On 5/28/2015 8:50 AM, Paul Braun wrote:
In addition to the alternate take on the water hyacinth (as soon as I get
another bloom, I'll hope for a calm day and use a tripod), I shot two more
flowers in our courtyard (wildlife sanctuary) yesterday.
One is a wildflower growing in our vegetable/herb planter box that we don't
recognize from last year, and the other is a new marginal pond plant that I
added this year, a Mexican Petunia.
Neither is particularly sharp.
To my taste, nothing will render the petunia appealingly but much more DoF, through a smaller aperture and.or focus
stacking. Using f11 and focusing a little more forward should do a pretty nice job.
The Mystery in Pink is more interesting, as it both offers clearer clues to what has gone wrong and the opportunity to
contemplate different renditions. <http://www.moosemystic.net/Gallery/Others/Braun/MysteryPink.htm>
Look closely at the original. Notice that the leaf and buds behind the primary flower, the forward petals of the
sideways flower, it's center, and the forward tips of the upper left petals of the lower flower are all in sharper focus
than the primary flower. Look at the center of the primary and at the hairs on the leaf behind it.
You have simply missed focus. Holding focus is tricky for hand held close up shots of subjects like flowers. If using a
single, central focus point, it's way too easy to move slightly forward or back while re-framing after focus on an off
center part of the subject. Full multi point AF may work better, or one may move the single focus point to the location
of the subject to focus on. Either way, the release may be smoothly and quickly be pressed through AF to exposure.
Next ,there's the question of what one wants the image to look like. In alternate 1, I've simply sharpened the primary
flower. This approximates what you'd have if you had focused forward just a bit @ f11.
Then there's the shallow DoF look, favored by Tina and some others here, and a nice choice for this subject. In example
2, I've slightly softened all those parts mentioned above that were sharper than the main flower. This brings the
apparent plane of focus up onto the primary flower.
In example 3, I've done a very rough approximation of a true shallow DoF shot,
blurring the deep background.
You can play with all sorts of options, but to do so sucklessly, you need to
improve your focus technique.
Sharply Defined Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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