Blanketflowers

I was having a particularly uneventful day at the Pelican Island NWR this summer and
began shooting some flowers and spiders. I found this little group of blanketflowers.
Taken with Mark1 DSII 100 2.8 macro at 1/400 F4.5 and ISO 400.

Cropped to vertical, added noise reduction and some vibrance.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4057/...f20f3980_o.jpg

Garry, I think you have a good starting point with this image but I think I can offer a few tips on how to make it better next time.

First, when doing a field of flowers as this image demonstrates angle is very important. See how the front flower towards the right side partially hides one sea thistle and a second blanket flower? If you had moved to the left a few steps you might have been able to get all the flowers in the frame without cutting off the view of some of them. I know - seems highly unlikely - but always move around and see which view is best. Also, see how you're looking down on the flowers? This produces the bottom of the frame to be dark and underexposed. If you had lowered your body so it was more even with the majority of the flowers (or slightly above) you would have a background (BG) of plants where some light might possibly be filtering through.

I also feel your image is underexposed. If you look at your histogram you'll see that the majority of the pixels are right up against the left side. I think with a shutter speed of 1/400th, you had room to open it up another stop or two to get some more light in (unless it was extremely windy that day.) Remember that it's always easier to darken an image that's a little bright than it is to wrestle with all the noise that an underexposed image presents.

Last, because the sea thistle is so light in color compared to the blanketflower, I probably would have gone after a single blossom and a super shallow DOF here to minimize the high tones of the thistle plants.

Hey Gary, if you you were after an environmental image I think you did fine, but as an artisitic image it's a little to busy. I agree with Jules on moving the angle a bit, as I don't care for the stem disecting the flowers in the BG.

Thank you both so much for the information. It is really valuable.
To be honest I was just snapping away without much thought
except to make sure my exposure was reasonably good.

Now as I look at it, I can see how it could be improved.

thanks again for the kind advice, it is always appreciated.

GG