Yellow Flower

[Anita Bower]

This is one of my attempts to capture a sharp flower against a blurred and colorful background. I like the BG, but the flower is not as sharp as I would like. Perhaps it was due to not focusing properly.

Konica-Minolta 5D, 100mm Minolta macro lens, f8, 1/125 sec., ISO 100, manual pattern metering, manual focus, tripod, WB daylight.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Anita...I see you used a macro lense which has a minimal depth of field. You focused on the front petals and did not have enough depth of field to cover the whole image. You also set the f stop to F8 which caused you to get a minimal depth of field at that stop. Try shooting at F 22 or higher if your lense permits. For this type of image even at f22 you will probably not get sharpness throughout. If you want a macro image to be sharp throughout(without using PS) try and shoot your subject on a parallel plane to the lense. The more depth in your image...the more chances part of the image will blur.

[Julie Kenward]

Dave is right, Anita...macro lenses have low DOF. If you want the entire image to be sharp, try focusing on the center and then stop down that aperture. You can always blur the BG more in pp if you want.

I downloaded your image and tried a pano crop as I think you have way too much BG going on. Yes, I know...when it's this pretty you want to leave it all in...but remember that your focal point is the flower NOT the background.

I added some more sharpening and did a levels and curves adjustment to make the flower pop a bit more. It's just a suggestion for an alternative crop. Also, it's always nice to have a little more stem in the image if possible. Okay, here you go:

[denise ippolito]

Anita, I love the BG colors in the orig. but Julie's sharpening looks good-agree w/ less space on top of flower.

[Mike Moats]

Hey Anita, I like the comp on this one and the nice Monet feel to it. The comp is totally different than the norm, but I like it.

[Anita Bower]

Thanks to everyone for your helpful comments!

I should have given Tony Sweet credit for the idea for this photo. See here (http://books.google.com/books?id=qjFwgAVpgqUC&dq=Fine+Art+Flower+Photography&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result)

I would prefer to do my BG blurring in camera as I'm not particularly patient nor skilled at delicate photoshop work, though Jules' suggestions are helping me.

Jules, what did you do to sharpen the center more? I tried using unsharp mask, but didn't get the results you did.

Anita :-)

[Anita Bower]

Jules:

This is my version of more sharpening. Thanks for all your help!!!!

[Julie Kenward]

Anita, that looks much better, don't you think? What you did sure worked!

[Anita Bower]

Yes, Jules, I do think it looks sharper. I also adjusted the contrast. I'm keeping the initial crop because I like it.

Many thanks!!!!!