Oxalis Flowers

[Richard Lovison]

© reserved 2009, Richard Lovison

Another experiment with Helicon Focus with what I feel is a slightly weird composition. Not sure if it works. I think I'm about experimented out. :)

Camera Info:
Olympus E-3; Vivitar Series 1 Flat Field Zoom @ 180mm macro;5 exposures at 1/6 sec at f11; ISO 100; manual exposure; manual focus; tripod

RAW Conversion:
Olympus Studio 2 software; 6000K -1 tint; contrast 0; saturation 0; sharpening off; aRGB color space

CS2 Info:
5 images merged in Helicon Focus using A method; slight crop; curves adjustment; saturation increase; slight crop; sharpening; conversion to sRGB

[Julie Kenward]

Richard I think the flowers and comp are beautiful but I'm a little worried about the deep tones in the bud..it's really pulling my eye away from the flowers. Maybe lighten it or blur it just a tad more?

I love this "lightbox" look...you did an excellent job getting a beautiful high-key yet soft look.

[denise ippolito]

Richard, I looked at this earlier and couldn't put my finger on it as I love the composition and the light feel to it-Jules hit it on the head! I do like this image alot!! But the darker flower pulls my eye. But that stem crossing-I love it!!

[Richard Lovison]

Better? While composing I kind of wished the bud wasn't there. But then I thought it might somehow balance the image. Hopefully it helped by making the bud lighter.


© reserved 2009, Richard Lovison

[Kaushik Balakumar]

It has a water colour kind of a feel.
Richard, I liked both your versions. Very finely composed image. If it were mine, I would perhaps try to keep the BG pure white instead of slight pink tinge that I see now. But this is purely subjective :)

[Bruce Murden]

Richard, I like where you're going here. I'm really drawn to the lower bloom and would love some macro work with this same lighting. I'm with Kaushik on a white BG for my taste, and wonder if the bud would also work better in focus, to complete the plant. I think it does balance, as you hoped. Good flow on the blooms and stem!

[Richard Lovison]

Richard, I like where you're going here. I'm really drawn to the lower bloom and would love some macro work with this same lighting.

Bruce,

I'm not sure if you meant that you wish to use this same type of lighting in your own work or you would like to see just the lower bloom in this type of light. If the former, what I did wasn't difficult. The light was just outside light (in this case it was overcast) coming through a patio door that back lit the subject. I have three pastel colors to choose from for the background depending on the angle of my camera. One angle gives me the brownish-red deck railing color as a background, another a light yellowish color which I believe the neighbors house is responsible for and the last gives me a green from an out of focus pine tree. LOL, nature's studio environment.

I'm with Kaushik on a white BG for my taste, and wonder if the bud would also work better in focus, to complete the plant.

I think if I tried to keep the bud in focus I would have quite a few nasty artifacts as I would be dealing with a huge depth of field. The image that would give me the bud in sharp focus would also throw the front petals way out of focus greatly expanding their edges. This creates problems in the merge where in the past I got huge halos around edges and other artifacts. Maybe there are settings within the program that can prevent this though I haven't discovered how.

[Anita Bower]

LOVE the delicate colors and translucent petals! Gorgeous composition. I like the bud and how it crosses the stem, giving some punch to this soft composition. The out of focus bud works for me, as does the pale yellow BG. This image touched me the minute I saw it. Just BEAUTIFUL.