Orchid pre bloomer

[chosek]

F5.6 1/125 ISO 200 Sigma 18.50 Macro.

[GB1]

chosek - This one has potential. I like the colors in general, and shapes. The water droplet is a plus.

But there are several technical issues with the pic that I will point out. One is that the object right in the center that is naturally considered the subject is too dark w/ almost no detail. You really need detail on the main area. The background colors are way too distracting. It's a funny thing though because their color is so good that they are almost the subject of the shot; but they are too out of focus and too obstructed but the front objects to be. Finally, the shot has too little DOF: looks like you shot it wide open (it says 5.6, but...) where only the center pedal is sharp.

I guess photography is really unforgiving on technical details. You can capture a good scene or even mix it up a bit into more of a work of art, but sometimes, the mistakes are just too glaring. I hope this isn't too harsh! It won't take a lot to get it to where it needs to be.

Gb

[chosek]

Hi GB

Appreciate your comments, however I went back to Windows Gallery and checked the stats on the bottom of screen and I was spot on. It was F5.6.
Are you saying that When shooting macro shots, if you want a blurry dof, you should close your aperture as much as possible?
Thanks
Chosek

[GB1]

Hey Chosek,

Good questions, but I think they require a little deeper analysis.

First, there are really no hard 'rules' in art or photography as it really depends on the situation and what you're trying to show or create. One that says use a shallow DOF on flower shots, these are more guidelines than anything. Nothing's absolute.

Digging in here, did you really want a blurry DOF? If so, what did you want to blur, only the background or the foreground pedal and the third most distant pedal on the left too? If you only wanted that one pedal, you've effectively locked the viewer onto a dark and unattractive area, so that was not the best of choices (sort of like a videoman aiming a video camera at the least interesting part of the scene).

What I think you should have done instead was to adjust the aperture and focus to get the entire near-to-middle plane in focus, and blur the background. What aperture that would require depends on your focal length and distance from subject (amongst other things). I don't know what that aperture would be, but as this shot shows, it's > 5.6. You could calculate it but what you really need is a DOF preview capability. Unfortunately, a lot of camera manufacturers are eliminating that from lower and middle priced cameras.. I really wanted it and it was part of the reason I bit the bullet and got a Nikon D200 instead of the D80.

Also note that in general, macro lenses have very shallow DOFs, requiring higher aperture number settings. But this also means that you will get a slower shutter speed and possible blur. So you either have to use a tripod, recommended, or set a faster ISO speed, which reduces quality a bit. I would not recommend using a flash because it's hard to get that to look right with flowers, though it is possible.

Now, if the near and middle plane was in focus, I think you would have a better shot. But the background is still distracting and the middle pedal is still way too dark (probably in shade), so I probably would have passed on this scene and kept looking. But you could have made it better by moving whatever was putting that middle pedal in shade.

Anyway, long explanation.. I hope it helps.

G