Some more of my flowers

[Raizer]

C&C and advice would be much appreciated! :)

1
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2613/4046119492_ac49dcc2cb_o.jpg

2
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2568/4046119404_0056b26308_o.jpg

3
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2728/4041452769_3e579f9e7e_o.jpg

4
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2575/4046119822_43415b7fa7_o.jpg

5
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3493/4041452263_780cfc5c38_o.jpg

[talan]

Wow these have a really nice DOF.

What lens did you shoot with?

[Deviant]

my guess would be his 300mm lol!

edit:

or a 50mm prime :P

[Raizer]

3 and 5 were with the kit 18-55mm IS lens, and I shot the rest with the 50mm f/1.8 prime :)

[Cory Varcoe]

#1 not too sure if i like the out of focus bud, maybe standing a little to the left might have helped.
#2 Over sharpened but otherwise the flower is very nicely shot
The rest are very nice!! Just watch your DOF, try to make sure the whole flower is in focus eg all the petals.

Nice work :D

[jakedarwen]

Amazing photos,
but I keep thinking your watermark is a different flower in the photo aswell.
bit distracting.

[AstroVisual]

Always hard to give c&c to so many photos at a time but here we go ... <deep breath> ...

Sharpening - if you are creating halos around the sharper edges then you've over sharpened and most of these have suffered this which does lessen them somewhat.

Sig/Watermark - I personally ignore them. Sometimes they can be distracting but for me they are not part of the photo so I'm happy to ignore their presence and concentrate on the photo itself. Yours is very creative which I guess can be good or bad depending on the photo it's placed upon.

Shot 1 - Lovely composition here and I especially love the bokeh here as well. The colouring throughout is just beautiful with the background complimenting the subject nicely.

Shot 2 - Again really nice composition. The background looks to be of a man made element ... fence or something I'm guessing but your DOF and lens has created a wonderful bokeh again that really works nicely here! The exposure is also high quality. Drop that sharpening back and you have yourself a really nice shot here.

Shot 3 - I think this is slightly over exposed and I'd have cropped out the stem/bud in the upper elft corner as that just adds distraction to the photo I believe. Shot at 1/800th and F4 I think you could have gone for a higher f-stop, say up around f8 or so to get a bit more DOF and therefore have more of the flower in focus.

Shot 4 - Not much to critique here. Possibly a shade over exposed but it's minmal and unless everyone has calibrated monitors it's probably not going to be obvious. The DOF has created a nice bokeh once again and the composition is also nice I think.

Shot 5 - Nice close up shot this one and quite sharp. About the only critique I have here would be that perhaps it may have worked better as a portrait aspect instead of landscape due to the bee and stem being vertical. Exposure etc look very good to me.

Hope that helps :)

[Raizer]

Always hard to give c&c to so many photos at a time but here we go ... <deep breath> ...
Sorry, lol I have problems trying to narrow down which pics to post

Sharpening - if you are creating halos around the sharper edges then you've over sharpened and most of these have suffered this which does lessen them somewhat.
I thought there was something not quite right after sharpening, I am a complete photoshop noob and I followed a sharpening guide from this forum, I will try toning it down a little next time.


Shot 2 - Again really nice composition. The background looks to be of a man made element ... fence or something I'm guessing but your DOF and lens has created a wonderful bokeh again that really works nicely here! The exposure is also high quality. Drop that sharpening back and you have yourself a really nice shot here.
lol the background is the eve of my house roof, I was trying to be creative by shooting from under the rose, I actually totally agree about too much sharpening, I followed this guide http://www.photographersonline.co.nz/showthread.php?t=586 and I found 2x sharpen to be not quite enough, but the full 3x is too much

Shot 3 - I think this is slightly over exposed and I'd have cropped out the stem/bud in the upper elft corner as that just adds distraction to the photo I believe. Shot at 1/800th and F4 I think you could have gone for a higher f-stop, say up around f8 or so to get a bit more DOF and therefore have more of the flower in focus.
I just had another play with it, is this a bit better?
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/465/img61822xc.jpg

With focus is there a setting you can change that adjusts the area that focuses?
I always seem to end up with one small spot of my subject in focus, rather than what I want in focus ie: the center of a flower will be sharp and focused but all the petals etc will be OOF


Shot 5 - Nice close up shot this one and quite sharp. About the only critique I have here would be that perhaps it may have worked better as a portrait aspect instead of landscape due to the bee and stem being vertical. Exposure etc look very good to me.
Something more like this?
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/2751/img5627c.jpg

Hope that helps :)
Thanks a lot for taking the time to give me some advice!!

[AstroVisual]

I think both of those look better to me now. Can you see the difference though?

I looked at that sharpening advice ... and ... well ... I think it's too general. Photos differ greatly in the sharpening they need, so the sharpening process needs to be more specific.
I have a few methods I use but for something more basic I definitely prefer the Unsharp Mask feature in PS.
I also leave sharpening until one of the last things I do before I resize the image and save. Not much point sharpening things I'm going to clone out or crop out etc.

So, assuming your photo is reasonably sharp to start with (once it's too blurred it can't be sharpened successfully) and with your 12mp 1000D (I think it's 10 or 12 mp) before resizing I'd start with 'Amount' 80, 'Radius' 2.0, and 'Threshold' 0 using the Unsharp Mask feature. Make small adjustments as you think you need.

With regards to your Focus question ... Depth of Field (DOF) determines how much of the photo is in focus and your aperture has a large bearing on that. Using a higher f-stop will produce a wider DOF or area in focus. A safe bet is around f8 or f11 as this falls into the middle of the range of many lenses and is usually sharper than lower or higher settings. If it's a zoom lens ... they often get less sharp as they zoom in so try to use a zoom nearer the wider end to mid section for this sort of stuff.
Also to get more DOF try using wider zooms. You may find at 18mm you'll get more flower than at 55mm.
Lastly ... set your focal points ( I think your 1000D has a 7 point system) so you are using only the center point to ensure you are actually focusing on the flower itself. I use the center point for most of my shooting.
Use the multi-points (all 7 points) for landscapes and similar.

[drspangle]

I'll start off by saying that im not a flower guy...

This one is a bit boring and the lower flower distracts from the focus on main flower

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2613/4046119492_ac49dcc2cb_o.jpg


Sharpening halos on flower, unbalanced, my eye tends to dart between the dark green flowers and the petals. Not sure how to fix that...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2568/4046119404_0056b26308_o.jpg


This I like, just get rid of the bits in the top left corner and you're good to go

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2728/4041452769_3e579f9e7e_o.jpg


This is very nice, but again, you've oversharpened it

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2575/4046119822_43415b7fa7_o.jpg


Fine, but a bit snapshotty - lacks focus

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3493/4041452263_780cfc5c38_o.jpg

So overall not bad - 3 and 4 are really nice :)