This one's for Sir Gus

[Amy DeStefanis]

Ok - This is my first attempt with the 12mm extension tube: A bougainvillea bloom.

Nikon D80
60mm Macro 2.8 w/ 12mm tube
Natural light from window
Tripod assist
Lens was 4 - 3/8 inches from the white stamen (?) flower
ISO 500
1 second @ f/32

PP: I actually reduced the exposure .42 I went back to reshoot thinking I could maybe use a little faster shutter, but the bloom had wilted considerably. I shot some more anyway, but still like this compo better..... When the sun is off the back of the house, I may drag everything on the lanai for better light....

Selectively sharpened the white area in CS3.

Hope you like it! It's all downhill from here, right???

Amy D.

[Gus Cobos]

Very nice Lady Amy...you make me proud...:) composition, image and exposure are good. One suggestion, try to move around and compose looking through the camera to get the best angle possible before squeezing the trigger. I know that you were on a tripod; but after awhile; like I said, it becomes second nature to you...in addition I would clone out the green leaf on the left side of the frame, and reconstruct the petal...all in all, very, very good my lady...:):cool:

[Julie Kenward]

Amy, nice work! Great DOF and beautiful subject matter. Your one lower petal was a bit on the "hot" side of magenta so I tried to lower the saturation of the magenta on that one petal and it didn't look right. Next, I tried a levels adjustment and lowered the mid tone range to almost half. This brought the petal closer to the color of the others but it did leave a bit more dark area so I cloned some of that out with the clone stamp set at 50%. I did this really quick just as a "show and tell."

[Amy DeStefanis]

Thanks, Jules.

It really shows up bright as sRGB - I hadn't noticed. I gave it a try, too, and cropped out the green leaf....

It still has some magenta in that lower petal, but it's not as hot, or saturated now....

Amy D.

[Julie Kenward]

Looks MUCH better now Amy! Now it just looks like a natural progression of color whereas, before, it seemed like a hot spot. Great repost!

[Aristotle Georgiou]

Beautiful image Amy!