Dahlia

[Anita Bower]

Taken last week at Longwood Gardens.

Nikon D300, Sigma 105mm macro lens, 1/100, f6.3, ISO 800, pattern metering, auto wb, manual exposure, manual focus, tripod, outdoors, natural light; PP: Elements 7, PS7, noise reduction Neat Image.

[Randy Stout]

Anita:

Nice colors and background. My first impression when viewing your image was that it was too busy. In thinking about it, I believe it is all the areas of high contrast, white/red that gives that impression.

Perhaps if the image was framed a bit looser, the flower not so large in the frame, it might lessen that effect.

Just a non macro photographers take on it :)

Cheers

Randy

[Markus Jais]

Beautiful colors and great soft light. I like the composition.

Markus

[Julie Kenward]

Hi Anita! Another garden stunner here. I'm not sure I love the composition but it's different and I give you kudos for that. I think the reason I'm not in love with it is because so much of the FG is OOF. If you had stopped down in aperture and caught the front AND middle of the flower in detail I think that would make a difference to me.

Beautiful colors, though. I might even go in even tighter and fill the whole frame with the flower.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Anita, Compositionally I like how the image is framed. I agree with Julie regarding the OOF foreground. If you shot this at F22 you might have been able to get sharp foreground petals. Sometimes it's good to shoot both ways and see which is preferable.

[Anita Bower]

I appreciate the critiques. I agree that it would look better if the foreground were also in focus I think next time I will try that. Don't know why I didn't.

[Fabs Forns]

I would also try and play with the multiple exposure feature in your D300
It could be a lot of fun. In case you don't know where it is, look in the menu, under the camera (shooting menu) Go backwards so it comes up faster :)
It need to be set every time and you can do up to 8 frames I believe. MAke sure the Autogain is on, in case you decide to change the amount of images.

[Alfred Forns]

I like it as presented Good choice for your focusing point and makes it all pleasing Only the leaves behind are catching my attention a bit !!! Beautiful image !!!!

[Mike Moats]

Hey Anita, agree with the extra DOF on the front petals. Pixels are free so take a few extra shots at various DOF and cover yourself. I like the comp, colors and clean BG.

[Anita Bower]

I appreciate all the comments! This forum is definitely improving my photography. :-)

Fabs: I haven't tried multiple exposures yet. Your encouragement will get me there a little faster. Thanks!

[Desmond Chan]

I think this is stunning. Love the colors and tonal gradation. But do wish for more DOF.