Spiky Flower Macro

This was shot with my old Canon P&S, at settings unknown to me at the moment. I could look up the EXIF upon request, though. I'd like some opinions/critique, mainly on composition and possible cropping methods.



(click on the thumbnail for full-size image—it's quite large)

Also, if anybody knows what type of flower this is, please speak up; I neglected to pay attention to the little plaque when I got the shot. This was taken in the butterfly sanctuary at Callaway Gardens.

Thanks!

Josh

Josh Blackwood said:

Also, if anybody knows what type of flower this is, please speak up

Click to expand...

Hi Josh

AFAIK this is a Calliandra, common name "powder-puff tree", you asked for critique, so I woud say that I would have used a slightly wider aperture to create more separation from it's background and would lose some of the area to the LHS, hope this helps....

janet Smith said:

... I would have used a slightly wider aperture to create more separation from it's background and would lose some of the area to the LHS, hope this helps....

Click to expand...

I agree.

And as a general remark, one can always take an additional shot from the same position either with a very wide aperture, or even a much closer focus position, and use that to replace the actual shot's background in postprocessing. That could help to overcome the eternal battle between narrow subject DOF and distracting backgrounds. As an alternative, one can use the Photoshop Lens blur filter.

Bart

janet Smith said:

Hi Josh

AFAIK this is a Calliandra, common name "powder-puff tree", you asked for critique, so I woud say that I would have used a slightly wider aperture to create more separation from it's background and would lose some of the area to the LHS, hope this helps....

Click to expand...

Thanks, Janet! Both for the identification of the flower and the critique. I'll take tat into account the next chance I get to photograph it, this time with my Nikon D40.

Bart_van_der_Wolf said:

I agree.

And as a general remark, one can always take an additional shot from the same position either with a very wide aperture, or even a much closer focus position, and use that to replace the actual shot's background in postprocessing. That could help to overcome the eternal battle between narrow subject DOF and distracting backgrounds. As an alternative, one can use the Photoshop Lens blur filter.

Bart

Click to expand...

Good ideas, Bart! I may just give the Photoshop alternative a try in the meantime.

Thanks,

~Josh

So Josh,

Any more from that shoot. You can use a larger image. It makes the page immediately impressive!,

Asher

As a matter of fact, Asher, I do have another couple shots here. The reason I'm posting a thumbnail is the image is large enough to seriously stretch the page and make it slow to load, and I don't have a reduced-size version handy to upload, but if you click the thumbnail it will take you to the larger image.

Note that both of these were taken with a Canon A560 P&S camera. These were taken at the butterfly sanctuary at Callaway Gardens; lovely place for photography!





Thanks for looking!

~Josh