Flower B&W

[GB1]

Comments?

GB

[LeeIs]

hmm. doesn't look very real to me. Although it has nice grey's all over, it lacks black, i think. only black I see is at bottom middle. It should be a bit more contrasty through out. There are big portions of the photo with no 'real dar' black at all, i think that hurts it.

having said that, I like the composition and the flower itself looks beautiful. I also like how off centre the centre of the flower is. Textures are nice, love the edges of the leafs, nice flower.

[llewpics]

Compositionally, it is very good. However, in BW shots, I always look for excellent tonal range ...a good run from the full white to the darkest black and nice tones in between. This photo seems to have a very nice grey tones but lacks (for me at least) the tail ends of the tonal range ...whites and blacks ...making the whole thing a little flat. I do realize the bottom right does have some white in it, but that is the wrong place I think ...actually I would clone that corner to look the same as the rest of the leaf (if possible) and darken the edges to draw the eye toward the middle.

[llewpics]

Since I talked much and you are OK with us re-editing the photo ...take a look a this version ...curious what you think ...maybe this is not what you were going for ... :-)

[llewpics]

I know there is some loss of detail in the upper left now ...but I did not have the original to tweek ...I think it can be done without ...if the file cooperates

[GB1]

Thanks fellows. This is an HDR and I think that this flattened it out. I shot about 200 or more shots yesterday at this botanical garden, but am disappointed with the results. The lighting was harsh and, fearing that they would be disappointing, I tried a few HDRs. Still evaluating the shots. Still have more to evaluate and edit.

I didn't know about the Is there a full tonal range question when it comes to b&w - thanks.

LLEW, that's just the farthest away petals fading out. Even with a very small aperture things fade when shooting macros this close. Of course, when you up the f stop number, then you have to deal with slow shutter speeds, which can lead to blur when the wind is blowing. The only answer is to use a very high ISO or supplemental lighting, something I was hesitant to do.

I LIKE your edit! I edited the edit to clean up a few imperfections to see if a 'perfect' flower would work better in the overall scheme - does it work?

Here is the original middle exposure also.

GB

[llewpics]

I think your last BW is great ...works for me.