I hate those stinkin' orange flowers

[DiamondSCattleCo]

<chuckle> Well, not really, but they have shown me how lacking I am in both skill and some equipment :)

Following the advice of all here, I lit the flowers and got my shutter speed up. No more issues with sharpness. Its just tough to control lighting with a couple MagLites bouncing light off the ceiling and walls :)

I did end up with a _decent_ shot, completely by accident though. This was actually a chunk of a shot that I was going to crop, until I realized it was much nicer than the actual shot:


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3436/3716801504_4da0723e21_o.jpg

I realize the flower really needed to be rotated a few degrees left, but at least the color is good, bokeh decent and I got the depth of field I wanted.

Thanks to all who responded to my last macro thread. Your advice is really much appreciated.

And since its out of season for those little orange devils now, you won't have to put up with any more shots of them....

Rod

[rawpaw18]

Rod,
Glad you got your sharpness issues out of the way.

The stem on the right falls right on the rule of 1/3 vertical line and distracts from the flower.
Try putting your flower at the intersection of the rule of third lines, so you can show your bokeh
where the other flowers are in the background and the stem not so dominant.

[Rooz]

post the original shot.

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Here's the original (resized). I can post a link to the full sized image if anyone wants. Any ideas on cropping would be welcome.


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3457/3720447540_457a0b256f_o.jpg

At this point in time, I was goofing with the light, trying a few different things with the spotlight. I believe with the shot I was shining it over top, with the flower being lit by residual light. I metered the wrong spot and blew out the top of the actual subject.

Rod

[rawpaw18]

I rotated on an angle and cropped.
Did not know how to handle the top of the plant being cut off.
I did add a little recovery in LR, and remove a little something in the
top right after I rotated it.
Just my version.

47571

[DiamondSCattleCo]

I like the rotated image, although I'm not crazy about the top of the stem with the dried up pedals on it. With the plant being just about out of season, I didn't have many nice pedals left to choose from, except for a few inside the plant.

And when my wife saw me sticking the lens further and further into the plant, all I got was "you better not knock any more of the flowers off, boy"

:)

Rod