Emerging bud - I don't do flower pics

[blairo1]

I really don't even know where to start when it comes to shooting flowers,
or what people look for in terms of composition. Most of the shots I took I
binned because although they looked nice, they weren't strong images.

I quite liked this one so I wanted to know what others with more experience
have to say ;).

ISO 100, f16, 1/80. 18-55mm lens, cropped.

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m15/Blairo/emergingbud.jpg

Thanks,
Blair.

[chubasco]

Blair, I'm a child of the 60's but don't consider myself a "flower child" at all.:lol: That said, I'd do a tighter crop around that bud, as it looks
like it is getting lost in the background.

[chubasco]

Blair, here's my take on your capture, which is a nice sharp one to work with,
BTW:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/Zardoz17/bud1.jpg

I cropped it, hit it with some level adjustment and some slight sharpening at the end because of the crop. It seems to bring it out from the background more. Like it, don't like it?

[blairo1]

Bill,

Thanks for the input. I much prefer the crop that you have done there as it
does focus more attention on the bud itself. Initially I liked having the length
of the stalk in there but today when I look at it the image does feel like a
miss. Your crop certainly does bring the attention to the bud and makes the
picture have more focus (focus as in direction ;)).

I shoot RAW with sharpening and saturation turned right down on the camera
so that I can use the more powerful processing of CS2 to sharpen and
saturate. I'm finding that the images are much truer without the camera saturation.

In this shot I'd not really done any sharpening, I was trying to leave it as
neutral as possible so that others would have a neutral point to edit from too.

It's just a shame I missed the focus on the tip, it can be brought back in as
you have done but I still missed it. The image is actually rotated 90deg left
to get the composition that I wanted (as intended) but just so you know
that down is actually west ;). There is something I find pleasing about the
shot, but I still can't do flower shots, it's pretty different to shooting fish!

Thanks again.

[chubasco]

If I had the original file to work with, I'd probably make a tighter crop yet,
especially on the left side of the picture. But I figured this was adequate
to show focal point. Good effort, Blair, keep on shooting! :)

[blairo1]

Thanks Bill,

I played around with it a bit, cropping some from the left and actually felt that it made the image feel unbalanced. I need to keep on practicing, this makes me want to go out and plant a load of interesting flowers just so I can photograph them....

[chubasco]

Thanks Bill,

I played around with it a bit, cropping some from the left and actually felt that it made the image feel unbalanced. I need to keep on practicing, this makes me want to go out and plant a load of interesting flowers just so I can photograph them....


Blair, walking through neighbors' flowerbeds shooting pics is a good way to
make friends, you don't have to plant your own flowers!:badgrin: Seriously,
I'm sure there's some public gardens you can go to, for practice. :)