New Bud Growth

Cody,

I really enjoy the plump ready to burst out buds, but why is it cropped so close? Is this following some "frame tight and crop closer" sensibility? Somehow, these buds would appear to thrive with more space. Then, the placement within the space and the lighting of the buds and shadows in the space around them would contribute to the feelings that one would hope to experience.

My suggestion is to look at the bids as the most expensive paid model you could hire and then invest in lighting them and treating them as special.

Asher

Asher,

I think I cropped it to get rid of a lot of background clutter, like a unfocused fence rail, and half cut off buds.

Cody White said:

Asher,

I think I cropped it to get rid of a lot of background clutter, like a unfocused fence rail, and half cut off buds.

Click to expand...

O.K., that makes sense. Is it also possible to clone away and/or blur the extraneous matter? I push on this as I like the buds but would love to see them more "liberated". By having more space, one also has an expanded layer of compositional choices.

Asher

New Bud Growth part 2

Well it's been six days from my first attempt on this, and they are growing good.

I'm sorry for the soft focus as I did this from free hand and not from a tripod.
I wasn't too concerned on a sharp focus, as I'm trying to learn a new camera for a wedding that is coming up in May.
I borrowed my friends Nikon D200 and he only uses a 18-200mm lens

Cody White said:

Well it's been six days from my first attempt on this, and they are growing good.I'm sorry for the soft focus as I did this from free hand and not from a tripod. I wasn't too concerned on a sharp focus, as I'm trying to learn a new camera for a wedding that is coming up in May.

I borrowed my friends Nikon D200 and he only uses a 18-200mm lens

Click to expand...

Hi Cody,

Leaving your goal of weddings, for the moment, this second picture of the lilac buds is a welcome sight. I don't know why this is not tack sharp, even if you are hand-holding the camera. Let's put that aside too, as for this picture, who says it needs to be sharp?

I do like the feeling of coming spring your bring to us. It would be great to clone out the lower left intruding bud if you can.

Asher

Hi Cody,

I have just looked at the camera data from your picture. Shutter, 1/160, aperture f 10, max aperture 5.6, focal length 200mm, manual exposure ISO 640.

With an aperture of f 10

So if we assume/guess your subject distance was about 10 ft, or else 4ft, then we have the following:

Subject distance 10 ft

Depth of field
Near limit 9.86 ft
Far limit 10.1 ft
Total 0.29 ft

In front of subject 0.14 ft (49%)
Behind subject 0.15 ft (51%)

Circle of confusion 0.02 mm


Subject distance 4 ft

Depth of field
Near limit 3.98 ft
Far limit 4.02 ft
Total 0.04 ft

In front of subject 0.02 ft (50%)
Behind subject 0.02 ft (50%)

Circle of confusion 0.02 mm

So, in the first case, with 10 ft camera to subject distance, the depth in focus amounts to ~ 3.5 inches

With 4ft distance, the depth of focus turns out to be just 0.04 feet or just 1/2 inch!

So I guess you were focussing close!

I'd suggest for this, you use the camera with a longer subject to distance. 10 ft seems to be better for you.

Instead of using f 10, use f 5.6 but then increase the shutter speed and that will stop motion blur even if your hand shakes. At f110, although you get increased depth of field, you also get degradation of the image caused by the tint aperture actually interfering with the waves of light that scrape past it. This causes ripples in the focus, like dropping a rock into a still pool. Your D200 has such fine light sensel that it is able to resolve the untidiness caused by the ripples in the focus one can get with an aperture of say f5.6.

So, try to use the aperture setting f 8.0 at about 10 ft away with the corresponding increase in shutter speed. You might really surprise yourself with the sharp focus. If you have a 50 mm lens, that will be even better.

Asher

BTW, Did you have Manual focus on or did you set your camera to autofocus?

Asher,

If I remember correctly I was just inside the near focus limit, kind of around 2.5ft -3.25ft away from it.

As I suspected, so your range of DOF was of the order of .1 to .2 inches! To put that into perspective, that's just 1/3 of a mm to 2/3 mm. So it's very easy to be off focus with such a fine set of limits! Step back to 10 feet or use a 50 mm lens!

Asher

Still, the question, were you set to AF?

Yes, AF.
Unless I'm doing trying to catch a water drop, or another moving object at a set distance I will use manual focus.

So, you have now have a willing subject, she will never be late and you don't have to feed her nor check her driver's license or get consent or remember to give her prints! So I hope you will give us more images rain or shine!

I think this a is good subject with which to hunt perfection!

Asher

If I don't forget, You will be seeing another one next week.

I just might turn this into a weekly project until it blooms out.

Is there a section on here that is for these kind of projects?

Yup! You are now there! ADK

Cody, it seems you have used artificial lighting in here? Am I correct?

Where is this growing? Inside or outside the house?

If outside ( even inside ) may I suggest you photograph these buds in daylight, but with your
AWB set to tungsten.

See what happens.

Regards.

p.s flash so near is ( to me ) like blasting a teenage girl with acne by using a flash close-up!! or ( some mature lady !!!!! ).

Not the way to get compliments..no?

fahim mohammed said:

Cody, it seems you have used artificial lighting in here? Am I correct?

Where is this growing? Inside or outside the house?

If outside ( even inside ) may I suggest you photograph these buds in daylight, but with your
AWB set to tungsten.

See what happens.

Regards.

p.s flash so near is ( to me ) like blasting a teenage girl with acne by using a flash close-up!! or ( some mature lady !!!!! ).

Not the way to get compliments..no?

Click to expand...

Fahim,
I took this outside.

I did use a flash but misjudged my settings and blew it out, then went back and processed the same picture to make it darker to bring in some of the detail, then I merged the two.

As far as the WB goes, I only do custom at the time I shoot.

New Bud Growth part 3

Just my weekly shot of these buds as they grow.

Sorry in advance for the high ISO noise, I forgot I had it set to 1600 instead of a 100 like I normally shoot.
Did this one with my old Canon Xt, 50mm macro f/20 1/15sec.

Cody,

These are coming alive. They are really dynamic. Good luck on this. Back with a tripod! Great if you could do a time lapse series as ISO 160. Meanwhile, look at the mechanism for buds bursting open: here.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Cody,

These are coming alive. They are really dynamic. Good luck on this. Back with a tripod! Great if you could do a time lapse series as ISO 160. Meanwhile, look at the mechanism for buds bursting open: here.

Asher

Click to expand...

Asher,
I forgot what program I used to have to make time lapse scenes.

Almost forgot this weeks picture.

Hi Cody,

Keep up the good work, it's a fascinating project. I did the same sort of thing a while ago with some horse chestnut buds.

Regards,

Stuart

Thanks Stuart.

Here is another new one for this week.

Cody White said:

Here is another new one for this week.

Click to expand...

This is a delight to see lilac reaching for the sky. Lots of memories of a fine lady! Dd you push the saturation any?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

This is a delight to see lilac reaching for the sky. Lots of memories of a fine lady! Dd you push the saturation any?

Asher

Click to expand...

Not that I recall, Just a custom WB, auto color correction, auto level, auto contrast.