Wayne Stratton
New member
It's cold and rainy here, so I dug up a picture I took last summer. Please let me know what you think.
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Fredericksburg Flower
- Thread starter Wayne Stratton
- Start date
Rachel Foster
New member
Wayne, I shoot flowers ad nauseum.* I have a very defined, somewhat rigid view of what works in a flower shot, so please keep that in mind. Also, I wouldn't bother to offer critique if I thought it was a lousy shot or that you had no talent.
So, from *my* very minimalistic view (which I don't achieve oftentimes), it feels a touch overexposed and the oof flower to the left is distracting. If it were less blown there might be enough detail and texture to make this an interesting shot. Also, I'd go for a shallower dof.
So, I like the color of the flower, I like the idea of the image, but the exposure is not what *I* would do. That doesn't mean my take would be any better, just different.
So, from *my* very minimalistic view (which I don't achieve oftentimes), it feels a touch overexposed and the oof flower to the left is distracting. If it were less blown there might be enough detail and texture to make this an interesting shot. Also, I'd go for a shallower dof.
So, I like the color of the flower, I like the idea of the image, but the exposure is not what *I* would do. That doesn't mean my take would be any better, just different.
Wayne Stratton
New member
Thank you very much for the C&C. I appreciate it. This pic was really washed out and I have been self teaching myself Photoshop Elements. This is the result.
How can I acheive shallower DOF, if my best lens only goes to an aperture of 3.5?
How can I acheive shallower DOF, if my best lens only goes to an aperture of 3.5?
Rachel Foster
New member
Wayne, wait til you hear what others say before you decide my C&C has merit. It's your vision that matters and mine is only one opinion.
Bart_van_der_Wolf
pro member
Hi Wayne,
DOF is a function of the magnification factor (on sensor size versus original size). When the aperture is a given, then one can only try to get closer. Using a longer focal length will help to increase the relative size of background features, which could be seen as a kind of blur.
Cheers,
Bart
Wayne Stratton
New member
Thanks Bart, I will give that a try!
Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Wayne,It's cold and rainy here, so I dug up a picture I took last summer. Please let me know what you think.
I doubt this image couldn't be fixed up pretty well in Photoshop. Rachel may be correct in some of the technical aspects. Again she states she has some pretty fixed ideas. I would look at what other pictures you show and then try to see how your inner thoughts might be guiding you. To my mind, I just look at the effect unless a technical matter stops me dead in my tracks.
Here I am impressed with this one dominant flower thrusting itself, volunteering for our attention and it's worthy. This is achieved by the angles of the front flowers platform and the contrast between its richness and the OOF, hardly detailed pale and smaller flower, behind.
The rest is preparation in photoshop or other software and nuanced cropping.
I'd say the picture is a success. The fact that you cannot perfect it now puts you in the same class as a lot of us who keep returning to older favorites as we become more skilled.
Was this shot in RAW? If not, repeat the shot so you can learn what sort of development magic you can wield. There are several parts to making good picture. The first part is visualizing it with the lens in the brain, the next is to get you camera to match as closely as possible that concept and lastly we use development to render that stored information, to something that mostly closely resembles your constantly evolving concept. So this last stage is hard and we always can come back and revisit as we get more insight and skills under our belts.
Asher
Wayne Stratton
New member
Thank you very much! I cannot express to those of you that comment, how much it means to me. I really appreciate everyones input. I hope you will see in future work that I have tried to incorporate eveyones advice.
This was not taken in RAW. As of the first of this year, all of my shots are taken in RAW and then manipulated in Photoshop Elements 7.