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Norm Dulak
04-27-2011, 08:53 AM
Nikon D7000 w/AF-S Nikkor 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 vrII lens @ 105mm, hand held
ISO Equivalent 640; f/11, 1/200sec; Matrix Metering -0.33
PP: Mild PS CS5 ACR Luminance noise reduction; levels, curves & SH
Modest crop and smart sharpen

The outdoor gardens at Longwood are now ablaze with color. I thought I'd share this Columbine photographed yesterday and would appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you may have for improvement!

Norm

Mitch Haimov
04-27-2011, 11:40 PM
Your subject looks great, Norm. Very nice bloom in excellent condition and with plenty of detail. Nice placement of the subject within the frame, but why clip the tip of one petal? My feeling is include the whole thing or cut it closer to the white petals. I also think gently bending the stem with the closed flower out of the frame before making your exposure would have enhanced this image both by removing a competing element and by not impinging on one of the petals: one perfect columbine in a sea of green...

Would like to see more of your work in this forum.

Adrian David
04-28-2011, 03:29 PM
Nice flower and good color rendition.I find a bit distracting the bud on the left side and the BG. You should try to get a better separation of the subject from the BG, by choosing a flower that is far away from the leaves in the BG, or by bending the leaves to get them out of the frame, or by changing the angle of shooting...

Mitch Haimov
04-28-2011, 08:34 PM
Okay, I am re-looking at this post on my normal computer and now see that you did not clip the right petal. Last night I was using a lousy laptop that cropped the right side without giving me a scroll bar to let me know... Sorry for the inaccurate and presumably confusing comment! :e3 I like this image better now that I see the whole thing.

Regarding the BG and Adrian's comment: In general, I too prefer very OOF BGs for this type of image. And that certainly would have worked well here. But I do also like your BG as is in this case. Makes it a different type of image--I guess you would call it an environmental portrait showing the Columbine and it's environment. That said, I still think that it would be stronger if you had moved the spent bloom (and its stalk & leaves) out of the frame, as well as the nearly horizontal stalk at LR.

Norm Dulak
04-29-2011, 05:44 AM
Thanks everyone for the comments!

Steve Maxson
04-29-2011, 02:13 PM
Hi Norm. Some interesting comments above - and they would produce some very nice, but different, images. I'll come at this from a slightly different direction :S3: - I like that the image shows a full flower, a bud ready to open, and a bud that is just forming - and that you have excellent sharpness on the flower and larger bud. I like the "environmental" look here, though I would wish that the one petal tip wasn't covered by the leaf. A lot of this comes down to personal taste and how you want to use the image. :S3:Overall, this is well done.

Norm Dulak
04-29-2011, 04:35 PM
Hi Norm. Some interesting comments above - and they would produce some very nice, but different, images. I'll come at this from a slightly different direction :S3: - I like that the image shows a full flower, a bud ready to open, and a bud that is just forming - and that you have excellent sharpness on the flower and larger bud. I like the "environmental" look here, though I would wish that the one petal tip wasn't covered by the leaf. A lot of this comes down to personal taste and how you want to use the image. :S3:Overall, this is well done.

Thanks Steve.

I agree with you that I should have preserved that one petal tip! If I had been more careful, I would have pulled it over that adjacent leaf before capturing the image! :e3 And I also favor preserving the environment.

Ken Childs
05-04-2011, 07:57 AM
Hey Norm,

This is a very cool looking flower and it looks like you did a good job with lighting and exposure. Since was done at Longwood, I know your options are limited but it would have been nice if you could have moved the stem and leaf that's blocking the one petal and taken a small step to the left, allowing the yellow to have nothing but white behind it.

Norm Dulak
05-04-2011, 08:43 AM
Hey Norm,

This is a very cool looking flower and it looks like you did a good job with lighting and exposure. Since was done at Longwood, I know your options are limited but it would have been nice if you could have moved the stem and leaf that's blocking the one petal and taken a small step to the left, allowing the yellow to have nothing but white behind it.

Thanks Ken. As always, your comments are much appreciated. And it's really good to have you back after the devastating storms that hit your area.