Woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca)

[Jerry van Dijk]

These woodland strawberries (Fragaria vesca) are easily confused with the commercial strawberry varieties we normally eat when they are in flower. Their fruits, however, are much smaller and have a much more intensive taste. Not everyones cup of tea. They grow happily in my backyard, where this image was taken.
I was caught between a rock and a hard place in balancing DOF and sufficiently blurring the grass in the BG which was quite close. It was my intention to "echo" the flowers in the OOF FG. C&C welcome!

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 200mm f/4D ED-IF AF, handheld, ISO-400, f/6.3, 1/1000 sec, EV -1, RAW.
ACR 6.4/CS5 sharpness, NR, clarity, vibrance/USM. Full-frame image.

[Steve Maxson]

Hi Jerry. I like what you are trying to do with this image - under difficult circumstances - and the low shooting angle. The image would work better for me if the center of the main flower and more of the stem was sharp - maybe f/8 would have done it - but I can appreciate that a higher f/stop would also be bringing up unwanted background detail in this situation. Maybe plucking out some of the grass stems directly behind the flowers would allow you to increase f/stop and still have an acceptable OOF background. You might consider cloning the bright object at the bottom just to the left of the main stem and also toning down the bright area in the URC. :S3:

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Steve, all very good suggestions!

[Ken Childs]

Jerry, I like what you were trying to accomplish and if the center of the main flower had been sharp, I think this would have looked great! I agree that removing the bright object at the bottom left of the main stem would be a good idea but the rest of the BG looks fine to me. I really like that you got a relatively clean area behind the main flower and the buds on each side of it.