Crimson Eyed Rose Mallow

[Joseph Przybyla]

Yesterday I was at the marsh photographing birds, the Mallow was in bloom attracting my attention.

Nikon D7000
Nikon 70-300mm F/4.5-5.6 VRII AF shot at 125mm (187mm FFE)
1/1000 F/11 ISO 900

[Linda Dulak]

Nice flower but the mixed lighting is a bit distracting. If this were mine, I might crop some off the bottom and the left side so that the clipped portions of the flower look intentionally cut. Then I'd try to reprocess to try to draw out some detail in the part of the image that is behind the stamen. There's beautiful texture in the petals and it would be good to show more of it.

I love the mallow in the marshes and have to look to see if they are blooming here.

Linda

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the shot and the composition, the exposure looks good. I have a few reservations over the sharpening/and or NR or conversion - look at the green area centre right and the inner areas of the trumpet - there are areas of graininess and slight softening or smudging. IS this noise due to ISO and some NR being selectively applied?? Was the initial raw file underexposed perhaps?

[Satish Ranadive]

Joseph, I am not expert in macro. But eagle's eye have ( Jonathan and Linda) evaluated the image beyond my imagination of editing knowledge.
In all I love the image with nice lights and shadows.

Regards,
Satish.

[Diane Miller]

I love this!! Beautiful light and pleasing composition! Is there a little more canvas bottom and right, so the petals aren't tangent with the edge? It could be tedious, bt I'd like to see more contrast in the stamen. Any way to find another one and get some bounce light, or subtle flash, on it? The soft low-contrast area behind the stamen is OK with me, as it has that one spot that is richly colored and graduates out to nicely detailed petals. (And it's not like me to say that!)

[Ron Conlon]

The varied lighting is well handled and also gives this one added interest. The DOF is excellent.

[Joseph Przybyla]

Thanks you all for viewing, commenting and offering suggestions.

Linda, the edges of the flower are clipped by the crop I chose. The original image is of the whole flower. I will explore your suggestion of pulling out more detail.

Jonathan, there was noise reduction on the image. Yes the image was underexposed to keep the bright white highlights from clipping.

Diane, there is more canvas on the bottom and right. I can leave more space with a different crop.