Breeze!

[Ramesh Adkoli]

Constant breeze (it felt like a storm at such closeup) made focusing and composing very difficult while i wanted to catch this cotton seed in midair. Luckily it wasn't blown away! A friend told me that this is probably one way to depict breeze. Hence the title;-)


http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3543/3628480808_d85aa1ea52_o.jpg


EXIF: Nikon D700, Nikkor 105mm Micro VR, 1/30s, f/11, ISO 200, Auto WB, tripod mount, no flash, natural light(cloudy), late evening. Cropped the lhs to retain prominance of cotton seed.

Appreciate your views.

regards,
ramesh

[Don Lacy]

hi Ramesh, I like your thought process and what your are try achieve with this image I have two suggestions that I think might help better convey your vision. I would recrop it putting the seed head in the lower right corner and giving it more room to travel across the frame to the left upper corner this would create a perceived diagonal line thru the frame also I would either clone out or crop out the out of focus green in the lower right. As is the seed head feels cramped by the composition and the out of focus green is a distraction competing with the subject for attention.

[Julie Kenward]

Hi Ramesh! I understand you were trying to show the cotton seed as it lifted off the leaf but the leaf is so OOF that I think your comp might be stronger without it, as I believe Don is suggesting.

I believe if you had tried a different angle you probably could have gotten more of the leaf in the focal plane along with the seedhead but with the leaf down at the bottom and falling out of the frame, it leaves me feeling like it is unimportant to the image. If that's truly the case, then it needs to go.

You certainly did get some nice detail on the cottonseed, though! Exposure looks good as well.

[Ramesh Adkoli]

Don and Julie, Thank you so much for your detailed analysis and guidance to improve this image. I see your point about the OOF leaf competing with the cotton seed for attention. I agree with you on that. What i could have done was to keep the leaf in focus and clicked when cotton seed entered the focal plane. That is a very good input to keep in mind for the next field trip.

I cropped the leaf completely. Here is the result. Let me know what you think. I tried to clone out the leaf and it left some ugly patches. I need to learn doing that cleanly;-(



http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2597/3712574402_a647e8220c_o.jpg

Thanks again for your inputs. I really appreciate that.

regards,
ramesh

[Julie Kenward]

Ramesh, I really like the recrop although I'd be tempted to take a little off the left side.

If cropping seems messy, try this instead:

Grab the eye dropper and place it on the image closest to the color you want to "paint" with. In some cases you will probably have to choose 2-3 colors and blend them one at a time. Now grab a soft brush and set it to 100% for the first layer of color and 30-70% for the next couple of layers (getting lighter each time). Now swirl the color over the part you want to remove with the brush. Grab another shade of the green and go over the area again, leaving some of the first color showing. If you need to, grab another shade of green and do the whole area again, this time with the lighter opacity and blend, blend, blend! Sometimes this is much easier to remove an unwanted item than to clone.

If you do want to clone it, the procedure is almost the same. Put the source of the clone in an area close to the color you want to achieve and clone at 100%. Now grab another area with a close color and lower the opacity to maybe 70%. Again, you're blending, blending blending one layer with the others and into the surrounding area. Both techniques work well depending on what you need to remove and how many different shades of color are in the area of the removal. All it takes is a little practice!

[Don Lacy]

Ramesh, The repost for me is a stronger image, agree with taking some more off the left.

[Morkel Erasmus]

repost definitely conveys the message better! ditto cropping some off the left, but super thinking and creative photography!

[Ramesh Adkoli]

Thanks, Julie and Don for guiding me through this. It has been a great learning experience for me. Julie, i will try the cloning technique you described above. I really appreciate you taking time to detail it out.

Morkel, thanks a lot for those encouraging words.

regards,
ramesh