2 + 1

[Desmond Chan]

300f4 + D700 hand-held. ISO 1600 f16 1/400s.

Cloned out a stem and a brighter spot in the background. Also applied Color-contrast of Nik and selectively darkened some areas.


Comments welcome and appreciated !!

Thank you for looking !!!!! :)

[kostas nianiopoulos]

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/9012/repost.jpg

Hi Desmond , Nice wild flowers , here is an option of me . i have take out the red flower with crop , then i have give a rotare CW and i have sharpen the (down stairs ) flower with hi pass filter method .

Please if u don't like it , don't kill me :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Desmond,
The red flower is getting me too.....but I do think you can possibly save it. As presented.....the darkness of the red one is just drawing too much attention.....I think that is why Kostas went for the crop. I think if you bring that up......only the bloom....that will help a ton!.....now the sharpness on the red one is another issue.....looking at the specs......looks like a decent amount of DOF at that distance.....so perhaps another round of USM. I like how you darkened some areas to draw attention to the blooms......a few tweaks will help take this one up a notch.

[Desmond Chan]

Wow, wow ! Before anyone wants to crop the red flower out, I think I'd better say something.

If I simply wanted to have the two flowers in this photo, I would have just included them in the photo. And I would not have titled it "2+1". Sorry Kostos. That's a too easy way out ;):p

If the red flower gets to you, that's the intention. Hehe...


Anyhow, thank you guys for the comments guys !!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Desmond,
Did you want the sharpness fall off there on the red one? The center of the red bloom is now like a black hole......drawing interest only to that area. I want to enjoy the whole scene. Let's see what others chime in.

[Desmond Chan]

Hey Desmond,
Did you want the sharpness fall off there on the red one?

Yes. I didn't focus on the red one. I have other with focus on the red one though but only that one. I never meant to have them all in focus and it wasn't easy to do in the first place. I believed the red flower, although not in focus, would still draw the vieiwer's attention because of its size, its color and its proximity to the other two flowers even without it in focus. My intention was to make a photo of a group of flowers. Now apparently as is it may not work for other people :o


The center of the red bloom is now like a black hole.....I have thought about that one, too. That can be fixed.

On my monitor the whole pic in PS 4 looks brighter and so...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Yep.....wouldn't doubt it Desmond.....many times I pull the flower into PS it looks brighter! I personally would have preferred a bit more sharpness on the red one....and actually at f16, I'm surprised you didn't get it at that focal length! Did you run NR on it because of ISO 1600? That may be the culprit as it tend to effects the darker areas more than the lighter ones!

[Nick Palmieri]

Got to go with the three...Two subjects causes the eye to bounce back and forth, the rule of odd numbers usually works... I would vote to dodge and locally sharpen the center of the red flower a bit. I may also consider a dark vignette border around the entire image, as I am slightly bothered by the darkness on the right and the lighter leaves along the other borders. TFS

[Desmond Chan]

I personally would have preferred a bit more sharpness on the red one....and actually at f16, I'm surprised you didn't get it at that focal length!

The 300f4 focuses down to 5 ft; I shot this withing 10 ft, I think. With f16, didn't really have enough DOF to cover all of them especially when they're not all on the same plane. A shorter focal length lens may do. 300f4 doesn't have VR and so I had to keep an eye on the shutter speed (didn't have a tripod with me). And I wanted the background leaves out of focus.


Did you run NR on it because of ISO 1600? No NR. D700 doesn't need NR for ISO 1600 shots :) especially of this size for web viewing (I have even posted one shot taken at around 08:30pm at ISO 4000 on ETL with no NR before). I can certainly brighten up some of the darker areas if needed.

[Desmond Chan]

Got to go with the three...Two subjects causes the eye to bounce back and forth, the rule of odd numbers usually works... I would vote to dodge and locally sharpen the center of the red flower a bit. I may also consider a dark vignette border around the entire image, as I am slightly bothered by the darkness on the right and the lighter leaves along the other borders. TFS

Thanks Nick !

[Anita Bower]

From what you write, the image as presented fulfills your intention in taking the photo. However, it does feel a bit unbalanced to me, even though it contains three flowers. I don't mind having 2 flowers, as in Kostas' crop, but that isn't what you wanted. The red flower is problematic because it is larger, placed high in the frame and not fully focused--so it draws attention in a disturbing way. I think it would work better for me if the red flower were lower and in focus. Brightening up the entire image would also help. Nice details in the yellow flowers and good job darkening the surrounding areas.