Boldness combined with subtlety?

[JBW]

[Wavelength]

Simple and beautiful

[JBW]

Simple and beautiful

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[JBW]

Very nice.

This time it did work well

[Manfred M]

Brian - I find that this image has all of the technical issues that I mentioned in my previous review and a few others in the mix as well.

1. Watch your exposure. Your original is definitely underexposed and the histogram is heavily weighted to the left hand side.

2. Your colours are muddy, so look at your histogram and set your white point, black point and gamma (mid-point) accordinging. While there are no true whites in this image, so some care must be taken in setting the "white point". I just go by look and feel in these situations.

3. Again, get closer. There is too much superfluous material in the background. My normal workflow (and a tripod really helps here) is to compose the shot and then remove (tie back, hold down, cut off) superfluous material that can't be avoided. Now that you are shooting a higher end camera; using a support lets you drop ISO and get better colour depth and less noise.

Cropping in post works as well, but is not as good as getting it right in camera.

4. When all else fails, use a vignette to suppress undesirable background information. Dodging the image in post and cloning things out also work well.

All that being said, you should look at backlighting for your flower images. I find that front-lit flowers really don't work as well as when your lighting uses the translucency of the petals to bring out the beauty and subtlety of the flower.

Here's my implementation of some of my PP suggestions.

[JBW]

Brian - I find that this image has all of the technical issues that I mentioned in my previous review and a few others in the mix as well.

1. Watch your exposure. Your original is definitely underexposed and the histogram is heavily weighted to the left hand side.

2. Your colours are muddy, so look at your histogram and set your white point, black point and gamma (mid-point) accordinging. While there are no true whites in this image, so some care must be taken in setting the "white point". I just go by look and feel in these situations.

3. Again, get closer. There is too much superfluous material in the background. My normal workflow (and a tripod really helps here) is to compose the shot and then remove (tie back, hold down, cut off) superfluous material that can't be avoided. Now that you are shooting a higher end camera; using a support lets you drop ISO and get better colour depth and less noise.

Cropping in post works as well, but is not as good as getting it right in camera.

4. When all else fails, use a vignette to suppress undesirable background information. Dodging the image in post and cloning things out also work well.

All that being said, you should look at backlighting for your flower images. I find that front-lit flowers really don't work as well as when your lighting uses the translucency of the petals to bring out the beauty and subtlety of the flower.

Here's my implementation of some of my PP suggestions.

Wow, that is quite the change. I have been shooting in manual and apparently I do underexpose. I will work on that.

Muddy colours. I didn't see them as muddy until I looked at your colours. I can correct this problem.

Closer is going to be a problem. I like context. But your shot is more of a grabber.

I have been putting ISO on auto so I guess it is time to start working it manually.

Cropping in camera poses a small problem. I need to stay about a foot away with my lens and even at 55 it is a big shot.

Backlighting I can do with some tin foil but as my light source is the sun I have no idea how effective it will be.

I like the white matte.

Just to be a bit picky where does the rule of thirds fit into your crop. It doesn't seem to be any less centered than my version?

[Manfred M]

Wow, that is quite the change. I have been shooting in manual and apparently I do underexpose. I will work on that.

I don't understand why you are shooting on manual. You paid for a camera that has a high degree of automation and don't use it. I do shoot on manual from time to time (mostly when shooting flash or doing panoramas), i.e. at times where automatic does not work. For these types of shots, I would tend to go to Aperture Priority mode because I would be looking for a specific depth of field.

By the way, I am not suggesting that you should not learn how to shoot on manual. Unless you do, you won't have the skill set to do so when required.

Muddy colours. I didn't see them as muddy until I looked at your colours. I can correct this problem.

Setting the white point, black point and gamma (mid-point) is one of the first things I do in virtually every image I edit. The camera virtually never gets it the way I like it.

Closer is going to be a problem. I like context. But your shot is more of a grabber.

Cropping in camera poses a small problem. I need to stay about a foot away with my lens and even at 55 it is a big shot.

That's why it can be a combination of in-camera and during post-production. I fully understand the hardware issue you are working with.

I have been putting ISO on auto so I guess it is time to start working it manually.

The only time I use auto-ISO is when I face quickly changing lighting conditions. Other than that, I shoot using manual ISO and choose as low a value as I can get away with (i.e. I want to be able to get the results I want, give the selection of aperture (depth of field) and shutter speed (eliminate motion blur). This is one of the reasons I do a lot of shooting using a tripod, I can get to really low shutter speeds and still get a very sharp image.

Backlighting I can do with some tin foil but as my light source is the sun I have no idea how effective it will be.

I virtually never use a silver / foil reflector. I usually use a white one. The light is softer and more diffuse (better quality of light). I use white plastic (foam core or coreplast) or even a piece of cardboard. I would place it behind the flower, as close as you can get it, without it being in the image.

I like the white matte.

The white matte works well on the CiC site, which has a dark background, so the shot stands out more. I tend to go for very simple mattes, so as to not detract from the image. The matte provides the viewer with a discrete boundary to the image.

Just to be a bit picky where does the rule of thirds fit into your crop. It doesn't seem to be any less centered than my version?

I don't remember suggesting the rule of thirds for this shot. I don't think it appropriate, given some of the other constraints with the shot.