Blood Flower

[Luis Patacao]

Hello everyone, this is my first post in the macro gallery as i usual walk around avian/landscapes. This is something i`m learning and developing along the way so i`m novice here.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7506/16267502395_34175aa329_b.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/qMvcHe)
Blood Flower (https://flic.kr/p/qMvcHe) by Patacão (https://www.flickr.com/people/72412984@N04/), on Flickr

The title has nothing to do with the flower designation as i don`t know it..yet, but this was a fun shot for me and also for the processing.

Techs:
d7000 + 18-105mm + 3 extension tubes
ISO 2000, f8 and SS of 1/20s

For PP it was slightly cropped, converted to bw, split toning, adjusted curves and denoise (not easy) and sharpened.

PS. (The specs might not be 100% correct but i will confirm them asap)

[Phill Luckhurst]

Shame there was not enough light to drop the ISO and increase the shutter speed. Flowers are a subject I really struggle to get a nice composition with. Amazing looking flower, I would have liked to have seen more detail in the red centre as that looks very interesting.

[Anita Bower]

Welcome to this forum. I don't post here often, but now and then come looking for flower macros.
I like the processing you did. The colors are lovely. I'm not sure what split toning is, but it works here. Pleasing composition with the center of the flower off-center a bit.
Your lens set up created a very shallow dof. You chose to focus on the tips of the central petals, which allows them to be noticed more that other elements of the image.
Next time, you might experiment with focusing on different parts of the flower and deciding later which you like best. For example, try focusing on the very center, or part way out of the center, etc. It is interesting to see the different results.
Thanks for sharing.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Welcome to the forum Luis. A pleasant image with pleasing colours, I like the composition. The image has a soft look to it, this is probably attributable to the slow shutter speed, did you use a cable release or self timer and mirror lock up?

[Steve Maxson]

Welcome to the Macro forum, Luis! I like the lighting, comp, and the pastel colors. Some good comments already, above, for you to consider. I think this pleasing image would be stronger if the center portion of the flower was sharp That is somewhat subjective and it depends on what look you were going for here. While I tend to prefer images with more DOF, other folks do very well with the shallow DOF look. Keep them coming!