daffodil

[Ron Conlon]

Decided to grab this one quickly as it opened today and high winds were on their way tonight and snow is forecast for tomorrow.
A stack of 36 separate images, two remote flashes, some sharpening and local contrast in post.
D800E 200mm f8 1/250s iso100.

[John Robinson]

Another nice take on a selective part of the flower.
Has come out well. Nice gentle high key effect.
Like it.
John

[Diane Miller]

Love the high key but the yellows seem flat. I have to admit, though, that daffodils are my nemesis -- I've never gotten one I really liked.

I had to give it a try, to bring out a little contrast without loosing the high key look. Don't know if I was successful or not.

[John Robinson]

Certainly a subtle difference Diane but better I think.
JR

[Ron Conlon]

Thanks, Diane. Yellow flowers in general are my nemesis. I like your repost a lot. I have to say, however, that it amused me because I continued to work on it and took it in the opposite direction. This reworked version is slightly brighter, and I redid the stack with fewer frames to leave the petals (I bet they are actually sepals, but my botany isn't a strength) out of focus.

[Diane Miller]

A strong image can often go with several interpretations. I was struggling with the question of the balance between high key (which I love) and contrast. In other words, how much does going high key have to limit contrast.

(I'm not sure I'm making sense, but have a good excuse. I just came in from a nice stroll in the warm sun looking for wildflowers and decided to remove a couple of long gutter downspouts behind the house that are going to be in the way of grass cutting, and found myself face to face with a very large rattlesnake in tall grass against a foundation. I'm usually live-and-let live but draw the line at rattlesnakes that appear to have access to underneath our house. My husband had, of course, already left for the day. After debating on weapons I decided against shooting it and went for a shovel instead, expecting it to get away into a hole. But it is now deceased and I have cancelled plans to go back outside looking for something else to shoot -- with a camera.)

Apologies for the digression.

Back to yellows -- I'm not familiar with Nikons, but with Canons, yellows and reds are often too saturated as they come into Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom with the default Adobe Standard camera profile. I often get a better starting point by trying the other profiles to find one that is more subdued. Then adjusting the tonal sliders will often give any needed boost in saturation. Decreasing saturation, even in raw, is often less than satisfactory. I just shot a little yellow flower the other day and intend to try Zerene on it -- haven't done a stack in a long while. I had to change the profile as the first step. Maybe I'll get back to it today since I've decided not to go outside for a while.....

[Ron Conlon]

That's an excellent excuse, not that one was needed because I follow your point.
WRT high key and contrast, I think that your repost takes it away from a typical high key but works beautifully all the same.
With my Nikon I find most of the Adobe Camera Raw camera profiles not to my taste and have long gone with "camera neutral" and boost as needed as you say. With the Zerene stacking software, starting fairly flat is pretty much a necessity because otherwise things get too pumped up.

[John Robinson]

Diane
Why didn't you try some stacking with the rattler ???
John

[Diane Miller]

Ron, now I do remember you have said that before. Sorry for bad memory. And still wondering about how much contrast (or maybe it's detail) that can be preserved in high-key. Not that it necessarily should be, though. Your versions here are gorgeous! But you probably know how women are always trying to improve things...

John, it's not a nice specimen anymore. I really do hate to kill things, but I have my limits and it took a good beating. I'm sure were it was, it was crawling through a hole in the foundation. It was quite fat and after I stretched it out on the driveway I noticed it looked very lumpy. I think it had been under the house eating mice. Not sure which I would rather have, but I think it's a safe bet we have both.

The property just east of us is the "back 40" of a 400 acre wildlife park, Safari West, and adjacent to them to the north is a 4,000 acre nature preserve. Between them they have the largest privately-owned collection of rattlesnakes this side of west Texas.

[Jonathan Ashton]

A very nice image(s) the only thing that really bothered me was the top right corner in the first few, it almost looks like a cut out with it being so angular. The last post has softened the petals and it looks much less apparent.

[Adhika Lie]

Hi Ron, beautiful high key image here! The remote flashes do wonders!

I am curious, you mention stacking 36 images here, do you have to deal with focus breathing issue when doing that? I'd guess not much because you probably have a narrow range of focal length (not all the way from MFD to infinity). Do you know if the focus stacking software deal with lens breathing issue if it were a major issue with whatever lens used in the shoot?

[Ron Conlon]

Thanks, Adhika. The stacking software (Zerene) deals very well with the changes in perspective caused by focus breathing, and I believe the settings for how much misalignment it will align are adjustable (I use the default settings). In fact, it will align and stack macro images which I have taken hand held where there is a fair amount of displacement in addition to changes in perspective.

[Adhika Lie]

I will definitely look into this software. Thanks so much for the input!