Tell me what you think...

[AlwaysOnAuto]

I was headed out to see my niece's newly issued son, so put the 24mm Nikkor on the NEX-7, thinking it'd be better for some family snap type pics than my 35mm Canon lens would have been. Here's what I was able to do with it.







Comments welcome of course!

[IzzieK]

Alan...you could have a better background in #1...can you re-shoot this? or just digitally remove whatever it is on the left hand side of the flower...so beautiful this one...

#2 -- We use to call this the most perfect flower when we were young because at school it has the complete component of a perfect flower. This shot is too centered for my taste..

#3 -- another favourite flower of mine is this rose. The colour did not do justice to you shot because it needs more contrast...or increase the black point and it will be OK...

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Working these one at a time.
Does this work for #1 Izzie?

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Here are variations of the other two pictures.

[Rebel]

The light seems a bit harsh in all of these to me?

I'd try and keep the backgrounds completely blank wherever possible of use a smaller DoF, the second photo of the rose is a lot better but still the light is a bit harsh.

Coincidentally I bought my mother some of those orchids in #1 for her birthday

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Direct sun in shots 2 & 3, so yes, it is a bit harsh I guess.
On the orchid shot(s) I felt lucky to get the focus as good as I did. It was a rather dimly lit kitchen so hard for the camera to let me know when I had it focused correctly. I knew I wanted a dark back ground, that's why I moved around so the cabinets were behind it in the second version of the shot.

Good on you for getting your mother some for her birthday. I'm sure she appreciated receiving them from you.

[Shadowman]

Nice efforts, as you were using flash in the first you could have placed the flowers further away from the background or set your camera's exposure to achieve the same.

[FootLoose]

Alan, taking you title into consideration: before you shoot, look at your background. In each example you have posted, your background is pulling the readers' attention away from the subject.

[IzzieK]

Working these one at a time.
Does this work for #1 Izzie?

Yes...better. #2 is an improvement too...I still feel that the peachy rose is a little bit overexposed. I think it is the light that make or ruin a shot and this was shot in very bright sunlight...Next time, try to shade it with a reflector..

Matt.....I hope you gave your mother a plant not just the flowers. I have the same one as this one and it is now growing another flower stem after cutting it and giving to a dearest son to accompany him home. White is beautiful...

[Geoff F]

Getting suitable backgrounds will always be a problem for this sort of scene, Alan. You need sufficient focus depth to get all the subject sharply focused but not the background; which can call for some compromises. Looking for better camera angles or adding something in the way of an artificial backdrop may be needed. It isn't easy to get perfect results.

Lightly overcast conditions, or adding a bit of light shadow, often produces less harsh results but you have to watch for shutter speeds becoming too slow and causing movement blur.

As an alternative, careful use of fill flash can help to control any hard and unwanted shadows.

[Geoff F]

Problems with the posting has caused a duplicate post.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Thanks for the input everyone.
Since I was at my niece's house, I really didn't want to upset things by changing the back ground for the orchid shot. Figured I'd just make do with the situation/circumstances as they were. I was just pleased that I was able to get a reasonably good focus under those conditions inside. I'm usually not that lucky. I used the flash to help out with the lighting, but I'm not really sure about how to go about using it, on this camera at least, as purely fill flash. My D7k would have been a different story, but it was at home.
The red flower (not sure what it's called) was out in their backyard, and located over my head. I was lucky to get that focus too and thought the leaves/sky added to the shot. Maybe I was wrong on that assumption.
The rose is located next to my in-law's driveway (we'd given them a ride to see the new baby) and I just wanted to record it as it was. Nothing fancy about the setup. Again, I felt I really lucked out on the focus on this one too. I've found this lens is good when focused properly, but for me it's a challenge to do that for some reason. Maybe I need to wear my reading glasses more often when shooting.

[Geoff F]

With me, Alan, it is a case of glasses on to make the camera adjustments then off to take the photo. And I've lost/stepped on too many pairs by carelessly putting them down! So I just use cheap supermarket glasses now.

Regarding flash. Not sure if this will work for your camera but what I do is to set the camera with manual settings to suit the scene then use some flash output compensation to fine tune the auto flash (ETTL).

[IzzieK]

My husband also uses cheap $10 glasses from the supermarket but our optometrist said that with his eyes he cannot go up 175. The last one he has was 250...and it gives him a headache reading small prints.