Ruffled Tulips

[retired2AZ]

C&C welcome.
50 mm f3.2 1/125 ISO 100
I was trying to keep the background blurred out but seemed to have managed to get the center of one flower and the petals of the other in focus. More depth of field? Didn't want to show too much of the background. F1.8 left too much of the flower out of focus. Are the leaves too bright? Other thoughts? Thanks.

[AB26]

Retired has no name and not living any ware. How can I talk to "no name"?

Welcome to CiC.

[retired2AZ]

Well, being a new member and this being my first post for comments, I did not know I had to post that information for comments to show. Sorry. Just trying to figure this out.

[Geoff F]

Attempting to photograph a deep flower like that is always fraught with problems, Carol.

Your best answer is to combine a series of different focus points. But that entails shooting under controlled conditions and having suitable editing software. Using a narrow aperture, like F14 or F16 would help but even that might not give sufficient depth.

Otherwise it is back to conventional side view shots. Although zooming closer and concentrating on the centre of just one flower can work. Get the centre sharp then fade towards the edges.

The background is rather bright. But you have dark flowers so this is going to be another problem unless you do something about it. Whatever you do will be a bit of a compromise.

For example, use a different background; take shots with different exposures and merge together during editing; use masking during editing to selectively vary the brightness adjustment.

I often shoot Raw then do two conversions, with different exposure, and combine as layers and masks. Once again, suitable software is needed.

Keep experimenting but I fear what you are attempting here requires some carefully controlled studio shooting techniques and a bit of creative editing to produce perfect results.

[AB26]

Well, being a new member and this being my first post for comments, I did not know I had to post that information for comments to show. Sorry. Just trying to figure this out.

Hi Carol,

We are a bunch of nice people around this site and we like to talk to someone with an identity. WELCOME Carol.

I am not going to say anything more than Geoff, you can take him seriously.

[retired2AZ]

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I am new at this but am shooting raw and trying to learn how to handle these situations. I think I will try your merging and masking suggestions. That makes a lot of sense. I think I was being too ambitious—this was not a controlled environment. I need to think this through again. I really appreciate your help.