Beginner Photo

[zenabi]

Hey I'm just a beginner so go easy on me haha. I took this with an Olympus FE 115 using image stabilization (was breezy that day).

[swmdrayfan]

Welcome, zenabi. Hope you'll partake of the site often. There are some very friendly and helpful people here to guide you on the road to happy shooting.
As you get comfortable with the site, you might want to think about posting your pictures as individual entities or small groups of maybe 2-4. People don't commonly go to picture sites and wade thru bunches of shots. I would also recommend checking out all or most of the forums to get an idea of what this place is about. VIEWFINDER is a great place to start, where you'll get the basics of the site and see what the group is thinking.
It would also be a good thing to let everyone know exactly where you are in terms of experience with photography in general, and digital in particular. Again----welcome.
John

[readingr]

zenabi,

This is interesting photo but the colours look over saturated on my monitor.

You may want to consider a slight crop to possibly a square crop with the rose in the centre. One other thing you may consider reducing the DOF so that the background is even more blurred. The petals look a bit soft and it could be that the stabalisation wasnt quite good enough to cope with the conditions

Good start

Roger

[zenabi]

You're right about the crop. I cropped it down a bit, especially on that right side where there were too many leaves. Thanks!

[jar_e]

My thoughts pretty much echo Rogers, so I won't repeat them, but welcome to the boards and hoepfully you enjoy your experience here!

Jared

[Ronnoco]

Welcome! I am the one that is quickly gaining the reputation of being tough on everyone and I certainly don't discriminate since I was a beginner once too. Thoroughness should also be helpful.

The shot is overexposed by a least a stop and you are not close enough to the flower.
I would move in much closer to at least the edge of the green spikey green foliage rotating outward from the rose. The lighting is also too flat. This can be remedied by either using a reflector, even a flash off camera or waiting until early morning or late afternoon for off axial lighting to emphasize shape and texture. The cheat that a lot of photographers use as well is to sprinkle the rose with water droplets and get them really sharp to add more interest and impact. A wide angle lens used in macro mode would certainly help the focus and depth of field of the rose itself and in moving closer the background blur would be increased too particularly at 2.8. Using macro at a focal length of 200mm would even allow you to centre in one droplet sitting on the centre of the rose.

Hope these ideas help.

Ronnoco