Swiss Chard

[Wendy Kates]

This Swiss Chard was growing at the Chicago Botanic Garden. I cloned some brown spots, and changed the background (between the leaves and stems) from bright white to pale green. Also tweaked a little with Color Efex Pro.
Canon 7D
100mm f/2.8 macro lens
1/30s, f/5, ISO 100

[Nancy Bell]

Cool! I really like this perspective looking though the stalks. I feel like a small critter looking out between the tall thick reddish trunks! These are very photogenic vegetables with those rich pink/red stalks and veins, and deep contrasting greens. Great composition with the 2 stalks in front and the 3 behind. I also like how the bottom edges of the green leaves drop from right to left on a diagonal. You had a good idea to change the bkgd from white to green. I would probably make it even more inconspicuous by softening the bits of yellow in the lower middle green and the green section to the left. I would also consider removing the blue between the stems near the right side. It is the only blue in the image and doesn't match the greens you added.

[Steve Maxson]

Lots of cool color and interesting patterns here! I like your choice of background color and you have good sharpness within your DOF - though the sharpest areas seem to be back into the frame a bit - and my brain wants the two main stems in the front to be sharp. :S3: More DOF (or a different point of focus) might have done the trick and put this image over the top. If you had increased ISO to 400, that would have given you an aperture around f/11 and likely sufficient DOF. Just some things to think about next time out. :S3:

[Wendy Kates]

Thanks, Nancy and Steve, for both of your helpful comments. I'm still trying to master macro images, so your suggestions help a lot.