trillium in the woods

[Cheryl Flory]

This scenery was so beautiful, but I just didn't capture it in this picture. How would I do a better job?

ISO 400
38mm
auto exposure mod
0.0 exposure correction
1/60
F/14

Thanks!

[Robert O'Toole]

For this situation I would grab a wide angle, the wider the better and get really low to place some of the blooms in the forground to capture the entire scene.

It would be great to see the blooms close up.

Robert

[Cheryl Flory]

and what f stop would you use?

[John Cooper]

Hi Cheryl - I know what you mean - quite often we look at our images and think "Thats not what I saw"!!
I don't feel the tangled branches here add much to the composition. I would probably select an area including just a few of the flowers and greenry. You could then use selective focus (wide open) and have just the one bloom in focus surrounded by soft OOF blooms. Or you could select a small aperature (say F22) and compose a blanket of blooms all in sharp focus (using hyperfocal point).

[Cheryl Flory]

what do you mean by hyperfocal point?

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Cheryl,
You had a tough (although beautiful) scene here. I'm not sure i would be able to handle the scene with all those trillium! Robert is on the right track here though...........and your lens booklet should explain what the Hyper focal distance is..........it is in short how close you can focus......while still acheiving everything else in focus. Google it......there are tables and formulas........but the lens booklet is probably the best place to start!

[John Cooper]

what do you mean by hyperfocal point?

Hi Cheryl, sorry I didn't get back to you but I've been away.

I think Roman covered the hyperfocal distance for you. There are some good tables that you can download giving the HF distance for various lens, Fstop combinations.
For example the HF distance for a 24mm lens at F22 is 3.5 feet. That means if you set the focus on your lens to 3.5 feet then everything from half that distance, 1.75 feet, to infinity will be in sharp focus.
If you send me your email address I will send you a table that you can then keep in your camera bag.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Cheryl, its a nice idea, but the BG is just to cluttered with uninteresting things to be included. I would either walk away from a shot like this or tighter it up to only included the flowers