Walk in the Park

[Ysarex120 114]

Today I walked through the park near my home. We're fortunate to live near one of the city's two premier parks -- this one created by Henry Shaw as an arboretum. We have a very nice Empress tree near the lake that was in full bloom; it's a Chinese exotic. The park is full of Philadelphus shrubs that had just started to bloom and I caught a photo of a fancy yellow iris.

Joe

 

[Joel_W]

Nice effort, but I question the amount of dead space in both pictures 1 & 2 before you get down to the subjects. Try taking a little more of an inch off of both, and see the difference. Both pictures become just that much stronger. Picture 3 is a nice composition because of the 3 large petals. What hurts your picture is the extreme bright contrasty light.

Believe I know. I've struggled with that exact lighting the last few trips out.

 

[Ysarex120 114]

.....Picture 3 is a nice composition because of the 3 large petals. What hurts your picture is the extreme bright contrasty light.

Believe I know. I've struggled with that exact lighting the last few trips out.

I like high contrast sun -- I look forward to it even for flowers. It's no struggle, pay attention to the shadows, watch the exposure and make sure the highlights don't clip.

Joe

 

[Joel_W]

.....Picture 3 is a nice composition because of the 3 large petals. What hurts your picture is the extreme bright contrasty light.

Believe I know. I've struggled with that exact lighting the last few trips out.

I like high contrast sun -- I look forward to it even for flowers. It's no struggle, pay attention to the shadows, watch the exposure and make sure the highlights don't clip.

Joe

Exactly. And in all 3 pictures, to some varying degree you have blown out high lights. It's almost impossible to control that dynamic range in contrasty situations like you were shooting in. I'm starting to experiment with carrying a white silk umbrella, since I can't control the lighting/weather/or even the time of day, on my one shooting trip per week.

 

[Ysarex120 114]

.....Picture 3 is a nice composition because of the 3 large petals. What hurts your picture is the extreme bright contrasty light.

Believe I know. I've struggled with that exact lighting the last few trips out.

I like high contrast sun -- I look forward to it even for flowers. It's no struggle, pay attention to the shadows, watch the exposure and make sure the highlights don't clip.

Joe

Exactly. And in all 3 pictures, to some varying degree you have blown out high lights. It's almost impossible to control that dynamic range in contrasty situations like you were shooting in....

You are mistaken. Here's the iris photo with it's histogram inset and the highlights are not clipped. That kind of dynamic range is not at all impossible to control; some skill is required.

Joe

 

[Joel_W]

Joe, All three pictures have blown out high lights on my screen. The Iris has those blown out high lights on the left petal. The other two pictures have blown out high lights to a much greater degree.

 

[480sparky74 74]

They make LOOK blown-out on your screen, but they aren't. The highest value I can find in any of the three RGB channels is 249... far from being blown out.

 

[Ysarex120 114]

Joe, All three pictures have blown out high lights on my screen. The Iris has those blown out high lights on the left petal. The other two pictures have blown out high lights to a much greater degree.

Hi Joel,

Here's a test image to examine -- another shot of the Philadelphus shrubs in brilliant afternoon sunlight. The flowers are pure white. Pure white flowers in direct sunlight have to go right to the edge. The trick is to keep them back just enough so the texture is retained -- it's a fine line because if you hold them back too far they get pasty grey. I see texture in the flower petals on my monitor and if you paint by the numbers as Sparky did there's not a single blown pixel. Here's the histogram first. This photo is pretty much textbook.

Joe

 

[Joel_W]

Yes. These are perfect on my screen. Whites are pure white on the lower petals, yet retain just enough detail and the slightest of shadows.

 

[slackercruster]

V.nice!

 

[greybeard68 40]

Hi Joe, You and I like the same sort of things. #1 and #2 would look perfect to me with the tops cropped down to a square picture. I shot 2 1/4 for years so I like the square format. #3 does not look blown out on my monitor, I think I would have added some fill light in PP just to bring out a little more of the delicate detail. (imho)

 

[Ysarex120 114]

Hi Joe, You and I like the same sort of things. #1 and #2 would look perfect to me with the tops cropped down to a square picture. I shot 2 1/4 for years so I like the square format. #3 does not look blown out on my monitor, I think I would have added some fill light in PP just to bring out a little more of the delicate detail. (imho)

Thanks. I spent most of my 35+ years behind a camera shooting twin lens Rolleis, Hassys and an Arca view camera. Still have a Rollei in the closest but the rest of it was too valuable not to sell when I said goodbye to film. I still get nostalgic for the Arca from time to time and then I remember the 15 pound Gitzo that went under it and get over that fast. I think there's some 120 film in the freezer?

Joe

 

[rexbobcat]

They look underexposed, maybe because of the metering for the whites. One and two seem to be very busy, pulling the eye away from the main subject.

Number three has a cleaner background, but I'm not a big fan of harsh mid-day sun. It seems to wash out colors, and it adds chaos to photos that aren't meant to evoke that sense.