Here's another in a series of my moth orchids. Don't know about this square format. Somehow I got here not sure why. Natural window light with Photoflex diffusers for better color. Cropped 30% horizontally.
Canon 5D Mk 11, Sigma 180 mm APO HSM EX f/3.5 macro lens and Bogen tripod. My exposure was 1.3 secs. @ f/13.0 ISO 400.
DPP 3.8
PS/CS4
FocalBlade
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Charlie Wesley
St Augustine Beach, FL http://naturesphotographs.com
Last edited by Charles Wesley; 03-30-2010 at 06:09 PM.
I like the square format. Colors and light are great and the black BG also works very well here. I might try to clone out the other blossom as I think it is a little distracting and too close to the left border.
Charles, I love the balance that the other blossom brings but it does need a tad more room on that side. The depth of colors in your orchid are beautiful. So glad they pulled through and decided to bloom!
Thanks so much for your helpful critiques. Let me know if this repost is better...
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Charlie Wesley
St Augustine Beach, FL http://naturesphotographs.com
Hey Charlie, I love these flowers and you do a fantastic job of capturing them!
You might try adding a bit more canvas on the left and taking a bit off the right, keeping it square. Also that cool yellow stuff on the inside looks a bit lost to me. I just tried lightening up that area and giving it a contrast boost and thought it looked pretty good. :)
Hi Charles, agree with Ken on this one (including the compliments!). I'm not sure what to admire more: your skills to breed or to photograph these beautiful orchids.
Thanks for your comments. Ken one difficulty with photographing orchids is their complex structures. I tried to brighten up the lip area of this orchid in SH to get better yellows. I think I need Viveza2. Want something that's fairly quick. Do you use it?
Jerry, I've learned from our local society: St Augustine Orchid Society how to grow them. Should do much better with orchids than I do. They need loads of time. I rather be photographing more although I love orchids...
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Charlie Wesley
St Augustine Beach, FL
Hey Charlie, I've used Viveza and it works well but I did my edit with a quick mask. Mask the area you want to work on, inverse the selection, create a new layer with just that selection (ctrl + j) and make your changes.
Thanks for the help. Apparently, I need to do more quick masks. Did you just do a brightness/ contrast adjustment or something else? When I used the trial Viveza software, I was amazed at how quickly my photos could be more balanced.
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Charlie Wesley
St Augustine Beach, FL
Just brightness and contrast but I was just doing a quick edit as a proof of concept. I might have tried other things if I'd been working on the original. Viveza does a great job and I use it but there are times I prefer to do the adjustments manually.
I'd never done much with quick masks until recently and I've been forcing myself to use them more and more.
What a gorgeous orchid!!! I like your latest post. Love the white edge against the black. Fabulous colors and sharpness.
I don't grow orchids, but I do grow other flowers. It is a challenge to find enought time to both grow flowers and to photograph them. :)
Thanks for your comments. I agree with the difficulty of both growing and photographing one's flowers. Just am starting to plant new flowers at our house . We lost some this past winter. It was actually cold at times. Am placing more plants in pots so they can be brought in next winter.
The problem with orchids is the best growers only have 10% in bloom at anyone time....
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Charlie Wesley
St Augustine Beach, FL
Good Morning Phalaenopsis
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