Old Magnolia

[billtils]

A bloom from the magnolia tree in my son's garden in Allen, Texas. We arrived here 4 days ago, and the tree was clearly past its flowery best but a day of rain refreshed it somewhat.

The object of the shoot was to explore my default FF birding exposure settings (spot metering and single point focus lock) on a test target with the camera in DX mode. Don't ask "why" - I was passing time waiting for the infrequent humming bird to stop by ... it's been here twice and of course the camera was nowhere near on one occasion and too far away and in FX and "people" mode on the other.





Having said that, feel free to comment!

[Urbanflyer]

such a lovely flower. I am curious what the result would be if I could see the shed stamens more clearly?

[Wavelength]

Nice image; leaves of the plant resembles that of one kind of ficus

[DanK]

Nice shot. Personally, I would do more to make the flower stand out. The following may be over the top in terms of amounts, but for discussion, I did this:

--Cropped away some of the leaves, particularly on the right

--Did a selection of the flower--given the stark difference between the flower and the leaves, this was trivially easy using the quick select tool in photoshop. I used this selection, or its inverse, for all of the rest.

--lightened the flower a bit with a levels too.

--added some contrast to the flower with a curves tool

--darkened the background with a levels tool

--Added local contrast to the flower only (unsharp mask, radius 50, threshold 0, amount 40).

Not really fine-tuned, but it illustrates a direction I would try.

[zen]

FWIW . . .

I like Dan K's try at it better, including the crop, but wonder if the flower is a now tad too bright. Also, I wonder if there is a way, other than cropping, to remove or darken [?] the brown part of the leaf at the right edge of the frame. The bright brown, amidst all the dark, shadowy green, is a distraction. I know this may not make sense because the brown leaf at the bottom edge of the frame is very good. But it's a darker tone, and doesn't distract from the blossom.

But overall, a nice image. Good for you, Bill, for seeing the possibility.

Zen

[billtils]

Nice shot. Personally, I would do more to make the flower stand out.

Hi Dan

I did pretty well all of that but then decided to go with the version posted because I liked the contrast between the soft flower and the hard edges of the leaves, and also the way the way the brown in some of the leaves is reflected in the shed stamens.

However, I appreciate your feedback and had another look:

[xpatUSA]

Nice one, Bill.

Subject had me puzzled until I read your OP.

Welcome to Texas ... warm enough for you?

[purplehaze]

I prefer your second version, Bill, but for the crop. Have you considered a square?

[billtils]

Nice one, Bill.

Subject had me puzzled until I read your OP.

Welcome to Texas ... warm enough for you?

Thanks Ted.

It was an arctic 77F today ... we can cope with that

[billtils]

Thanks Janis. Yes to the crop, but tend not to go that way unless there is a symmetrical main element, such as a round flower head.

[DanK]

Bill,

I agree with you about not centering this. However, as a general rule, images look better balanced if the larger negative space is is in front of rather than behind the subject. In this case, IMHO, the flower does have a front: it appears to be facing viewers' right. That's one of two reasons why I would leave more space on that side. The other reason is that the background detail is more interesting on the right side.

Just my taste.

Dan