Frosty leaf

[Chris Hansen]

Am having some trouble in choosing an F stop for this image. The leaf is supported on the grasses. when I stopped down it had way too much depth of field and the grasses overwhelmed the image. Backing off to wide open left too many areas of the leaf OOF. Combine two images? Any ideas would be appreciated.

Canon 50 D
Phoenix 100 mm macro
ISO 100
Aperature Priority
F3.6 @ 1/100th sec.
Early morning light
Gold reflector used to warm image
Manfrotto tripod and 3055 ballhead

God's light and love to all,

chris

[Julie Kenward]

Well, Chris, where the f-stop is here the leaf looks disconnected from the grass - it doesn't even feel like the grass is supporting the leaf. Me? I'm not so fond of grass bg's for this reason and I rarely use them so I'm not sure I can be of much help here. Perhaps it's the angle or the choice of lens? Maybe a 70-200mm or a wide angle would give you the look you're after?

[Nick Palmieri]

I love the frost. It reminds me of some images I took earlier this fall. I am going to post one now. Not sure of what you getting at but...since the leaf is unattached I would have just placed it against a different BG or moved it to get the effect you want. One of the many things I learned on this forum is to really think about this type of thing prior to pressing the shutter. As long as you are not disturbing nature I don't see a problem with that.

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Chris, Love the frosted look of the leaf and great details. Grass tends to be a very difficult BG to work with, as I've found out myself in my own frosted leaf photos. If you want, you might try blurring and/or darkening the BG a bit to make the leaf stand out more. Jules' suggestion on moving the leaf is a good idea too.