Water droplets on leaf

[Jonathan Ashton]

Canon 50D, canon 180mm macro & polariser filter Tripod, ISO 100 1/30 sec f10

I was photographing bluebells then I noticed these water droplets and I recalled the recent posts of off centred leaves. The colours were very much muted so I increased the vibrance significantly.

All comments welcome.

[Julie Kenward]

Nice job not overexposing the droplets, Jonathan! I like the composition here - that larger colorful drop really acts as an anchor for the image and you managed to get almost all of the drops in perfect focus.

I think in this case you might have tried pushing the ISO up to 400 or so - giving you more room to increase your DOF so the droplets and leaf at the bottom of the frame were more in focus.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Thanks Julie - you are of course quite right and now you have said it I wish I had used the smaller aperture. Same old story - it seems obvious now so why didn't I think of it then? One day........ I guess I'll put it down to having a senior moment!:)

[Ken Childs]

Very nice radiating pattern. As you already know, having the bottom in focus would have put this over the top. Isn't hindsight great! ;)

[Cheryl Flory]

I like the image cropping off the bottom 1/3, just to the point where the lines converge. that way all drops are in focus, too.

why does increase the ISO to 400 increase your depth of field?

[Julie Kenward]

Cheryl, it allows you more room to increase your aperture. He was at ISO 100 and only able to get to f10 at 1/30th of a second. With ISO 400 he could have stopped down a few more f-stops or increased his shutter speed a bit more - his choice. Most good cameras will let you get to ISO 400 before they really start to increase noise so it's fairly safe to increase the ISO to that level allowing you to stop down the aperture and get a little more depth of field.

[Christopher Miller]

Hi Johnathon, Very nice composition with the lines radiating from the large drop. Nice sharpness in the top drops, I just wish all the drops in the image were that way. I have those kinds of moments myself, and I'm not even a senior! ;)

[Anita Bower]

I agree wtih all the comments above. The water drops in the upper 2/3 are marvelous!!

[Juan Carlos Vindas]

Very nice composition here. I agree with Jules about a higher ISO in order to get more dof.