Orchid

[escaladieu]

Trying to get into flower photography - unsurprisingly its more difficult than I thought ... here's one of the better ones ... Comments welcome. D700 Nikkor 24-120 @F4. Shot in my lounge with window light.

[Bobobird]

Beautiful...

[Geoff F]

Yes, it works well.

I'm coming to the same conclusion that the most effective method for plants is to take them indoors and shoot with mostly natural light on a tripod and with slow shutter speed when necessary.

Using 'proper' lighting may work well under these conditions if you have the kit; but otherwise, good window light seems to give an outdoor feeling to the shots but without a lot of the variables.

[Ludwig]

Lighting is superb. I would like to see a closer view of just one or two of the blossoms. The one on the left makes a great photo all by itself. The center one is just a tad behind the field of focus. The right one shows beautiful texture in the leaves, but the center part is a bit dark. Three great pictures here!

[Loose Canon]

Beautiful shot, Jeff. No doubt.

Would it make any sense to maybe clone to black the bit of light peering through on the upper left corner that extends down to the flower such that you have an even, black background? I was just thinking how nice this would look in print and wondered if that might distract.

And maybe a bit of cloning in the lower right corner to lose that little spectral (or whatever it is) and maybe the leaf?

[escaladieu]

Yes, it works well.

I'm coming to the same conclusion that the most effective method for plants is to take them indoors and shoot with mostly natural light on a tripod and with slow shutter speed when necessary.

Using 'proper' lighting may work well under these conditions if you have the kit; but otherwise, good window light seems to give an outdoor feeling to the shots but without a lot of the variables.

Yes, the wind being the major issue. I'm going to work on this technique more, using reflectors for fill light. Thanks for the response.

J

[escaladieu]

Lighting is superb. I would like to see a closer view of just one or two of the blossoms. The one on the left makes a great photo all by itself. The center one is just a tad behind the field of focus. The right one shows beautiful texture in the leaves, but the center part is a bit dark. Three great pictures here!

Thanks I'll have a go at the cropping, didn't occur to me to try that - thanks for the response.

J

[escaladieu]

Beautiful shot, Jeff. No doubt.

Would it make any sense to maybe clone to black the bit of light peering through on the upper left corner that extends down to the flower such that you have an even, black background? I was just thinking how nice this would look in print and wondered if that might distract.

And maybe a bit of cloning in the lower right corner to lose that little spectral (or whatever it is) and maybe the leaf?

Good input, I'm coming to the conclusion that my attention to detail (or rather lack of it ) is holding back some of my images, I'll do some PP and repost.

Thanks for the idea !

J