not so uniform across the image, and actually there's more dark?

Here is my edit of your edit, and not how I would've edited the original. Not as a definitive correct way but just as a variation. Download them an look at them in your chosen image viewer, but look at each for at least 30 seconds before flipping so you see each image and not just the differences:

View attachment 126632

Great info with a ton of value. Thank you very much.

 

[jcdeboever]

Nice sets.
I have no critique. Just here to see the pretty pictures.

Thanks my brother.

 

[Deleted member 215987]

Incredibly sharp photos!

 

[otherprof]

Experimenting with B & W conversions on foliage again. Hosta's seem to like the treatment. Want to thank @Tim Tucker and @Gary A. for their encouraging words that motivates me to explore for better or worse.

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View attachment 126512

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View attachment 126513

Great idea nicely executed. I have a front garden full of many varieties of hostas, but have never seen them like this before. I also think Tim Tucker's edit and discussion is really good. Looking forward to more hosta shots, with more creamy shades, if that is what you are going for.