9 Flower macros

tpe · Oct 4, 2011

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Thanks for looking

Tim

P.S. If you like these perhaps you will like these butterfly shots... http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/nature-wildlife/257677-new-born-red-admiral.html

jrice12 · Oct 4, 2011

Just my opinions:

#1 Problems with subject separation. Upper left, in-focus, flower is ok, but the next one down is in focus enough to be distracting. Either the middle and bottom flowers should be in focus (i.e. all three are) or one should be separated - you have something in-between. Try a horz crop that will separate just the top flower. Subject flower has ugly blights and its main stem end is out of focus. Like the background and color scheme.

#2 Great perspective on this one. Love the royal crown center (only green). Anthers provide good color scheme. For this one I would try to drop the bottom end of the gamma curve (expodential shape) - you have lots of room down there. [Just downloaded the image and tried it - works well with the crown and anther being brought out and the texture of the pedals improved].

#3 You need to have something in focus [I think the lower left anther is in-focus but can't be sure]. Background is blowing away the subject as well.

#4 Like this one. Good background, good subject isolation, interesting subject. Good color tone, good lighting... good pix!

#5 Good perspective and presentation. Terrific subject isolation good background. Good color contrasts. Overall image might be a bit on the bright side. Red blob at upper right begins to distract but does balance the flower at lower left.

#6 Lighting wrecked this one. Composition is fair with fractal qualities. [Ok, I downloaded and found it can be corrected to a large degree - need a very strong expodential gamma curve and need to drop the red channel down quite a bit, plus boost the sharpness to bring out the patterns on the leaves - result is pretty dramatic].

#7 Good shot. Good background providing separation of subject. Flower pedals and back white of bee are blownout a bit, but you don't have any dynamic range left over to work with.

#8 I like this one. Soft image with fair subject isolation. This DOF is what #1 needs.

#9 Good background though a bit bright for the flower. Image seems top-heavy, would like the flower a bit down. Like the backlighting of the flower. Good focus and DOF. Good shot.

tpe · Oct 5, 2011

jrice12, thank you very much for your oppinions, that is a really well thought out critique and much appreciated, the content and the time.

I am very much looking forward to getting home and trying out your suggestions with the gamma curves, it is something that i havnt really found out enough about and it will be very interesting to see how and what it can do, especialy now i have a reference.

There is one point I dont agree on, that is the ugly blights in 1, actually they are one of the bits I really like, O.K. perhaps not for a flower shot in general but I like that even in something we think of as beautiful there are faults, kind of we are only human in plant talk

.

Tim

jrice12 · Oct 5, 2011

Took the liberty to rework your #2 and #6 (you indicate it is ok to edit). I'll leave images up at my Flickr site for a day or two then remove them. This is on the JPGs, if you have the raw files you may be able to recover more. I think the fern can be boosted up dramatically.

More opinions follow

:
The reason I don't like the blights in #1 is that they (and one in particular) go against the image which leans towards "purity" (in color, in geometry etc.). As for the focus, looking again I think I don't like the way the focus appears to be centered on the back of the flowers (just behind the pedals). The pedals are out of focus and some of the anthers and stigmas, but the flower base is in perfect focus. That is the reverse from the way we normally see flower pix. Anyway, generally, your images are good - composition is great on most of them (good eye). You seem to have a couple of small technical issues (mostly too much brightness) that can be easily repaired.