Bird of Paradise

[Norm Dulak]

Canon PowerShot S90, hand held
ISO 640; f/7.1, 1/50 sec.
Standard CS6 adjustments; Nik Color Efex Pro 4 Nature filter collection; slight crop

This plant was photographed recently at Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

All C&C are very welcome.

Norm

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Norm. Very nice sharpness and DOF on the flower and I like the diagonals of the comp! I find the background almost as interesting as the flower - maybe not a good thing? The image might be stronger with a more OOF background (tough to do with the little camera). It will be interesting to see how others weigh in on that. :S3:

[Diane Miller]

Agree on the BG, but maybe going against the normal expectation of an OOF BG isn't a bad thing here. Just a different approach.

My expectation would be for more contrast (or detail) and brighter color in the yellows, though.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks Steve and Diane for your comments.

[Ron Conlon]

I like the concept a lot, and when shooting in botanical hothouses it is difficult to get a creamy oof background. A shot like this is difficult to pull off, we are so conditioned to the single object on the featureless field. Perhaps pushing the background a little more into the foreground by having it sharper and perhaps with even more local contrast would do it, but it is hard to say without trying. You might have tried a two shot composite or stack to get that, focussing first on the bloom and then on the background.
Thanks for sharing something quite different from the usual, here and the holiday orchids above.

[Norm Dulak]

Thanks, Ron. I tried to selectively apply Lens Blur to the Bkg, but that resulted in a halo around the flower. Not good!

[Jonathan Ashton]

Hi Norm, a well exposed shot, I too have photographed these beautiful flowers in Madeira and I always found the background the biggest difficulty. The trouble here is you need a reasonable DOF for the flower and then ideally you need rapid fall off. I like the shot in similar circumstances I would try starting at max aperture and then going gradually smaller .

[Norm Dulak]

Good suggestions, Jon. Thanks!