Lovely Flower

[DramaDork626]

Olympus Digital, outdoors, no flash
I take alot of photos of flowers, mostly for practice. Now I love flowers that have big centers (I guess thats what I'll call them) because it is an exellent opputunity to capture and display texture. So, I can't really ask for a CERTAIN critique because it is up to you. I post these here for critique to learn things I don't already know. And to request for something I know not of is a little impossible. So, look at it. Stare at it...fal in love with it.................sorry....and tell me things I maybe forgot or something that can help me in the future

 

[Rob]

Hi there!

A splendid flower there. A touch of fill in flash used well by the looks of it. The main thing I'd say to look out for is the focus on the stamens. The petals are nicely focussed, but with such a bulbous dome in the middle, I'd say the frondy bits are slightly OOF? To be really pernickety I'd say it looks like there's a little bit of purple fringing on the edges, perhaps a sharpening artifact if you gave it a tweak?

Good job though - very pretty flower.

Rob

 

[ClickCrazy]

I don't know what kind of camera you are shooting with..I f it is digital and has a "Portrait Mode" and "Macro/Super Macro" abilities..You could try setting it to Portrait/Macro (better if Super Macro, because you can get in really close) and this will give you a good exposure of the flower and its' stamens and keep the clutter in the bkgd OOF..I don't want to post a photo in your post, as it takes away from your critique..I will post it in the "Photo Gallery" and name it "Pink Cone Flower" so you can see what I am talking about. Sometimes seeing the example makes it clearer for some.

I love Cone Flowers and want to commend you on your amiable attempt at capturing it. We have all (at one time or another) been where you are and I might add that comig to the forums have helped me tremendously. Everyone is here to help each other..

Thank you for sharing,
RJ Smith

 

[Hertz van Rental]

So what is wrong with saying 'general critique please'? It's a lot quicker to type. ;-)

It's hard to be specific because the image is rather small - can't be helped - but it appears that the centre of the flower is soft on the bit nearest the camera. Focusing a little further forward would sort it out - and blur the background a bit so it doesn't compete for attention.
You say that you like flowers with big centres because you like the textures. It would therefore seem sensible to concentrate on this particular part of the flower and make sure that it is all in focus.
The other thing that appears to be happening is that you have something odd going on down the left side. Maybe a little camera movement giving a double image - it's actualy hard to tell. It could just be a little soft. It might be that you caught it right on the edge of the lens and you are getting a little fringing.
You say you didn't use flash but it sure looks like you did. You must have had the sun shining from right over your shoulder.