Am I trying to hard or what?

[dslrchat]

Its been raining all day, finally couldnt take it anymore, went out to the porch and took some photos of some flowers.
Its pretty dark out there tonight.

I dont know if I am trying to hard, or just dont have what it takes or just doing to much post processing trying to make a bad/plain photo into something.

Anyways here is the 3 I came up with tonight.

Blast Away.

1

2

3

 

[Rachelsne]

did you use a flash, I think the flowers stand out to much from the background

Dont give up yet, there are some conditions that even the best photographers will strugle to get creative interesting shots

 

[kellylindseyphotography]

From what I've seen from you lately, your choosing lighting conditions that are making your work too hard for you.

Get an over cast day, or if you can't get that, get a sunny day and shoot in the shade.

Practice PERFECT exposure, with NO flash.

Have an idea of what you want too. If you want to do waterfalls, go and do them. Take 100-400 shots. Always watching your histogram as your shooting to make sure your getting your exposure correct.

AFter that, come back here and we'll help you post process them

 

[Sw1tchFX]

On board flash xeroxes your subject, turn it off and use a tripod if it's dark and your subject isn't moving.

 

[|)\/8]

On board flash xeroxes your subject, turn it off and use a tripod if it's dark and your subject isn't moving.

According to her exif data, 2nd photo had a 32 second exposure, I hope she used a tripod. Looks like the focus was just slightly off.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

According to her exif data, 2nd photo had a 32 second exposure, I hope she used a tripod. Looks like the focus was just slightly off.

You can see shadows from onboard flash in all of the images. Doesn't matter how long the exposure was, flash still flattened it.

 

[tirediron]

My thoughts... I don't actually think that it's the exposure issues so much as the composition that bothers me. These are the types of subjects which beg for a close-up / macro capture. I think that even with the somewhat harsh lighting that you would been much closer to your goal had you closed in on a single flower, rather than the entire cluster of blooms.

That aside, I do agree that on-camera flash is not your friend in situations like these. If you have to use a flash, use a diffiuser (Old bleach bottles or similar clear, translucent plastic work just fine) and reflectors (plain white or yellow card stock) to take the edge of the lighting and even it out.

Keep at it!!

 

[dslrchat]

Thank you for your help.

Yes I seem to pick hard times to shoot, but I get frustrated when the only time I have is not good, I received my battery grip last night and just HAD to do something.

I did use a Tripod, but it is very cheap and hard to line up, Camera is too heavy for it even worse now with Battery Grip.
(also this was my first time trying Manual Focus and it was Dark, so guess thats why it was off a bit)

This was the first time I even used the flash, I thought it would help, boy was I wrong. Guess I should have found a table lamp with a shade or something?
(I was on the porch trying to stay out of the rain)

Closer? I will have to try that, when taking these I thought I was to Close and was trying to move back as far as I could.

I was using a Sigma 70-300 with it set to Macro.

Thank you again, I will keep trying.

 

[Overread]

Hmm the sigma does like to be far off from the target - its min workink distance is rather longer than you would expect from macro mode.
That aside you can get much closer with the macro - try after just one flower head.

Also I looked at the exif for your first - f5 is way too big an apature you really want to stop down to f8 at most and aything down to f16 for macro as the depth of field is much smaller at these scales. That should help bring out more of the flower in focus.
Also I know the light was poor, but you could go as low as ISO 100 without any trouble on a tripod unless there is wind (and then 200 and a stick+binbag ties should help hold the plant steady.)

One thing I have also started using which is a great help is using mirror lock-up along with timer shot function. The mirror lock up locks up the eyeviewer mirror before then closing the shutter - so there is less shake in camera. When set to timed delay shot mode it moves the mirror and then waits 2 seconds before closing the shutter and taking the shot.
As for the flash - I have found it can work well when you are shooting instrong lights to bring out some details in a shaded plant, but its very much trial and error at the moment for me - but I did do 2 things

1) shooting in ap mode I set the exposure compansation to -1 when I was shooting outside in the middle of a bright day

2) I also set the Flash exp comp to -1 as well to counter the harsher bright light of the flash at close range.

Your off to a good start don't give up now !!

 

[dslrchat]

I went back and looked through some of the shots from last night.
the next 2 are the same photo, different PP
F29
Ex 30 sec
ISO 100
No Flash
Was very dark so when converting from Raw to Jpeg, I bumped the exposure to +2.15
1,

2, Used "Auto Curves in PS

I guess bumping exposure up made it very noisy?

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Why are you shooting at f/29? Open your aperture and get more light in there so you don't have to adjust your exposure in post. And what is your light source? The lighting is incredibly flat and the way it looks, I don't buy that no flash was used, it has all the characteristics of on-board flash from the shadows and specularity of the subject.

 

[dslrchat]

There was no light, thats why I had to up the exposure when converting from raw.
F29 only because I was experimenting, the others were F5 (didnt get any in between)

The others I used OB Flash, the last 2 didnt have any, the following in the inedited

Thats why I bumped up exposure to +2.15 when converting.

 

[Overread]

yah boosting the exposure is showing up noise and making that almost textile effect in the background areas -- just like you can never really save overexposed whites you can't save the underexposed like this.
I would go back and try more in the middle area - you are working too much in the extremes of apature (for macro)

 

[dslrchat]

Ya, thank you.
I need to use mid F stops more when experimenting.

 

[Rachelsne]

This is why I love this forum...lots of great advice-Im learning through you DSLRchat