Early Morning Dew

[Christopher Miller]

Got up early one morning and photographed these dewdrops on a grass blade. Took me a lot of work to get the tones the way I wanted and to find a pleasing crop. Would definitely like your opinions on those two points as well as anything else you notice.

Olympus SP-550 UZ
f4.5 @ 1/125, ISO 100, -0.3 EV
Aperture priority mode, pattern metering
Processed in PS CS2; cropped, curves adjustments, channel mixer, several hue/saturation layers, two color fill layers, and some noise reduction and a little cloning on the BG

[Dave Mills]

Hi Christopher, First off I like the sepia tone to the image. The water drops on the leaf is a nice touch but for my taste would have liked to have seen more in focus. Your DOF was rather limited using F4.5. It is a matter of taste though. I would have preferred less spectoral highlights in the backround since I find them a bit distracting.
I like your choice of subject matter and have found the simpler the subject the stronger the image...

[Julie Kenward]

Hey Christopher...beautiful sepia as Dave mentioned but I, too, find the focus a bit lacking. I'd rather the dew drops going down the front of the frame were in focus rather than the ones on the bend...but it is a personal preference. I think your composition is quite nice - I just would have lowered the angle a bit more and aimed for the lower part of the plant instead because there is more area there on the limited focal plane - you would have maximized your DOF and had more of the image in focus.

[Christopher Miller]

Thanks Dave and Julie. I'll remember your suggestions for next time.