Purple wildflower

[Jerry van Dijk]

I'm still processing the vast amount of wildflower photos I took in Western Australia. Because of the vast amount of species there, many of which are endemic, I have no idea what species this is. This image was taken in Lesueur national park on an overcast day, which posed some challenges making handheld macro's with sufficient DOF, but did wonders for the colors on the flowers. The national park boasts more than 800 identified plant species, making it one of the most diverse areas in the world when it comes to plants. As a comparison: the whole country of Holland is about 138 times larger than this national park, but contains not even twice the number of plant species.

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 200mm micro, handheld, ISO-800, f/11, 1/400 sec.
Minor PP work, cropped for composition.

[Randy Stout]

JERRY:

The colors are soft and lovely, like the comp with the line of the stem angling into the frame and the buds pointing up to the right.

Well exposed.

I think the hand held tech. introduced some motion blur, or possibly your focus was off slightly, as the image just doesn't appear sharp to me.

Are tripods allowed? Even a monopod can be used to great advantage to help stabilize your rig. Unless it was windy, and the subject is moving :S3:

Cheers

Randy

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks for commenting Randy! My guess is that the softness is from the shallow DOF at f/11. If I remember correctly, I was able to stabilize my arms on the grond, this is a very tiny flower. I didn't bring a tripod, I was in Australia on a 4-week holiday with my whole family, so there wasn't much room left in our suitcases! A monopod would be a good thing for me to consider, because it takes up siginificantly less space. I have no experience using them. I'm not sure it will improve my IQ as significantly as a tripod, I have found that I have a fairly steady hand.

[Randy Stout]

Jerry:

There is no question a monopod isn't as good as a tripod, but I find when doing butterflies, it adds at least one stop compared to handholding, sometimes a bit more, depending on how I can brace it. Not to be overlooked, is that it helps prevent fatigue as well, from long periods of holding the camera in odd positions!

Cheers

Randy

[Jonathan Ashton]

Lovely composition and colours Jerry, but the image is soft, it may be worthwhile actually using a filter to make it softer to see what the result is?

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Jonathan, I'll have a go at a softer version.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jerry. Lovely little flower! Very nice colors, comp, and background. Like the others, the overall softness is bothering me. I think if the central yellow portion was sharp the image would work better for me. Jon's suggestion of making it even softer - for an OOTB presentation my be worth pursuing.:S3: