The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
Taken from our garden and placed in a vase, this flower slowly wilted, yet in its fading form, I saw a new kind of elegance. Its drooping petals cascaded like the folds of an elegant ballroom gown, full of movement and grace. Bathed in the soft, indirect, light from the dining room window, it seemed to take on a quiet, poetic presence - proof that even in decay, there is beauty.
Specific Feedback
I honestly don’t know what to think about this photo, or this type of photo - a single flower against a dark background. I think it’s nice, but is it too simple? Too boring?
This image is a focus stack of 15 manually focused images. I know very little about focus stacking but when I tried to use Photoshop to stack these, it made a huge mess of it. There were little out of focus parts everywhere. Over the weekend I thought I’d try it again and I downloaded the 30 day trail of Helicon Focus and boy am I impressed with that software. It just worked, and worked beautifully, with only a few button presses. I’m very impressed!
Critique Template
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Tom: We seem to gravitate naturally to the pristine and perfect subjects but there is indeed beauty in aging gracefully. I like your lighting especially and how you managed the yellow.
My experience with stacking was similar to yours. I had this preconceived notion that it would be super complicated and require a lot of tuning and cleanup. The PS efforts pretty much confirmed that assessment. Helicon has completely disabused me of that attitude now. My challenge now is being sure to get a shot of every part of the subject. I envy those whose cameras can do the focusing sequence automatically which is helping me rationalize a new camera upgrade . Great to have you posting here and looking forward to more. >=))>
I like this a lot, Tom and I don’t think it’s too simple. A beautifully lit flower against a black (or white) background is a classic presentation for a very good reason. The stack worked very well and I like the way it brought out the texture in the petals and the fine hairs on the stem.
Helicon Focus and Zerene Stacker really did change the scene for focus stacking. Both are excellent.
@Bill_Fach : The automatic focus bracketing is unfortunately not a cure-all. The big problem is that you can’t define an end point, so you just have to tell it to take a lot of images. I had my A7Rv set on the middle step size and 35 images yesterday, but failed to notice that the branch with the fungus I was trying to photograph bent more severely than I thought to one side of the fungus and none of the 35 images had it in focus. I’ll have to shoot it again, but I think I’ll wait until it’s above freezing today.
I can’t add much more than what’s been said about stacking. I use Zerene and love its flexibility and precision. Definitely a game changer and the more you do it, the better you’ll get. Especially when doing image capture - figuring out how your lens(es) works in terms of focus steps and what that gets you can take some time.
Photos like this one work best in groups, I think. Triptychs or similar. On its own it has merit, but for me is a bit static. I like the shape and color though - there is an elegance here as you say.
Kris, “static” is the perfect word to describe what I felt about this image - that’s how it feels to me as well. I have a few more images from that day’s “photo shoot” so if I have the time this weekend I’ll see if I can put together a triptych.
A question for you all, which is better Helicon Focus or Zerene? Or are they +/- the same? Like I said I only tried Helicon for the first time here and I never even heard of Zerene before. Honestly I don’t envision needing these tools in my day to day photography but something may pop up again in the future.
. Great to have you posting here and looking forward to more. >=))>