Early Morning Day Lilly

[Mark Rayner]

Couldn't resist the light when I spotted this today :D

I had the 70-200 with 2x tele-convertor on as I was actually out after some birds but it did the job.

Shot almost directly into the sun.

D3
70-200 f/2.8 VR with TC-20E II
Effective focal length 320mm
1/1000s @ f/8
ISO 500

83330

[Jay Sheinfield]

Hey Mark,

It's a beauty! Nice warm colors, sharp where it needs to be, and well placed in the frame. Love the Bokeh on that lens.................If it were mine I would blend in the left OOF highlight circle and maybe clone a few of the stragglers in the LLC. But, it's your image :). Well done!

Second thought, you may want to lighten up the stamen, since they have great detail and color......

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Mark,
Never been a big fan of highlight circles.....but the right side ones don't bother me as much as the left one......becuase it draws my eye away from the beautiful daylily. I do like Jay's suggestion of lightening just the stamen a touch but do wonder if you could have gotten a touch lower to eliminate the other bloom at the bottom of the frame and better isolate the main one? Just some ideas to keep in mind for in the field but nice job adapting the equipment to look at the other wonderful subjects around us!

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Mark. Beautiful colors! You have some good comments from Jay and Roman to consider. I, too, find the OOF circle on left to be distracting as well and some of the elements in the LLC. Some PS work, as suggested above, and maybe cropping a little from the left and bottom to place more emphasis on the main bloom would really make this image shine! :)

[Mark Rayner]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions folks. Here is another version with a few of the suggestions applied :D

83479

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Mark. I think your repost is a big improvement! A couple very small tweaks could make it even better. I would add just a bit of room at the bottom such that the petal is not touching the frame and, for my taste, I would also add a little more room at the top. :)

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Mark,
Here is what I had in mind with the suggestions.....I did go tighter on the crop but wanted to at least show you what cleaning up the bottom can look like and smoothing some of the BG. I also lightened the stamen a touch and did an overall LCE of 20/25/0 for a bit of final pop. I would still be tempted to make the dark band up top a little less pronounced......but this will give you a few more ideas to try for yourself. Let me knwo your thoughts.

[Anita Bower]

Wonderful light and color. I'm a fan of bokeh, so the left one doesn't bother me much. I think Roman's repost and suggestions are good, except that I would keep the image as a horizontal and include the lovely bokeh and colors on the right. Looking forward to more Images from you!

[Mark Rayner]

Thanks again folks. I really appreciate the feedback and suggestions.

Personally, I prefer the landscape version. Thanks Roman, but I'm with you Anita. I think the key elements that make the photo for me are the the backlit flower and the lovely early morning warm light of the background bokeh. I think too much of that is lost in the portrait crop.
When I look back at the first post I realise that the flower composition was leading us into the image and across to that golden light and softness. My cropped version actually lost some of that, to the photos detriment, so I guess for me the ideal result (with a little more work) would be to leave the entire rhs of the image and tidy up the messy bits around the base of the flower as per Roman's example.

[Roman Kurywczak]

No problem Mark,
I think the landscape version with the clean up will work too!

[Anita Bower]

Yes, I agree with your conclusion, Mark.