Spring is almost here. Time to dig out the macro lens

[Michael Lloyd]

I found this tiny flower in my yard last week.

EOS1DsMK3 manual
MP-E65mm @ about 2x
All mounted on an RRS TP-243 ground-level tripod, Arca Swiss ballhead, and an RRS macro rail assembly.

ISO 100
1/60s @ f16.0

90121

[Norm Dulak]

I'm afraid that this doesn't do much for me. While the subject certainly has possibilities, too much is out of focus for my taste. I also wish that the upper right bud had not been cut off, and that the distracting fiber projecting from the left side of that structure had been cloned out.
If you can eliminate some of these problems, I think the result would be better. :cheers:

[Ken Childs]

Hey Michael, Henbit is generally one of the first wildflowers you'll find when it starts to warm up. Spring can't be far off now! :S3:

These flowers tend to grow in all different directions so it's hard to get a decent shot of multiple flowers. This is why I usually remove all but the best looking bloom. I think if you had removed the 2 blooms and the 1 bud behind the center flower, you would have had a better looking composition. I don't mind shallow DOF on this flower as long as there aren't other, slightly OOF blooms in the shot. Definitely clone out the hair/web and if you have the raw file, try taking down the exposure just a bit. The whites look to be overexposed. These should be around for awhile so definitely take another shot at this tiny but beautiful flower. :S3:

[Anita Bower]

You did a nice job getting the little hairs on that main flower sharp. The colors of this flower are nice. I believe this is a tiny flower and challenging to photograph.

Some good suggestions have been made by Norm and Ken. I would like to see either everything more sharply focused, or everything except the front flower in focus, or parts of the front flower, with the rest creating a lovely blurred background. I would probably prefer the later. I don't know how one achieves that with flash, as I don't use flash. I'm wondering if photographing this without a flash, using natural light and focusing on the main flower would give more pleasing result.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Michael. It's always good to see another MP-E user. :S3: These flowers must be really tiny if you can fit 3 of them in at 2X! There are some good suggestions above for you to consider. I think Ken's idea about removing all but 1 blossom has merit - and then moving in even tighter on that blossom. The OOF blossoms are pulling my eye away from the central flower. I hope you get a chance to try some more images of these before they're done blooming.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Michael,
Ken covered my thoughts well and Steve's addition of focusing on just the 1 bloom would also work. These are tiny Hope you get plenty of opportunities to try a few more comps and use the macro!

[Michael Lloyd]

Thanks everyone. I sometimes forget that this is a Macro AND Flora forum so I have a hard time with "wanting to see more in focus" when I shot the image with an MP-E65 at 2x and f16 :5 There isn't a more switch on that lens :t3 In the macro world decent depth of field is a luxury that seldom occurs :S3:

Pulling blossoms off- As ridiculous as it sounds I always have a hard time modifying nature for the sake of a photograph. However, in this case I think my hearing has declined enough that I won't hear the poor little flowers scream when I pluck them in preparation for trying to create a better image. :c3:

Anita- The flash didn't fire so the shot was made in natural light... unless I looked at the wrong file exif.

Steve- It's a pink dot to my eye... They had MP-E65 written all over them (only visible at 5x)

Ken- the whites are fine in the raw file but I've noticed that during the conversion to jpg that whites on the border of over exposed will "fall over" to over exposed. I assume that it's due to bit compression? It's definitely a hazard of having to post small. In short- I agree that they are blown in the above image... but in the "real world" of the raw file they are fine. Which of course means that I can create a better jpg with a little tweak to the exposure slider

Roman! Good to "see" you man. I'll give it another shot soon (pun intended)