And now for something completely different

[ST1]

I thought you may be getting cheesed off with Glen Etive. So meet Henrietta the Hibiscus. This is the output jpg from a set of ninety one stacked images all taken at f2.8 then stacked using Zerene Stacker.

Ninety one images I hear you shriek! well it was another wet day and I had time on my hands.

[Ken Curtis]

Hi Peter. The flower and leaves closest to the camera are crystal clear and you have certainly shown us a lot of detail that many flower photos do not have. The choice of colors is pleasing to my eye.

A couple of things to think about. First, the edges around the pistols (if that is what the yellow and red things coming up out of the flower are called) and some of the pink petals have dark blue lines around them which look unnatural. Secondly, my preference is to see some texture, however slight, in the background. As it is you have a gradient, but seldom in real life do you ever see a flower against a single solid color.

[Shadowman]

Very different and colorful. Nice image.

[Stagecoach]

Peter, a couple of questions

Why did you use such a wide aperture, causing the need for so many shots?

Did you come across any problems with flower movement during the period? I ask this because on a couple of previous attempts to take stacks of these I found the flower wilted too quickly although I had cut it with stalk and placed it in water immediately.

Grahame

[ST1]

Hi Peter. The flower and leaves closest to the camera are crystal clear and you have certainly shown us a lot of detail that many flower photos do not have. The choice of colors is pleasing to my eye.

A couple of things to think about. First, the edges around the pistols (if that is what the yellow and red things coming up out of the flower are called) and some of the pink petals have dark blue lines around them which look unnatural. Secondly, my preference is to see some texture, however slight, in the background. As it is you have a gradient, but seldom in real life do you ever see a flower against a single solid color.

Ken many thanks for your excellent observations 👍

I shall stand in the corner for the rest of the day with my dunces hat on 😉. Looking at the image now, I can see the edge problems which you have identified, now why didn't/couldn't I see them before DOH!. The issue around the edges of the petals at the left are down to my poor selection when I tidied up that side of the image. The edge problem with pistols may be down to the stacking, I will revisit the processing to see if I can redo the stack. I shall post an image of the set up I used to answer another post and your comment wrt the background. Thanks again for taking time to comment, much appreciated.

[ST1]

Peter, a couple of questions

Why did you use such a wide aperture, causing the need for so many shots?

Did you come across any problems with flower movement during the period? I ask this because on a couple of previous attempts to take stacks of these I found the flower wilted too quickly although I had cut it with stalk and placed it in water immediately.

Grahame

Hi Grahame, thanks for stopping by and commenting, I shall try to answer your questions and add a set up image but...I'm currently using a tablet and I have never tried adding an image to a post using it. So first the image, I hope it uploads



As hopefully you will see with the set up image (apologies for the poor quality of the image it was taken with an old phone) I had the hibiscus (a houseplant in the UK) in a bay window which gives me a natural light, softened by closing the blinds. Being inside whilst I don't get movement of the flower due weather conditions, I suspect I did get some movement ( see Kens post above re pistols) of the tripod, the ground floor rooms of our house have a "floating floor" which has some spring to it. Normally you wouldn't notice the spring, it's not like being on a trampoline.
Your observation regarding the speed at which the hibiscus drops it flowers are spot on, in my experience they are in bud longer than in flower. On this occasion the plant dropped the flower the next day. You may be able to see little bugs on the bud of the flower, unless I removed then in PP. The presence of the bugs which I hadn't noticed until I was processing the stack! May be the reason why our plant hasn't been in the best of health recently.

On this occasion I chose to use f2.8 as I was experimenting with a focus rail. I used the full extent of the front to back travel of the rail, hence the large number of images in the sequence. Sadly I can't repeat the shoot as there isn't anymore buds to flower.

# Ken,
Ken as you will see from the set up image, I was using a piece of blue card for the background and the gradient you spotted was part of that arrangement. The blue is probably less messy than being able to see the radiator, windowsill etc. but I take your point that it is rather flat and unnatural. Thanks again for taking time to comment as it has opened my eyes to items that I need to take more care with.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Peter, thanks for the info and the picture of how you lit this.

I had a sneaking suspicion it may have been a houseplant seeing your location and remembering how in the UK we all used to spend time and money buying exotic plants whereas here where I'm living now many of the same grow in abundance outside to rather large sizes.

I understand the reasoning for the f/2.8 for this occasion now, for my rare stacking attempts I keep around f/11 to f/16 to try and maximise IQ.

As for the background I think it has worked well in that it looks totally natural clear blue sky colour and the gradient draws your eye up towards the flower.

Grahame

[IzzieK]

Peter...I like the iridescent look of the flower. I just seem to notice that the leaves are more sharper than Henrietta itself. It has more texture...

[Mark von Kanel]

Thanks for the great post Peter, very informative, i too was wondering about the aperture! being a nikon user i get to use "control my nikon" software which makes stacking fully automated

[ST1]

Thanks everyone for taking time to comment I appreciate you taking the time to look and comment. I shall when I get time revisit the original images try a re stack. Having said that I noticed this morning that there's another bud forming so I may just re shoot. Watch this space