Bear Grass B&W

[denise ippolito]

Canon 5D
EF100-400mm
1/400sac. at f/10
ISO 400

I didn't set off to shoot these as it was alittle passed season, but high on the mountain this small cluster was still blooming. This is my first B&W so any advice would be appreciated. Thankyou

[Bruce Murden]

advice #1: do more B&W!
advice #2: repeat #1

For your first one, this looks great. I like the sepia toning, and the stalk on the right, well focused. Good texture in this subject.

I know DOF took the left one OOF. You may consider taking two or more shots with different focal points, and combining them (with something like Helicon Focus, or a more labor-intensive layering and masking in PS). I suggest this here because the left stalk blends in with the light parts of the BG. I'd like more separation there. More focus on the left one (a second image with the left one as focal point) could separate from the BG. You can also darken the BG to get the separation.

I also think you can crop some off the top and a little off the left, so the pair of heads are centered L to R, but nearer the top of the image.

Nice job!

[Julie Kenward]

Denise, there's an Out of the Box forum for all black & white and toned images so feel free to drop those in that forum next time!

Bruce is right about the crop and the DOF. It's good as is but it could easily have been even better...remember that you can always blur a background in post-processing but you can't get back DOF so always try to make the image where the entire thing is in focus or do as Bruce suggested and combine the images. I'd also blur the BG just a bit more so the spots are more abstract.

[denise ippolito]

Thankyou for the advice. Sorry I posted in wrong catagory.

[Bruce Murden]

No need to be sorry -- you didn't post in the wrong category -- this image is macro/close-up, so it's fine here, but you also have the option to put B&W in the other forum instead. If it's a day where you're feeling productive, you can post an image in B&W, and another in Macro (you can only start one new thread per forum per 24 hours).

[Mike Moats]

Hey Denise, very nice lighting effect and agree on a little more DOF to bring the second subject into focus. I usually don't care for busy BG's on shots with stading flowers,etc, but the BG here adds a nice absract feel.