White Christmas Orchid take two

[AlwaysOnAuto]

What do you all think of this image of our orchid?

[madcrow]

Not as good as your first effort. Too many distractions in background.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Is this any better?

[madcrow]

Yes it is, take out bud on top left and I think it would be better.

[Stagecoach]

What do you all think of this image of our orchid?

For me neither the first or second works. In the first there is way too much OOF and in the second there is way too much in focus that causes distraction.

These are not an easy subject to shoot in a group but it's difficult to achieve isolation unless you are prepared to do some snipping

[DanK]

I have to agree with Grahame--neither works for me. The first one is mostly out of focus, and it has severe chromatic aberration along the edge between the white and black. The second one mostly takes care of those problems, but it is too cluttered, and the part you want people to pay attention to doesn't stand out from all the rest. When you have several flowers that are all close to the plane of focus, it is very difficult make one stand out. The bud at the upper left is particularly distracting, but even without it, I don't think the image would work well.

[NorthernFocus]

Others have covered it. First effort was much better.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

OK. Shooting flowers with the Nikkor 50 f1.2 at 1.2 is a no-no if the back ground is busy, or so close it doesn't just fade away in bokeh.
Thanks all.

[chauncey]

unless you are prepared to do some snipping

better to do that "snipping" in post.

When I do any type of tabletop photography, it is done shooting tethered in a live view scenario.
That method allows you to adjust positioning/lighting/camera settings/etc. to your hearts content.

[Stagecoach]

better to do that "snipping" in post.

Other than to preserve the completeness of the subject I would be interested to know why it is "better" to do it in post?

[Mike Buckley]

For me, your resulting composition is similar to the result of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. You're forcing the situation by trying to create separation between the primary subject and everything else in the scene by using a small depth of field but the small depth of field doesn't eliminate the busy background.

Rather than beginning with a thought process of how to make a close-up of one of the flowers, consider beginning with a thought process of how to present the plant in the most attractive manner. Doing so can take you from using depth of field to achieve the desired separation to using a completely different composition to achieve it.

The photo taken below was made with a 35mm lens on a 1.5 crop camera at f/22 to ensure that all parts of the subject are sharp.

[chauncey]

why it is "better" to do it in post?

merely to avoid cutting the flower

[Wavelength]

Second is far improved than the other; it is difficult to get a single flower in isolation with a non distracting background from a bunch