Elephant Head

[Nancy Bell]

This is just one bloom on a tall, spiky flower stalk covered with a whole herd of tiny elephant heads. These flowers really like wet conditions and waterproof pants certainly make life more comfortable :S3:.

Canon 1D-Mark IV, Canon 100 f2.8 macro, 1/1250, f5.6, exp.comp. -2/3, ISO 800, tripod.

My thinking was to use 1/1250 because there was a breeze and f5.6 because I wanted the bkgd OOF. But now that I look at this maybe I should have moved both settings more towards the middle to get more DOF and still have bkgd OOF.

C & C most appreciated.

[Adrian David]

Very interesting flower, and the resemblance with the an elephant head is really great. You could remove some dust spots on the "head".

[Nancy Bell]

I can certainly remove those spots but I believe they are bits of glistening moisture or pollen stuff.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Nancy. Well seen and photographed - this really does look like an elephant head. I would wish for a little more sharpness on the "ears", but increasing the DOF might make the rest of the background too busy. Experimenting with some different camera settings in the field would give you some alternatives to pick from. Shooting at f/8 would likely still give you a fast enough ss to stop motion caused by the wind. :S3: Well done.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Nancy,
Very well seen indeed! Excellent in the field suggestions by Steve above and i will give you one more as well as a few you may want to try in PP'ing. I do think a diffuser would have helped even more int eh field.....evening out the light and eliminating the brightest distraction. That said.....in PP'ing.....I think toning down some of the brightest areas and those not associated with the elephants head will go a long way in improving this. Lightening the shadow on the near ear a few points will also help IMO. I think some tweaking in PP'ing will take this up a notch and just keep the int the field suggestions on your mind for the next trip out!

[OvidiuCavasdan]

Well seen and composed. Nice colors and very good BG. I like it.

[Nancy Bell]

Thank you all very much for the helpful suggestions. I will print them and experiment.