Pink!!

[echoback]

There seems to be a lot of flower pictures going around, so I figured I'd add to the mix. I was pleased with these pictures, although I'm not sure about the crop for the single pink flower and the "Flower in a Can." Any suggestions?

[Anbesol]

Sorry, nothing stands out with any of these for me. the first 2 have too soft a focus for me, losing sharp detail, in addition to all of them being mediocre compositions. I kind of like where you were going with the third shot, although it on its own is pretty mediocre, i think a different angle might prove to be something worth shooting.

[echoback]

anbesol-thanks for the comments. I agree, the focus is a little soft, this was my first time doing close-ups of flowers. i'm not sure what you mean by mediocre composition? how can I improve this?

[Seb]

There seems to be a lot of flower pictures going around, so I figured I'd add to the mix. I was pleased with these pictures, although I'm not sure about the crop for the single pink flower and the "Flower in a Can." Any suggestions?

Well the sharpness/focus is an issue in all of them but I actually like the first and last one.
I like how the croped flowers in the first one actually frame the only flower that's fully appearing (I hope that I actually make sense!).
As for the third one, the rusty metal fits very well with the yellow flower. Although I crop some of the left side to put the flower off center.
The second picture is just plain too straighforward to keep my interest.

regards

Seb

[Anbesol]

well echo, I think that theres nothing in the first two shots background to really make it a composition. The first one is too monotone, its more of a texture then a shot, but even as a texture the DOF kills it there. The second one has a totally lopsided feel to it with a solid background color on the right and one on the left, neither of which compliments the main subject, with such minor random details in the background that simply dont catch an eye. The third one Im kind of liking where youre going with it, a rusty can could serve as an interesting backdrop, the way its dof'd out kind of hurts it for me, but really, what hurts it is balance. dont get me wrong, im not insinuating symetrical, but the feel of the shot is really hurt by the outer edge and outside of the can. Also, as a personal thing - I dont think the flower or its leaves offer anything very unique, but thats entirely subjective and so i wont even go there.

looking at your exif information what one technical thing you could have done to improve that shot would have been to stop it down a bit, you shot at f3.7, you should shoot close shots much lower then that, but with an e5700 the lowest you can go is f8. you'd also end up limiting yourself to tripod shooting. because that shot at 1/42 cant stand to be any slower.

[echoback]

Anbesol-One question I have is about the flash. For the first picture, I turned it off because the photos kept looking like they were washed out, which I guess could be fixed in PS or whatever, but I wasn't sure if I liked the effect. It was obviously much clearer, but again...

As for the technical info, I'll slow it down the next time. thanks for your critiques!

Seb-thanks for your comments! I do know exactly what you mean, that's kind of what I was going for so I'm glad you caught it. I have to work on the last picture a bit, it was kind of a last minute idea that I would like to keep working on.

[Anbesol]

well, for this type of thing a macro flash is best, if not that, at least a bounce flash. if you absolutely cannot use a bounce flash you can try out a soft screen which will sort of dissipate the light more evenly and give it an almost bounce-flash type quality... once you start using flashes though - you need to pay a strong attention to white balance....