Mountain Lily.

[Dave Johnson]

This was taken in the wild at a local mountain park. Great fun was had rolling around in the mud 1 of about 40 images made from a whole manner of angles and perspectives. Shot on a bright morning in shade. Managed to toast the reds unfortunately...

Shooting info: 60D, tripod, plamp, SS 1/13, F11, ISO 400. Manual exposure and focus.

All C/C welcome. Thanks for looking.


Attachment 118136

[Jonathan Ashton]

I like the composition and I like the receding red dots getting progressively smaller, but I do wish the central (is it an anther?) was sharp. I know it would be very difficult to get everything in focus but I think this is a critical element to the image. I think it is a good idea with images like this to manually focus at different points and try differing apertures. I don't think there is necessarily any one correct version, this just my opinion so don't take it as definitive, you may of course disagree with me and I will respect your view.

[Marina Scarr]

Composition works well, and I like the way you have positioned the center of the flower on the diagonal. I am also liking the speckles of red in the BG. What could really improve this capture is if at least one of the center red buds were sharp. The way it is presented leaves my eyes wondering for a focus point. Good advice from Jon to manually focus on a variety of points to see which one works best later on on the monitor.

[denise ippolito]

Hi Dave, Good suggestions above. I might give it a touch more room on top if it were mine. The colors are lovely and I can see why you chose this one to photograph.

[Dave Johnson]

I like the composition and I like the receding red dots getting progressively smaller, but I do wish the central (is it an anther?) was sharp. I know it would be very difficult to get everything in focus but I think this is a critical element to the image. I think it is a good idea with images like this to manually focus at different points and try differing apertures. I don't think there is necessarily any one correct version, this just my opinion so don't take it as definitive, you may of course disagree with me and I will respect your view.

Thanks for looking Jonathan.

To answer your question.. Yes, I think it's the anther. I agree with you about taking lots of shots with different settings and focus points. This was the best of about 40 I took on the day and it was very difficult to get any two parts in focus at the same time as the flower is about 10cm from stem to tip of the anther. I've since looked at photo stacking which is an option to get everything in focus. Might give it a whirl one day.

Thank you Marina and Denise for your input, much appreciated.

[Dave Leroy]

Lovely looking flower and color combination. red spots in bg are a big plus. My preference is usually to have closest "item" in focus if that is of any help.