hakias from our garden

[ucci]

Our hakias are in flower at the moment. So, in response to a request from me, the head gardener in charge of these matters, aka Mrs ucci, cut a couple for me. These were actually the second string choice. Apparently Bruno the sheep was helping with the pruning and managed to eat the best subject before it could be 'harvested' for a photo! Damned animal!
Taken with a Canon EOS 1000D and an EFS 18 -55mm kit lens, and I did as the gurus demand and used a tripod. Had a bit, well heaps actually, of help from PS also. Used some of techniques generously shared by the knowledgeable experts on this site.
ucci

[jiro]

Wow, Ken. That was a big jump in improvement on your shots both in composition and post-processing. I am most delighted with the results. Very, very nicely done, bruddah.

[Shambhala]

Beautiful! I have never seen this kind of flower before! A tripod.. Hmmm I have one of those maybe I should start using one.

[ucci]

Wow, Ken. That was a big jump in improvement on your shots both in composition and post-processing. I am most delighted with the results. Very, very nicely done, bruddah.

Thank you for viewing and your encouragement. If I have manged to improve it is in no small way to the generous help and advice I have received from you. For which I am most grateful and thank you very much.
warmest regards
Ken

[ucci]

Hi Shannon
Thanks for viewing. Hakias are an ozzie shrub. Hardy and good wind breaks. As for the tripod? Be lost without it. The few hand held shots I took without it were like looking at a 3D picture without wearing the special glasses!
Ken

[Shambhala]

LOL @ "like looking at a 3D picture without wearing the special glasses" Thanks for telling me the name, Hakias, I can't believe that is a shrub.!! It's so pretty. I love seeing all the things I don't normally see up here in Canada. It's like travelling from my couch. Can't wait to see more of your pictures!

[rob marshall]

Ken

#1 is a very good shot, and a very interesting flower. It does look a little blown on the highlights on my monitor. I put it in the CS5 RAW editor and using ALT I had to move the 'recovery' slider about 2/3 of the the way across to get the screen black (remove blown areas). This is what it looks like with recovery. The background in #1 looks better than #2, as it's all black, and that makes the flower stand out more. Did you use art board for #2? It can reflect light sometimes.

[rob marshall]

Another thing you need to watch is dust. There's quite a bit on the right side of the shot. I often spend ages tidying up stuff like that with a Wacom pen. Very sad. It doesn't show all that much on-line, but if you print out shots like these you will see it straight away.

[ucci]

[QUOTE=rob marshall;114297]Another thing you need to watch is dust. There's quite a bit on the right side of the shot. I often spend ages tidying up stuff like that with a Wacom pen. Very sad. It doesn't show all that much on-line, but if you print out shots like these you will see it straight away.

Hi Rob
Thanks for your helpful feedback comments. The dust comment was of particular interest. At the moment I just save to disk and am not printing so would not pick this up. However one day I might wish to do so. And I gave my wacom tablet away to a Mate when I went to a Mac as it was incompatible. My boss ( aka Mrs Ucci) keeps telling me to get one. But that means a 200km round trip to Melbourne. Which is no big deal except that I detest big cities with a passion! As for your upgrade, to be honest I could not detect a difference following significant recovery application. This of course is highly indicative of my failing eyesight and my monitor which quite possibly requires calibration. ( I had Mrs ucci read this just to check it was not litiginous or gratuitously offensive. God love her, she offered to clean my goggles!) However your point about this is taken and I will work on it.
And the backing was a bit of improvisation. Just an old bit ofA4 sized black cardboard which was to hand.
Many thanks for your help
Ken