Minutes to spare

[MillennialDusk]

I promised myself that I'd get back into posting here. I considered doing the project 52 this year, but 1 a week seems daunting. Instead I promised myself that I'd get at least 1 photo every month here for feedback, and maybe pick up the pace as the year progresses. Here's the first submission. I've been working sporadically on some of the many other photos that I'd taken in my absence when I got this one working late yesterday. I couldn't figure out a crop that I liked, and almost submitted the uncropped version, when a last attempt found something I'm happy with.

Any feedback, or C&C is greatly appreciated. Please ask before making edits (I just like to try my hand at suggestions before I see what the experts are able to do).


...and the changes to the upload process pushed me over the edge, but I finished the photos in January. Also, it's now officially my wedding anniversary so I probably have somewhere else to be right now. :-P

Cropped:


Original (Well...uncropped):

[Tronhard]

I know how hard it can be to find the time to engage in the things we enjoy to the level we would like. But this step is an excellent start and I hope it gives you the inspiration to continue.

Looking at your cropped image, I can see a natural line on the right side between two tips of succulent leaves I wonder if cropping close to that line would be fruitful. That would tend to put red flower towards the 1/3 line. Similarly I see a line on the left that made of two tips. Where the two bottom leaves on the left intersect I would consider a crop up to that. Finally I might be tempted to darken the lines in the distance behind the top of the bloom.

I have honoured your request not to try these things, so this is conjecture on my part and just an opinion.

[MillennialDusk]

I know how hard it can be to find the time to engage in the things we enjoy to the level we would like. But this step is an excellent start and I hope it gives you the inspiration to continue.

Looking at your cropped image, I can see a natural line on the right side between two tips of succulent leaves I wonder if cropping close to that line would be fruitful. That would tend to put red flower towards the 1/3 line. Similarly I see a line on the left that made of two tips. Where the two bottom leaves on the left intersect I would consider a crop up to that. Finally I might be tempted to darken the lines in the distance behind the top of the bloom.

I have honoured your request not to try these things, so this is conjecture on my part and just an opinion.

Thank you for the feedback, Trev. This is what I took from your suggestions. If I misunderstood as I often do, please feel free to at your convenience show me the way. I am a very experiential learner, and trying it out and making adjustments just works much better for me. Thanks again.

[Wavelength]

This is an enchanting pink-green combination; lovely

[AlwaysOnAuto]

Can you retake this shot Julius?
I think you missed the focus on it. To me, the only part in focus is the leaf tip just inside the left edge of the crop in front of the two that 'make the line'.
Nice colors and all but the flower itself doesn't look in focus, at least on my monitor when viewing full size via the software used here on CiC.

Congrats on your anniversary, which one was it?

[MillennialDusk]

Can you retake this shot Julius?
I think you missed the focus on it. To me, the only part in focus is the leaf tip just inside the left edge of the crop in front of the two that 'make the line'.
Nice colors and all but the flower itself doesn't look in focus, at least on my monitor when viewing full size via the software used here on CiC.

Congrats on your anniversary, which one was it?

I can retake it, it's a spot where I work. I noticed as I was editing it that the leaf you mentioned seemed much more in focus that I was expecting. I was using spot focusing and was definitely trained in on the flower for focus. Maybe my position shifted? I don't know what it might have been, but something that I did in PP seems to have affected the flower also. As I was editing, the spot in the middle where the sepal(?) meets the petals really began to bother me. To the point where I almost scrapped this photo, but in the end I was able to reproduce what really stood out to me about the flower and I'm not unhappy with the result. That being said, I will definitely try to retake this one.

Thank you for the congrats. This is #19. I figure at some point I'm going to have to stop making such a big deal about them, otherwise she'll realize exactly how much of her life she's spent with the likes of me.

[Geoff F]

I suspect this scene requires more focus depth than can be achieved from a single shot. Your foreground leaves are sharp but the flower base is noticeably soft. Also watch the exposure because the flower is slightly over exposed/saturated in some of the red parts. Probably this is another of those cases where I would produce two conversions from a Raw file (with different adjustments) then merge them together.

Reds, particularly when they are on the magenta side, are difficult to perfectly expose without causing problems in other parts of the image.

[DanK]

I suspect this scene requires more focus depth than can be achieved from a single shot. Your foreground leaves are sharp but the flower base is noticeably soft.

If you are going to stick with a single shot, try a narrower aperture. You shot at f/5.3, so the depth of field was quite narrow.

[MillennialDusk]

I suspect this scene requires more focus depth than can be achieved from a single shot. Your foreground leaves are sharp but the flower base is noticeably soft. Also watch the exposure because the flower is slightly over exposed/saturated in some of the red parts. Probably this is another of those cases where I would produce two conversions from a Raw file (with different adjustments) then merge them together.

Reds, particularly when they are on the magenta side, are difficult to perfectly expose without causing problems in other parts of the image.

Thanks for the comments. Any oversaturation was probably caused in post. If I can't get another crack at taking the photo I may give it another go to see if I can avoid that.

The camera was to matrix metering. I had shot using spot metering for much of my time, but kept being unhappy with the result, so I figured I'd let the camera handle that task until my skills were sufficient to take over. I was much happier with this result than I had been with the previous settings. Maybe next time I'll try center weighted and exposure lock.

For your two conversions method, it requires creating two TIFF (or similar?) files and merging in photoshop?

If you are going to stick with a single shot, try a narrower aperture. You shot at f/5.3, so the depth of field was quite narrow.

Thanks for the feedback. The aperture was partly a function of fast failing light, but mostly a function of my inattentiveness to the fact that I was shooting at ISO 100 and my lack of desire to take more shots than I thought were necessary. After I got the shots I took, I saw that I could bump up the ISO a bit and narrow the aperture, but decided against it after looking at what I had on the back of the camera. Lesson: taking 20 extra shots may be overkill, but not taking that one extra shot may just leave you a little bit disappointed... I will definitely mind the aperture a bit more when I try it next.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Geoff F]

Yes, Julius, creating a 'false HDR' image does simply mean doing two, or more, conversions from an original Raw image with different settings. For instance editing one for the midtones and another for the highlights/shadows. Use a lossless format such as Tiff or Psd (not Jpeg) and just add them on top of each other as layers. Then mess around with some masks to gently blend them together.

If editing with Adobe CC plus ACR you can get really clever and work with Smart Objects. This is a rather simple but extremely effective method of creating your first midtone (or whatever) image and sending that to the main Photoshop edit window, then creating a duplicate copy and sending the copy back to ACR for creation of the second edit version. You can return these smart objects to ACR for more independent editing as many times as required. And all the edits aren't fixed so you can undo and remake adjustments as required.

It does take a tiny bit of initial thought about using this method but it isn't really difficult and gives you so much more flexibility with your editing.

Regarding exposure settings. I tend to work with Evaluative/Matrix metering plus a little bit of exposure compensation as required although sometimes with difficult subjects, and sufficient time, I will spot meter around the scene then set my camera manually based on those readings. Remember that if you spot meter then recompose the scene by moving the camera your original auto exposure setting may change.