Bean There Done That!

[Craigs]

Just messing around with some still life

[Donald]

Craig

The light and texture created in this is very pleasing. But my difficulty with it is that there is no one main point of interest that garbs the initial attention and from which my eye can then roam around the scene. Instead, the eye immediately starts flitting around looking on a point on which to rest.

[FrankMi]

Hi Craig. This is a great example of what an otherwise fine image can fall victim to. As Donald accurately points out, the exposure, texture, colouring, indeed all of the technical aspects are near perfect but in lacking a defined subject, there is no place for the eye to start from and return to rest.

A complementary subject, larger than an individual bean but not by too much, placed just off-center in the midst of the beans could make this a real winner. As an example of what 'might' work, take a look at the red berries of an Arabica coffee plant in the following link. http://www.amazon.com/Arabica-Coffee.../dp/B000ND7DTK. Just a few of these coffee berries resting on the beans that you have could add both a compelling subject and a complementary colour to the composition.

A marvelous starting point for exploring various possibilities!

[Craigs]

Hi Donald & Frank,
A very valid and good point you both raise.
Something i will have to revist and put your excellent suggestions to use
Thank you both for the great C&C which as always is very much appreciated.
Craig

[Inkanyezi]

For some reasons, the first image is not there, but if I recall correctly it was some coffee beans, and it is something I have thought of investigating, particularly to see, whether there is a way to convey sense of depth when there is sharpness over most of the image. Surely in this one I didn't succeed in doing that, and it often amazes me how flat a picture that is sharp all over looks. In this one for example, I don't get any sense of depth, distance, although there is more than ½" difference between the closest grains and those most far away, almost twice as far away as the closest ones.

It can also be observed, that sharpness does not reach the corners of the image, less so in the top two than the bottom ones. I have observed, that this softening of corners always comes from a small aperture with a short distance to the exit pupil, while longer lenses won't show this effect. I think it might be an effect of lacking telecentricity, that the microlenses of the sensor simply don't correspond to the sharp angle from the exit pupil. The effect is more pronounced, the smaller the aperture, and it is more distracting than diffraction softening.

Anyway, it was more an exercise than anything else.

Bean there...

[geoz]

Agree with the comments above and the picture is rather flat. In effect, like background noise. If you look at it long enough your mind will naturally start creating patterns. You might just try running a finger across it to create a row or rows to add a pattern or even a mini-landscape.

George