delicate blooms c&c please!

[fotomumma09]

f5.6 1/125 iso100 126mm

I'd love to hear feedback as to what I can do better

 

[Joel_W]

Tough composition & lighting to pull off. Since the subject and the background are the same flower, and with the same soft, diffused lighting, they just seem to blend together once the focus starts to fall off. You really need more contrast and brightness for the main subject blooms.

As far as your composition goes, I really like it.

 

[The_Traveler]

I totally agree with Joel.
The question that arises now is can post-processing make this better and elevate it to a really good picture?

The problems are that the center of interest dissolves into OOF blooms and all that is about the same color and the background.
The background has lots of bright areas and all sorts of diffraction halos that will be hard to ignore.

I selected the in-focus blooms with a hard edge, then selected the OOF blooms with a big feather - then brightened and sharpened only that.
I darkened the background and cropped it to remove some of the bright areas. And added a vignette.
In my eyes this improves it a bit but doesn't conquer the problems of the bright spots in the background.

what do you think?

 

[Joel_W]

The_Taveler, well said, and nicely thought out response. Your edit resolves almost all the issues that existed within the original picture.

 

[fotomumma09]

Tough composition & lighting to pull off. Since the subject and the background are the same flower, and with the same soft, diffused lighting, they just seem to blend together once the focus starts to fall off. You really need more contrast and brightness for the main subject blooms.

As far as your composition goes, I really like it.

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of would a flash have improved it?

 

[fotomumma09]

I totally agree with Joel.
The question that arises now is can post-processing make this better and elevate it to a really good picture?

The problems are that the center of interest dissolves into OOF blooms and all that is about the same color and the background.
The background has lots of bright areas and all sorts of diffraction halos that will be hard to ignore.

I selected the in-focus blooms with a hard edge, then selected the OOF blooms with a big feather - then brightened and sharpened only that.
I darkened the background and cropped it to remove some of the bright areas. And added a vignette.
In my eyes this improves it a bit but doesn't conquer the problems of the bright spots in the background.

what do you think?

<img src="http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=8187"/>

What a difference PP makes! Thank you I really like it! What program did you use?

 

[The_Traveler]

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of would a flash have improved it?

added: this was all quickly done with PS CS6

I think that the blooms aren't either uniquely arranged on the stem nor individually striking enough to make this shot easily spectacular; there is nothing really that attracts the eye.
Also I think that the bright areas in the background where the limbs leave the trees really hurt because they attract the viewers' eyes and they can't be cloned into without looking artificial.

I think the trick to this is a higher angle of view to eliminate the sky and maybe find a concentration of blossoms that present a more easily discernible center of interest. Either that or get closer to concentrate on the blossoms.

But I've never taken a really good flower picture so this is all conjecture on my part.

 

[Joel_W]

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of would a flash have improved it?

Your gear is just fine since you were able to capture the image as you saw it. In situations like this, I would have opted to shoot several frames with different lighting techniques. I do this all the time. No flash, fill flash on camera, diffused with a tissue, flash power cut back, etc. Also, being confident that you can make the final adjustments in PP editing is the final edge that you need.

 

[Joel_W]

<br>
<br>
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of<img src="http://thephotoforum.com/forum/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif" alt="" title="Wink" smilieid="35" class="inlineimg" border="0"> would a flash have improved it?

Your gear is just fine since you were able to capture the image as you saw it. In situations like this, I would have opted to shoot several frames with different lighting techniques. I do this all the time. No flash, fill flash on camera, diffused with a tissue, flash power cut back, etc. Also, being confident that you can make the final adjustments in PP editing is the final edge that you need.

 

[The_Traveler]

to add something I forgot before.

Notice how all the blooms in the red box are pretty much the center of interest yet there is no one that is really 'facing' the camera or is big enough to see good detail.
And they aren't in any arrangement so much as just haphazard.
My eye just skitters around and had nowhere to really settle.

 

[fotomumma09]

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of would a flash have improved it?

Your gear is just fine since you were able to capture the image as you saw it. In situations like this, I would have opted to shoot several frames with different lighting techniques. I do this all the time. No flash, fill flash on camera, diffused with a tissue, flash power cut back, etc. Also, being confident that you can make the final adjustments in PP editing is the final edge that you need.

That is awesome info!! by diffused with a tissue, do you mean a "kleenex" tissue?? I was just reading about in camera flash cut back last night, I'm anxious to try it out. I'm keeping notes of all the tips. Thank you!!

 

[fotomumma09]

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of would a flash have improved it?

added: this was all quickly done with PS CS6

I think that the blooms aren't either uniquely arranged on the stem nor individually striking enough to make this shot easily spectacular; there is nothing really that attracts the eye.
Also I think that the bright areas in the background where the limbs leave the trees really hurt because they attract the viewers' eyes and they can't be cloned into without looking artificial.

I think the trick to this is a higher angle of view to eliminate the sky and maybe find a concentration of blossoms that present a more easily discernible center of interest. Either that or get closer to concentrate on the blossoms.

But I've never taken a really good flower picture so this is all conjecture on my part.

I tried to duplicate on aperture, but failed miserably can't afford PS, I'll have to make do with PSE.

As for the haphazard blooms, I should try from different angles next time. I totally agree with your red square explanation. Thanks again for helping me

 

[Joel_W]

Thank you for taking the time to comment. I totally agree with everything. They are beautiful but nothing "pops" and it seems it's missing something. Overall I'm happy with the result based on my limitations due to lack of gear and overall knowledge or lack there of would a flash have improved it?

Your gear is just fine since you were able to capture the image as you saw it. In situations like this, I would have opted to shoot several frames with different lighting techniques. I do this all the time. No flash, fill flash on camera, diffused with a tissue, flash power cut back, etc. Also, being confident that you can make the final adjustments in PP editing is the final edge that you need.

That is awesome info!! by diffused with a tissue, do you mean a "kleenex" tissue?? I was just reading about in camera flash cut back last night, I'm anxious to try it out. I'm keeping notes of all the tips. Thank you!!

When I'm using the pop up flash, I often find that for my floral closeups, the light is too directional, and too strong. So I use a plain old (not used) tissue to diffuse the light. I also cut back on the power of the flash using the flash menu as another technique, and or in combinations. The more you experiment, the more you learn.