A shy rose and a bold rose

[ucci]

Okay, so you probably reckon you have been conned by the title and it is just yet another boring post of the damned roses from our garden. And of course you have for that is what it is! But they caught my eye and I thought I would share. Sorry 'bout that.
Thanks for viewing and any comments are most appreciated.
old ucci

[elfbob]

personally,I don't like to shoot flowers in direct sunlight, i have trouble with white/pale flowers in direct overhead sunlight having highlight clipping & hue washout, you might try using a translucent poster card to help mute the direct illumination; in the red rose image i see what appears to be noise spicules in the darker image areas & the direct sunlight is "muddying" the nice red color in the peripheral petals; unless there's wind involved try to use the lowest iso possible; you also might experiment with angular aspects other than straight face on like one does with portraits, flowers have personalities(or if you prefer floweralities) that can be explored; the focus at the red rose center is sharp but tails off at the lower petals.

[ucci]

personally,I don't like to shoot flowers in direct sunlight, i have trouble with white/pale flowers in direct overhead sunlight having highlight clipping & hue washout, you might try using a translucent poster card to help mute the direct illumination; in the red rose image i see what appears to be noise spicules in the darker image areas & the direct sunlight is "muddying" the nice red color in the peripheral petals; unless there's wind involved try to use the lowest iso possible; you also might experiment with angular aspects other than straight face on like one does with portraits, flowers have personalities(or if you prefer floweralities) that can be explored; the focus at the red rose center is sharp but tails off at the lower petals.

Hi Robert
Thank you for feed back and helpful comments. These shots were actually taken late afternoon around 5pm when the sun was low. The white spicules were in fact not noise but markings in this rose. And the sharp focus on the centre of the rose with slight blurring of the peripheral petals was deliberate on my part. I was trying to really bring the focus of the eye to the twisting whorl of the inner petals. Guess I didn't achieve the effect I was trying for. Thanks for viewing and commenting
Cheers
Ken

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Ken,

The second shot is way more noisy than the first - ignoring the blooms themselves and looking at green leaves in the background, which are of course out of focus, reveals sharp black spots in detail to me.

Was the second;

a significant crop?
underexposed in capture?
shot at much higher iso?

Or a combination of those?

On the first, at the top and left; there's a petal and leaf sticking forwards into the sharp zone of DoF, I'd suggest cropping and/or blurring these as they distract.

On second, I would also clone out the sharp bit of foliage protruding under the lower edge of bloom, as it 'grabs the eye'.

HTH,

[ucci]

Hi Ken,

The second shot is way more noisy than the first - ignoring the blooms themselves and looking at green leaves in the background, which are of course out of focus, reveals sharp black spots in detail to me.


On the first, at the top and left; there's a petal and leaf sticking forwards into the sharp zone of DoF, I'd suggest cropping and/or blurring these as they distract.

On second, I would also clone out the sharp bit of foliage protruding under the lower edge of bloom, as it 'grabs the eye'.

HTH,

Fair comments. Thanks Dave.
K