Simple Viola

[John Christian]

These little flowers like to reseed every year. I have a bunch of them sprouting in the yard. I do not have the heart to mow them down (no pun intended).

The tripod was as low as it could go to get this angle.

Nikon D80/105mm 2.8f Micro/ISO 100/ 1/13th sec at f7.1/ Manual pattern meter/ Used a gold reflector to light the face/ backlit with setting sun.

The one petal to the left is not in focus as much as I would have liked. Comments?

[Dave Mills]

Hi John, A few things... First off Violas are tiny and you did a good job framing the image. Your front and backlighting come off well. I noticed your f stop was at 7.1 and is more than likely the reason for your lack of sharpness throughout. If your looking for max depth of field you should keep the f stop on f22 or higher. The 105 at that distance has an extremely short DOF.

[Alfred Forns]

I like the lighting best of all and generally go for shallow dof ... here I tend to agree with Dave and would maximize. Either extreme would look good !!!

Good bg, framing and overall feel !!! Excellent !!!

[Mike Moats]

Hey John, like the backlighting, and it looks like you got your focus on the center which is good. Good colors and BG.

[Julie Kenward]

John, I bet a small step to the right would have put those two secondary petals more on an even plane and both would have ended up as in focus as the right. Still, it's a beautiful little flower and the focus is on the middle where it needs to be. Nicely done!