Just A Sunflower From My Mother's Garden

[Jack Dean III]

Hello everyone. I am new here and have been posting mostly in ETL. I thought I would give this forum a try. Canon 7d, Canon 100mm f/2.8 lens, hand held, ISO 2000, 1/160 sec.
Processed in Lightroom: cropped, highlights and shadows to the left, clarity up a bit, NR luminance up a bit, changed profile to camera neutral, and I cloned out some black specs around the flower. CC always appreciated.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Nicely composed and exposed, with an image like this I would always recommend using a tripod and optimising conditions eg ISO 100 and f11-f16. the image is just a little lacking in crisp definition I am not sure if your aperture was a little wide or alternatively very small leading to diffraction or may be the focal point was not quite optimal. This sounds rather critical, I think it is a good image but a few minor tweaks would make it great - any chance of a repeat scenario?

[Jack Dean III]

Thanks Jonathan and I don't think it's too critical at all as I am trying my best to learn as much as can. They will be blooming again late next summer and I will give it another shot. For now though I thought it would give me a chance to use the smart sharpen feature in PS CC as I just started teaching myself to use it also. I realize I shouldn't rely on PS to fix my mistakes but for now it will have to do. Once again thank you very much for your response.

[Jonathan Ashton]

Whoa that is better! Don't forget there are plenty of people here who can offer help in a multitude of directions - I look forward to more of your posts!

[John Robinson]

Hi Jack
Yes a definate improvement but maybe a little too "crunchy" now. perhaps try somewhere in between the two. Sometimes a personal view anyway.
There'll soon be plenty of subjects to try out.
Cheers
John

[Diane Miller]

Good to see you here, Jack! A classic subject well seen. Good points above. The details in an image like this can be sublime, but it has to be done in capture, with camera and subject motion absolutely controlled down to the pixel level. Then go to ISO 100 and about f/11 for the best image quality. (You'll get diffraction softening above that with a crop sensor.) Then compare Live View focus to remove any inaccuracy in the autofocus.

Look forward to seeing more!

[Jack Dean III]

Thanks for your input John. I will check and see what it looks like. :)

[Jack Dean III]

Thanks Diane. I can't wait till things start blooming around here to start trying some new stuff. We are supposed to get about 8 inches of snow tonight. :(

[David Cowling]

Interesting subject and I like the way that your eye is drawn into the centre of the image. Good advice given already by some very accomplished practitioners of the art.

[Diane Miller]

Hope you didn't have too much damage from the snow. It sounded photogenic and horrible at the same time.

[Jack Dean III]

The bulk of it hit farther south than expected. We only got about three inches so it wasn't that bad. It's pretty to look at and nice to have every now and then but I don't like driving it. Lol.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Jack, a very pleasing image which could be further improved with a few tweaks. The image does need a little more sharpness, but especially in the capture. The RP looks oversharpened. You didn't state the aperture you used, so I'm still a bit puzzled whether your image suffers from diffraction, or that parts of it are a bit unsharp because of a lack of DOF. The center of the flower looks quite sharp, and since these flowers are large, using a large aperture makes parts of the flower fall outside DOF. On the other hand, using ISO-2000 suggests that you may have used a very small aperture, making the image suffer from diffraction. If you are worried about having too little DOF, you can increase your distance to the flower and crop afterwards. That is a better option than closing down the aperture too far.
I'd also slightly light up the shadowy parts of the flower to get more balance between the darker center and the bright outer leaves.

[Jack Dean III]

Thanks Jerry. I will keep all of this wonderful information in my head the next time I get to try this shot. Sorry for not post the aperture it was f/16.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Jack, that aperture should be fine re. diffraction.

[Bob Allen]

Jack, you are certainly on the right track! I have few comments to add to the excellent advice given here. I highly recommend a tripod and perhaps a Wimberley plamp. The Canon EOS 7D can be a bit noisy with ISO that high, so I suggest reducing ISO to around 400 and experiment. And don't call your posts "Just..." – your subject choice is terrific. ;7) There is plenty of science and art in sunflowers. Note the spiral arrangement of the disk florets and that many have thrust out their style branches while others have not yet done so. I've done this shot many times, with and without native bees that visit them. Keep it up!