California Bush Poppy

[Bob Allen]

Dendromecon rigida in Silverado Canyon, Santa Ana Mountains, southern California, USA.

Canon EOS 5D, Canon 100mm macro lens, 1/50 sec, ƒ/22, ISO100, Canon MT-24EX dual flash @+0.3, handheld as I stood on a steep, unstable slope, right & left edges cropped.

This is an unusual woody shrub, up to 2 meters tall. It grows on decomposing granite on dry slopes in our mountains. It is tough, quite unlike our state flower, the California Poppy. I like how it shows off the reproductive parts. The edge of the petal in the fg could be sharper but does it harm the shot? I am not wild about the shadows all 'round the stamens but are they distracting?

Honest critique?

[Mike Moats]

Hey Bob, a nice looking flower. I don't mind the FG petal slightly out of focus, but the center or stamens are a little soft, which may be due to handholding the shot. My monitor is a little off so we'll see what others say, but the yellow is to brite and has loss any details, but it could be my monitor. I would also clone out the green leaf in the upper left corner, and the green stem coming from the left of the flower. The one thing about shooting flowers is you really have to spend a lot of time study the BG, as it is as important as the main subject. Thanks for posting, keep em coming.

[Fabs Forns]

Hi Bob, try de-saturating the yellow in Hue/Saturation, I'm sure you'll get a lot of detail back. Red and yellow tend to burn the red channel in warm light.

[Bob Allen]

I appreciate the critique. The stem at center left is the stalk of the individual flower. I think it's best to leave that one there. But the leaf and stem in top left corner, plus the unrelated stem directly below the flower, could all go. Pretty sure the stamens are all sharp in the original, perhaps softened when downsampled for posting, but I certainly will check into it. Hmm, stigma sure does look soft now that I look at this version. I will also try de-saturating the yellow (it's not blown out on my monitor, I see veins on the petals).

Funny what we see. I've been more concerned with the flash shadow that the other elements.

Thank you!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Bob,
Agree with Mike...........if you do fix............just re-post with a reply> go advance and re-upload the corrected version!