I have not posted recently..had my camera and favorite lens stolen and am in the process of replacing them. Today I tried out my new camera body with my old macro lens. This is my idea of botanical photography although based on past experience I know my style is not very popular. I call it bug's eye view photography. I tried to post a red (or orangish), a white, a blue and finally a magenta flower. All were taken in a relative's yard, handheld. Some with remote flash also handheld.
Diggin' the form & texture of the Mill Valley White.
The Blue version reminds me of some from my "Pistils & Petals" a few years back. I'm good with the "bug's eye view" in the Red one, but not diggin' the Magenta so much.
RustyBug wrote:
The dirt ... and it kinda reminds me of looking at a dye stained slide under the microscope when I was a kid ... if that makes any sense.
Lots of fiddling. Increasing contrast selectively mimics greater sharpness - bumping the mid-tone contrast with USM at 16, 60, 0, for example. Selective sharpening with the sharpening tool or selecting areas and then applying the smart sharpen would probably be better, especially working on the original, but I did it Q & D to illustrate.
The 1st and 3rd work best for me. Macro is about detail and those have more detail in the subject itself. The 2nd is not bad, but there is too much light yellow areas.
ben egbert wrote:
.... Macro is about detail ......
I am not sure why macro would be about detail more than any other form of photography. Sometimes subtle is good and sharp focus is extraneous. I liked #2 because is was soft and subtle but then I whimped out and used Topaz Simplify to add sharp edges to the image. I actually like this one with soft edges and hazy focus but I could already hear the comments from other photographers. We often struggle to avoid softness so it can be hard to appreciate a soft and low contrast image.
I like these shots, Jim ... lots of colour and form ... makes me wish for a macro lens.
I like the retouched #1. I wish #2 was not so grainy, but love the flow of the lines. #3 could use a wee crop to remove the upper-left corner. Love the colour in #4 but not fond of the dirt, etc.
[viewing with Safari for Windows, 27" monitor, Spyder 4 Pro for calibration]
Camperjim wrote:
I am not sure why macro would be about detail more than any other form of photography. Sometimes subtle is good and sharp focus is extraneous. I liked #2 because is was soft and subtle but then I whimped out and used Topaz Simplify to add sharp edges to the image. I actually like this one with soft edges and hazy focus but I could already hear the comments from other photographers. We often struggle to avoid softness so it can be hard to appreciate a soft and low contrast image.
If ya don't want detail, you could use a normal lens and just crop. Look at the third image. You can see the texture on the surface. That is what I like in a flower shot. No texture is more like a water color. ok, but a different style.
