Sunset on a Horned Tulip

[John Christian]

Nikon D80/105mm Nikor Micro/ISO 320/f9 at 1/160 sec/tripod/Processed in LR2/sharpened/manual metering set at matrix

I liked the way the sun hit the tulip. The light was almost perpendicular to the flower. Thoughts?

[denise ippolito]

John, I love the variety of tulip here. I'm not seeing the sunlit part,may be my monitor but it looks a bit dark. I do like the clean dk BG and the simple composition although I like a bit more stem-but that's a personal preference.Looks like you have good details.

[Julie Kenward]

John, this felt really soft and a bit dark - I was having real trouble seeing the light on the tulip also. I opened the image in Photoshop and looked at the levels and the high tones were really off. I moved the high tone slider (the white one on the right) in to about the 233 mark and this brought out the light and details a bit more.

See what you think...

[John Christian]

I think I see it. The change seems to be subtle, but I am looking at it on a laptop. I will look at it on my desktop later tonight. Thanks.

Jules and Denise,

I looked at it on my desktop. I made an adjustment to the curve as suggested. What do you think? Did I go to much? Unfortunately this is how I saw it, but not how it turned out. Make sense?

[Julie Kenward]

I do see a subtle difference...and I think it's better. It's not my favorite image of yours because it still feels really "soft" in the details of the petals. I'm looking at the repost and I'm betting good money this looks better before the JPEG compression - I can see some details on the side petals that I bet is being "lost in translation."

[denise ippolito]

John, I agree with Julie on all points.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey John,
Since Jules covered many of the light and PP tips well, and I do agree with her on the sharpness, I will offer a few in the field suggestions that you may want to try. The softness can be due to a few things.....wind motion...or lack of DOF....if it isn't the wind, then you could have sacrificed some speed, to get it to f13 and around 1/80 sec.....again.....only if the wind wasn't a huge issue. I have gone down to 1/60 sec hand holding succesfully....so on a tripod you could even go slower. As Mike is known to say.....megs are free. Try experimenting with f-stops and decide which you like best when you get home. Also if it is windy.....don't be afraid of using even the pop up as fill....may also help with motion on windy days. Experimenting is much easier now than in the film days and definitely less costly. The second recommendation....as presented the flower looks too static.....very rigid and centered.....not 2 thoughts you want to have with a flower.....explore slight diagonal comps or more off centered ones as this generally helps the comp. Cenetered compositions do work, but other elements need to be particularly strong to pull it off. Just food for thought in the field.