Fairy Trumpet

[Tom Shaffer]

Taken in the San Juan National Forest. Sony DSLR A700, 1/160 @f:16 ISO 400

[Tom Shaffer]

[QUOTE=Tom Shaffer;159918]Taken in the San Juan National Forest. Sony DSLR A700, 1/160 @f:16 ISO 400[taken at 300mm]
QUO

[Johannes Glännman]

Very beautiful flower and good comp but I think it is way to hard light... The background is a bit disturbing to, not much but a little. I see you used F16!, would it not be enough with F9 or something and you got a smoother background?

Cheers // johannes

[Tom Shaffer]

I had tried this picture at bigger f stop and had trouble with depth of field. Some parts of the flower were out of focus.
Tom shaffer

[Julie Kenward]

Tom, a few suggestions for next time: I would move around a bit and see if you couldn't find a more uniform background - either all black or all green would really help this out. I also think your light is way too harsh - did you try to tone it down any using Photoshop? I'm thinking curves might be able to do something to make this not quite so white hot in places but maybe not.

I understand why you chose the f stop that you did - these are very difficult to get a good DOF on an entire plant. If that's the case, try selecting the entire background (BG) and doing a blur of some kind to tone down the distractions.

If you give it another go, post the image and let us see how you are progressing!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Tom, nice comp, and agree with Jules suggestions. Always spend as much time as you can to work the angles for the best BG.

[Tom Shaffer]

This is a fairly rare mountain wild flower. When you find them you take the background that id there. I deliberatel made the background contrast with the flowers and intend to keep it that way. When you are in the field you make the best with what mother nature gives you.
Tom shaffer