California Poppy

[Aidan Briggs]

The poppies are back. I am looking forward to spending some more time with them in the future, but for now, here is one of the early-bloomers. I experimented with more DOF, but liked this best.

This poppy has a few surface imperfections, but I chose to leave them in for the time being.

50D, 60m macro
1/60 sec, f/3.2, ISO 400
Tripod, small crop

[Anita Bower]

gorgeaos curves and colors. the imperfections are bothering me. something isn't quite right, but i don't know what. :)

[Ken Childs]

When I lived in SoCal, I used to love it when these and the Lupines were blooming. Fields of orange or purple!

I love the colors but besides those imperfections that really need to be cloned away, the main area of focus is too close to the center, IMHO. If you have more canvas, you might try to move that area towards one of the ROT positions.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Aidan,
I agree about the imperfections and Ken brings up a great point about the focus point.....perhaps offset will help strengthen this and perhaps a hair of canvas at the bottom.

[denise ippolito]

Aidan, Nice to see you shooting Poppies again. I like the interesting crop and agree about the imperfections. Looking forward to more of your Poppies.

[Julie Kenward]

Lovely color, Aidan! I like a good tight crop but this feels off balance to me. I'm with some of the others that I'd add a touch more room at least on the bottom and then try to get that focal point into a ROT's position. I'm also bothered by the imperfections - not because they ARE imperfections but because they are white (lighter) than the other colors; hence, drawing my eye away from the sweep of gorgous orange color.