Three Orchids

[Joel_W]

Spent a considerable amount of time this afternoon re-editing these three images of Orchids, all were taken inside a greenhouse. All 3 pictures originally suffered from a lack of proper color saturation, and just too soft of an over all exposure. Now all 3 Orchids look just like they should, as they do in real life.

 

[mishele]

These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=) I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
Keep shooting!!

 

[cgipson1]

Diffused flash! Best way to bring out the beauty of the color and texture, is to wrap these lovelies in some soft, warm light!

 

[Natalie]

Those are some beautiful flowers! I particularly like the white ones with the apricot color in the center. It looks like in addition to the low lighting, there is a bit of motion blur there, probably from shooting at a low shutter speed. Can you post the EXIF data for the photos? If you were shooting at a low ISO, you might be able to bump that up to 400-800 and get the shots you want without a flash. However, in greenhouses where there is a lot of overhead vegetation, a flash might be necessary. The next day after I got my macro flash earlier this year, I headed to the Pacific Orchid Exposition to give it a spin... I found that the flowers responded very well to the flash, it made their colors pop more rather than washing them out. An external flash is definitely a big help if you're shooting orchids indoors.

 

[Joel_W]

These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=) I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
Keep shooting!!

Sorry, but you're so wrong.

 

[mishele]

LOL......good luck to you.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

On a calibrated monitor, these look fairly under exposed.

 

[Ysarex120 114]

These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=) I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
Keep shooting!!

Sorry, but you're so wrong.

Not exactly. Here's the histogram for your first photo:

The tonal response is badly compressed and shifted left. As a result of the compression, the photo is flat and lacks contrast. As a result of the left shift it appears too dark which is what Mishele accurately noticed. Under normal conditions a histogram like that requires correction.

Joe

 

[Joel_W]

I can only see these three photos on my laptop. There, they look exposed correctly, are soft, and diffused in natural light. Several of the florals I recently posted in another thread and in the User Gallery/My Gallery have brighter lighting including fill flash. On my screen, I wasn't thrilled with the final images.

One of the problems with digital photography, and then posting online is that you don't have a clue what others see, nor how you see their work. Even the tilt of your screen drastically effects the image brightness.

Since I'm a rather new member, and by your join date and post count, you've been here for some time, why do so few members bother to post photos, and even fewer use the User and Personal galleries?

As for calibrating one's screen, mine isn't. It's a laptop that is used for everything including work and spreadsheets.

 

[SCraig]

... One of the problems with digital photography, and then posting online is that you don't have a clue what others see, nor how you see their work. Even the tilt of your screen drastically effects the image brightness.

This is the reason for calibrating a monitor. Then, at least, you know what you are posting is correct and that if someone sees it differently it is their hardware and not yours. You can't hold their hand and make them do anything about it, but you can at least make sure that yours are correct.

Take a look at This Page. My guess is that the gray tone bar on the first page does not show distinct differences on your monitor.

Oh, and they are underexposed on my calibrated monitor as well.

 

[Ysarex120 114]

On a calibrated monitor these photos look underexposed. That's a fair statement, but technically the dark appearance of these photos isn't the result of a bad camera exposure, but rather bad processing. They all have compressed tonal ranges that are left shifted. Look at the histogram I posted up above. If they were underexposed then the histogram would be piling up against the left wall and it's not. Don't want to start a semantic argument or heaven forbid an attempt to define exposure, but identifying the problem goes a long way toward fixing it. A very straightforward Levels correction will make a huge difference.

Joe

 

[cgipson1]

These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=) I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
Keep shooting!!

Sorry, but you're so wrong.

You are telling Mishele she's wrong? lol! Have you checked out her work? Maybe you should!

The shots are underexposed... they lack definition, the colors are very muted. And yes.. I calibrate my monitor!

 

[cgipson1]

If you would allow editing.. maybe we could show you!

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

One of the problems with digital photography, and then posting online is that you don't have a clue what others see, nor how you see their work. Even the tilt of your screen drastically effects the image brightness.

"Even the tilt of YOUR screen..." Exactly! Laptops suck for editing.
No you can't control what others see, but when I view things on my craptop, I will adjust the screen angle to what looks best for an image, regardless of how it actually is. You are posting on a photography forum for critique, and a lot of people here do calibrate their monitors, and that helps with a degree of consistancy in viewing work by others with calibrated monitors.

Since I'm a rather new member, and by your join date and post count, you've been here for some time, why do so few members bother to post photos, and even fewer use the User and Personal galleries?

I can only speak for myself, but I post plenty of images. I don't use the forums gallery because everything I have can be found here: Flickr: Bitter Jeweler's Photostream and it's pretty easy to use and link to.

As for calibrating one's screen, mine isn't. It's a laptop that is used for everything including work and spreadsheets.

Two problems in bold.

 

[Joel_W]

The darkish appearance was purposely done to achieve the softness effect I was looking for. The amount of brightness apparently varies more then I ever thought by monitor. On mine, the end results is exactly as I wanted.

Here is another picture from an earlier shoot at the same Arboretum. the exposure, like all my florals are shot in Aperture preferred, widest Aperture, and let the shutter speed fall where it may. ISO is 160, which is the lowest my camera goes, and I always use a tripod. Older folks (I'm 64) do have a tendency to shake. f 5,6 @ 1/6 of a sec. focal length 89mm No flash used. The 1st photograph was shot at f5,7 @ 1/160 of a sec. Focal length 144mm.