Exploring The Mysteries Of Life May Be A Cold Scientific Journey Or Not

[JBW]

Exploring the mysteries of life may be a cold scientific journey or a magical mystical tour. My choice is the magical mystical journey of exploration. The conveyance of choice is imagination coupled to camera.

To be able to see into the heart of a tiny flower creates within me an awe bordering on Ecstasy.

As always, shot in our garden/temple somewhere in the Philippines.

Brian

[DanK]

Nicely composed in terms of the placement of the flower, and no distracting background this time. Nicely done.

[JBW]

Nicely composed in terms of the placement of the flower, and no distracting background this time. Nicely done.

I'm getting there.

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[JBW]

Nice shot.

it's an honest macro and a flower I've never shot before.

[rudi]

Nice one indeed.

...a flower I've never shot before.

A worthy subject for further 'exploring'....

[Stagecoach]

It's a good result Brian but I'm finding it a bit 'loose' in the frame.

I'm also wondering if you are deliberately not bringing out in post the possible IQ you have with that lens/camera combo? Perhaps it's just me but when sharp fine detail is there I want to emphasise it.

Here's my take, some LCE (local contrast enhancement, done globally but could have just been the centre)..........

[JBW]

It's a good result Brian but I'm finding it a bit 'loose' in the frame.

I'm also wondering if you are deliberately not bringing out in post the possible IQ you have with that lens/camera combo? Perhaps it's just me but when sharp fine detail is there I want to emphasise it.

Here's my take, some LCE (local contrast enhancement, done globally but could have just been the centre)..........

Lately I have become fixated at 2000px width. Please help me get over this fixation and suggest a better minimum width? Taking off some of the bottom does improve things. Perchance my emphasis on empty space is misplaced?

[xpatUSA]

Lately I have become fixated at 2000px width. Please help me get over this fixation and suggest a better minimum width? Taking off some of the bottom does improve things. Perchance my emphasis on empty space is misplaced?

2000px is a nice round number but maybe a slightly better image is given by taking the camera max width and dividing it by 2 or 4 for posting here. For example, I would divide a 6000px image by 4 to get 1500px wide, do final editing esp. sharpness and then post it here.

Using even integers is best in terms of losses due to interpolation when down-sizing, IMHO. To be honest, I'm not fond of re-sampling for any reason but then, I don't print. Would rather crop if feasible ...

For example, my current favorite camera shoots 2640px wide which, for many shots, crops nicely to 1920x1080px (time for someone to mention 4K ...).

As to positioning something in empty space, I am fond of the Golden Ratio but that would not be "most of us" ...

[Round Tuit]

Beautiful flowers nicely photographed.

Exploring the mysteries of life may be a cold scientific journey or a magical mystical tour...

Brian

It is not an either/or. Far from being cold, a scientific journey can be and often is the most awe inspiring experience one can have. Science does not stop at the superficial beauty but seeks to understand the inner working of its subjects where the need for magic disappears and true understanding begins.

[Stagecoach]

Lately I have become fixated at 2000px width. Please help me get over this fixation and suggest a better minimum width? Taking off some of the bottom does improve things. Perchance my emphasis on empty space is misplaced?

I'm not sure in what context you are using the "2000px width" Brian.

My own workflow is to determine any crop and ratio at the start of PP work. This will be done at the RAW stage and hence non destructive. I can then concentrate the PP on what will appear in the final framing of the image.

The last thing I do is to down size the image to what I want it displayed at on a screen (forget printing). In my case this will generally be between 1400 to 1800 px width and I undertake appropriate downsize sharpening at this stage. This size is partly determined by my monitor size and I would expect that someone who has a larger monitor to also have a 'default' size.

So going back, what did determine your 2000px fixation?