Rose

[Richard Lovison]

http://richardlovison.com/photos/rose.jpg
© reserved 2009, Richard Lovison

I discovered this rose at the bottom of my shopping cart this morning and decided it must have been there for a reason. So I took it home and with some inspiration from Gus, placed it in a rose colored dish with a rock at the bottom to keep the flower from floating around.

Camera Info:
Olympus E-3; Vivitar Series 1 90-180mm Flat Field Zoom @ 180mm in macro mode (someday I'm going to get a "real" macro lens :)); natural light; manual focusing; manual exposure; tripod; ISO 100; 6 exposures using various focus points at 1/5 sec @ f11

RAW Conversion:
Olympus Studio 2 software; 6000K -1 tint; contrast 0; saturation 0; sharpening -2; aRGB color space; 6 images saved as tiffs

CS2 Info:
6 images merged in Helicon Focus using A method; Extensive cloning upper 1/4 of image to remove shadow from edge of bowl; curves adjustment; cropping; dSLR fractal pre-sharpening; resized; Nik output sharpening; converted to sRGB; saved as jpeg

[Richard Lovison]

http://richardlovison.com/photos/rose3.jpg

I did another shoot and changed the composition a bit... included the complete shadow. I'm not sure this is an improvement... I'll leave the judgment up to all of you.

[denise ippolito]

Hi Richard, I like the second one with the inclusion of the entire reflection-beautiful light and colors! The details stand out more in the first one,so it's a matter of taste.

[Richard Lovison]

Hi Richard, I like the second one with the inclusion of the entire reflection-beautiful light and colors! The details stand out more in the first one,so it's a matter of taste.

Denise,

Thanks for your feedback. I did one more as I felt the rose needed to be shown a bit more front-on. Ughhh, I'm driving myself crazy. :)

http://richardlovison.com/photos/rose4.jpg

[denise ippolito]

Richard, Your persistence paid off-I love it! Perfection!!!

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Richard,
I like the composition, image and capture...I like all three versions, they each have their own individual charms...I like the reflection in the water, along with the texture projected...the color rendition is superb. The sundry focus points are dead on, bringing or merging the focus matrix into one single plane...very well done...I like this...:cool:

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Richard, I liked your second post. It gives a sense of 'completeness' to the image. Also the brighter portions (in ur second image) encompasses the rose & its reflection from all sides uniformly, which goes easy on eyes.

[Julie Kenward]

I was hoping you had the second post up your sleeve and then came #3 and wow! Although I like the second one, the light is missing from the center of the rose like it is in #3 and that makes all the difference. Beautifully composed, Richard and sharp as a tack.

[Don Lacy]

I really like the comp of the third image but I think the Rose looks better in the second both are still very nice images.

[Grady Weed]

My vote is for the third one, then the second one. A very nice idea here. I think the reflection, the full one, is making this image. Clean clear water, seeing the rocks below the surface, puts it over the top.