Flower 2

[GB1]

More Power of the Flower. I may have darkened this a tad too much. Comments?

G

ps - This was shot at f 32.

[armando_m]

That's a flower ? my Mom had this things i considered them a cactus ....

The shot has great colors and the pattern of the flower is great
I like how the light is coming from behind on the right side
Wish there was no direct sunlight in the front

[Anbesol]

Love the lighting and shadows as is, great composition, colors and textures. I don't think it matters that it was "darkened too much" since the colors still look natural. There is some softness in some of the petals that limits the potential of this shot. If this was the dof you could achieve with f/32, just back up another inch or two, maybe crop the image, to keep that dof where you need it. Were you using your DOF preview button for this? Some slight vignette may improve the appearance of the edges as well.

did it rain, or did you put water on that? I'd like to see one without the water.

[GB1]

Anbesol, you took the words right out of my mouth! but I wanted to see what others thought. I should have backed up and cropped, as those out-of-focus stickers drop the image's stock. Dang I wish I thought of this stuff when I'm shooting ... hate to miss a shot like this. It may warrant going back, paying $14 again and reshooting (!) My penalty for screwing up.

Btw, I use my DOF preview button quite a bit. Terrible how a lot of cameras don't have them any more ... I wouldn't own a camera w/o it.

Regarding the vignette, I already added a slight soft framing to achieve this - you think I should make the effect more pronounced? I'll experiment.

Armando, thanks too for your critique. Yeah I guess it's a cactus and technically not a flower, but with all these colors I just call it a flower I agree that it would be better w/o direct sunlight. Btw, this is a 5-image HDR... the middle exposure really came out contrasty and harsh. I was very disappointed initially, but the HDR isn't too bad. It's just sad that I couldn't get it all sharp.

G