The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic + Technical
About This Image
It was a crazy summer for many reasons, and unfortunately that kept me from getting out and shooting. In late July friends and I panned to backpack into Goat Rocks, but my knee was giving me issues and I wasn’t able to go; that was especially disappointing.
When @Steve_Kennedy and I drove to Yosemite in May, we stopped for a couple of nights in the redwoods. The rhodies were just trying to get started (we were a week, or two, early) but the trillium were doing well.
Feedback Requested
There are flecks on the flower and gaps in the leaves, but I elected to go “au naturel” with this one. I may do a cleaned up version at some point. Do those details irritate?
I have a new computer and had to change the software that I calibrate with (the monitor and the Colormunki hardware are unchanged). I’m struggling to trust it, and worry that the images will look a bit darker overall. How does this look on your monitor?
All recommendations are more than welcome.
Technical Details
Camera: NIKON Z 7_2
Lens: NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S
Focal length: 24mm
Shutter speed: 1s
Aperture: f/16
ISO: 64
Six images blended with Helicon Focus for depth of field.
Hi John: The image looks a bit dark on my monitor. I downloaded it and in PS the histogram was empty in the right 20% or so. I brightened it slightly and used a curves layer to lift the mid-tones a trifle and it appealed to me more. I like the composition but for it to work really well for me, the lighter colored leaves in the bottom third need to be just a bit brighter to balance the trillium. Just my taste of course.
Gorgeous!! I love the composition with the secondary foliage. I wouldn’t have thought it was too dark – I got a sort of moody vibe – but do like @Dennis_Plank 's take. I love the subtle cool tint!
This is a lovely image and the composition is about as good as it gets. Photographers don’t shoot flowers in b&w very often but this worked out really well. It’s the light of course - some reflective and some not. It’s almost as though a flash was used but those days are long gone. And no it’s not too dark imo. I like the original because the flower separates better from the leaves. The leaf to the left of the flower looks a bit indistinct. I wonder if Heliconfocus caused that or there weren’t enough images in the stack to cover the area. Yes, there’s some ghosting around its edge. Could be wind I suppose. It’s not very obvious.
Flecks and gaps are ok with me. It is such a pleasing arrangement of shapes and textures that it really isn’t an issue. The decision to go monochrome works well here - we can imagine the greens, but now get to appreciate the way the plants grow together in a competition for light. The dominance of the trillium leaves is interesting - that plant goes for few big while the others go for small many.
A touch more contrast reinforces those aspects IMO, but I’d keep the slight selenium tone you have going here. What a treasure.
Thanks for the edit Dennis; I like it. I wrestled with those lower leaves. I didn’t want them to compete too much with the trillium, but may have taken that too far.
I’m not sure about the indistinct leaf Igor. There was no wind, so maybe it was the focus blend? Here’s a 100% resolution crop of what I pulled from RAW (from the image with the best focus) to compare (hopefully this is the leaf you were referring to) :
John, this looks very good in black and white. I prefer your darker version to the lighter version from Dennis as your version emphasizes the flower more. In looking at your 100% view, it looks like the upper leaf (ant the flower petal) aren’t quite sharp, while the lower leaf look just fine. You don’t say if this was hand focused or automated. If hand focused, you may have missed slightly that middle leaf, although I’m thinking that in the original, it’s more of a light difference than a focus difference. I really like all of the different types and shapes of leaves here.
I’ll comment on this more later but wanted to say something now. When you render a stack in Helicinfocus it creates a map to the right of the image. It adds to that map progressively as it steps through each file. If at the end of the rendering there are areas that are black it means that it couldn’t find a sharp file for that area and will choose the closest blurry one. If there are outlines of shapes but not much detail within it means that the shape either does not have much detail or the file did not contain it (as in short depth of field).
By looking at the rendering process I can tell if my stack covered the entire range and whether the focus steps overlapped in coverage. Perhaps you already know this but it took me some time to figure it out.
I love this image. The darker is moody as others have said, while the lighter one is more engaging, to my eyes. I would hang a collection of three different versions of this theme in my house. I don’t mind the flecks or gaps at all.
My apologies for the lack of clarity Mark. I focus blended 6 images for the final image. That 100% crop is only one of the images in the stack, other images have the upper leaf and flower petal in focus.
Looking closely, I’m not exactly sure where the indistinct bit is. Here’s a 100% crop of the blended image that came out of Helicon Focus. Can you point out where you are seeing the ghosting?
Mine does this, but as soon as it completes it immediately changes the map to the final blended image. Is there a way to view the map after it completes? (On my computer, it happens so fast I’m unable to study the map before it disappears.)
John, once again I am late to the party. This is a wonderful image.
Regarding the tonality: I think @Dennis_Plank has produced a nice alternative to the original. It feels more luminous across the board and still has nice detail in the darks and the brighter whites look good without being harsh.
I believe in your discussion thread asking a favor, you mentioned perhaps increasing your monitor’s luminosity from 100 to 110. Have you tried that? My NEC is set at 110 with the black point at 55. The results I get appear to work well for screen viewing.
In any event, this is a fantastic image and deserves a large print hanging the wall. Well done, sir!
-P
With the new calibration software, what I see in images I processed using the old calibration software is that they are just a little brighter. There is better contrast in tones below the midpoint, and worse above. It’s subtle, but pretty consistent.
If I’m thinking correctly, that means I need to darken the monitor a little so that it better matches what I was doing before (and hopefully what others are seeing). I’ve been playing with 100 and 110, but still haven’t landed on a “best.” If I do need to darken my monitor more, that would explain the suggestion to brighten the image, because on my monitor it already is brighter.
What @Preston_Birdwell said. This is a really nice find and I have no issues with the little imperfections. Yes, we like the pristine subjects but how often does that happen in the real world? Very nicely done. >=))>
Brilliant image, John. I am just back from being gone almost 5 weeks and I’m feeling a little bit behind here. However, I immediately honed in on your gorgeous image. The composition is so well balanced and although I like both renditions, I prefer the original for the mood it gives off. The natural light is sumptuous.
You mention little imperfections…I like an image that has real world imperfections so I see nothing wrong with any of them as they are all very minor and don’t pull the eye at all. Such a superb image!
