Spring Oak Leaves

[Diane Miller]

We have several varieties of native oak on our property and on a few of them the baby leaves are a lovely, furry magenta. The light was soft this morning so thought I'd try the 7D2 and 100-400 II as a macro lens.

ISO 200, 1/250 at f/7.1. 328mm. Tripod, manual focus for control. Standard stuff in LR -- not much needed -- highlights down, shadows up, a little vibrance. Into PS for some dodging and burning of the BG with a masked Curve. Did a little cloning on the "ghost" edges of the OOF stem.

[Norm Dulak]

Hi Diane.

It's good to see another post in this forum after a substantial hiatus.

The subject is interesting. The diagonal orientation of the stem and the colors and shapes of the elements that are in sharp focus are good, as is the background. But I think that too much is out of focus for my taste.

Do you have a variation in which you stopped down your lens more than f/7.1, or in which the focus point was different? If so, I 'd like to see it.

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, Norm, but no, I only shot at 7.1. I forgot to say that the 1.4x was on, so that's close to wide open, depending on the zoom. I was into trying to isolate some of the shapes against a soft BG. There should be some soft light again in the morning and I might play again -- these leaves won't last long.

[Randy Stout]

Diane:

The colors are nice, the comp works for me. I agree with Norm about a sliver more DOF, as I think it would lead on deeper into the image.

Certainly some ISO to trade off here to achieve the greater DOF.

Cheers

Randy

[shane shacaluga]

Very nice image. I like the composition and combination of colours on this one. Lots of details showing within the focal plane.

Well processed

Thanks for sharing

[Diane Miller]

Thanks, everyone!

I think with more DOF the two large leaves wouldn't stand out, and I was drawn to their interesting edge shapes. I did make a mistake, though, by not separating the right edge of the leftmost leaf from the OOF stuff behind it. I went back to the tree both yesterday and today to try some more shots. Although I couldn't find this particular leaf set again, I did shoot some others and will post another when I get a minute.

I would like to do a focus stack on some of these leaves at fairly small DOF but there was just enough air movement to preclude it. Going to a larger DOF makes the BG less pleasing to me. I may have to bring some inside and use an artificial BG.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Diane. I'm usually a "more DOF is better" guy, but in this case, I think the shallow DOF works quite well with the soft light to produce an overall pleasing effect. If everything was tack sharp, this would be a very different image. (Would this be good or bad? It usually comes down to a matter of personal taste. :S3: )

[Anita Bower]

I like it as it is. I'm partial to limited focus image. Lovely colors and details.