Reluctant Bloom

[Old Timer]

Heavy frost this morning and I noticed that a few of the blooms in the bed were a little reluctant to open up to the world. This is just a grab shot with the Fuji S602 but does it hold up? I was hand holding on Macro mode 1/85 at f2.8 that was as good as I could do with 8 am light, already late for work didn't have time for the tripod for greater depth. Garbage of a keeper?

[stew]

Hey OT,

I like this image! The colors are fairly vibrant, and the frost on the petal is very unique-looking. The DOF is good too. IMO, you focused on just the right part of the flower.

A criticism would be that the green stalk in the background and to the right of the main focal point keeps distracting me.

That makes me think of an quandry that i find myself in when i'm taking nature photos. Specifically, is it ok to bend/break/move branches, etc out of the way to get a "perfect" shot? Or should the photographer instead use his/her skill to work around nature and find the "perfect" shot within the untouched environment? I find myself leaning to the latter, which is my attitude in large part because of my deep respect for nature and my personal decision to leave as few of my traces on a natural place as possible. Am curious what you and others may think?

-Stew

[kafin8ed]

I think it basically works but it could be better. I don't see any camera shake so hand holding worked. The background is distracting though, you already shot it with the aperture wide open (this is a problem common to digitals with small chips) so what I think you'd need to do is get really close, stop the lens down, and use a tripod because the shutter speed will drop. the closer you get the more blurred the BG will be. If you could do it over again anyways...

[Old Timer]

Hey OT,

I like this image! The colors are fairly vibrant, and the frost on the petal is very unique-looking. The DOF is good too. IMO, you focused on just the right part of the flower.

A criticism would be that the green stalk in the background and to the right of the main focal point keeps distracting me.

That makes me think of an quandry that i find myself in when i'm taking nature photos. Specifically, is it ok to bend/break/move branches, etc out of the way to get a "perfect" shot? Or should the photographer instead use his/her skill to work around nature and find the "perfect" shot within the untouched environment? I find myself leaning to the latter, which is my attitude in large part because of my deep respect for nature and my personal decision to leave as few of my traces on a natural place as possible. Am curious what you and others may think?

-Stew

I agree totally with your approach to nature photos. I will not move or alter the scene in any way. I know that this does create some problems at times, but I feel you should be true to the scene and to nature. Where I may remove something is if it is something that did not belong there in the first place. For example some piece of garbage from a nature trail or stream. I would have done that anyway weather I wanted to photograph the scene or not.

Thanks for the comment on the image.

[Chunk]

Nice shot OT. I can't handhold my camera for this kind of stuff anymore.

I think you could make it stronger by cropping off the blossums along the right edge.

[Old Timer]

I think it basically works but it could be better. I don't see any camera shake so hand holding worked. The background is distracting though, you already shot it with the aperture wide open (this is a problem common to digitals with small chips) so what I think you'd need to do is get really close, stop the lens down, and use a tripod because the shutter speed will drop. the closer you get the more blurred the BG will be. If you could do it over again anyways...

Very good suggestions for improvement. I appreciated your knowledge on the subject and willingness to share. This was very much a photo of opportunity. I was dressed for work couldn't get down on my hands and knees in the flower bed the way I wanted to nor did I have time to go back to the house for the tripod. I guess I will just have to live with the results. You make a very good point about the small chip digitals, I hope to rectify that problem in the near future with a DSLR.