The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is part of a larger series that I’m envisioning of desert colors. It’s a stacked, macro image. I have little experience with focus stacking and am looking for your thoughts on the image. It is a stack of 30, the settings on my nikon z8 were 30 shots, focus step width of 3. I was about 2 feet from the flower using a Nikkor Z mc 105 2.8 s lens on a nikon z8 camera. It was 1/640, f/3.3, iso 100.
Specific Feedback
The image focuses on the petals and interior of the flower, should I be seeking to bring the full flower into focus with a wider aperature or more images in the stacking process? Personally I like the depth of focus in the image but wonder about the bright area as the flower extends toward the plant.
Technical Details
iso 100
1/640
f 3.3
Critique Template
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Hi Jim. Welcome to NPN. It looks like your focus stacking worked properly, but the bright spots on the flowers tend to pull the eye away from the subject. Flowers are best photographed under overcast conditions or with something to diffuse the light or shad the entire area of the photograph. You can do them in direct light, but it’s a whole lot trickier. Back light as you used here, can also work well, but it usually works best with a uniform background so the eye isn’t drawn to the brighter areas of the background. The angle of the light can make all the difference. If the light were coming from the right and behind these flowers it would have made the bases of the flowers glow instead of overexposing them.
You have a good eye and a nice beginning here, so keep working at it.
Considering your distance from the subject, I’m not surprised the bg is OOF with a dedicated macro lens.
Funny thing about the word should, as in should I be seeking to bring the full flower into focus. Is that what you want? I don’t mean to be flip, but we have so much creative latitude these days that you can make anything possible. You say you have a larger project about desert colors and this would definitely fit with photos of its environment. I think you could take a lot of approaches with that, but what Dennis says is all on point. One other thing is to watch not only your backgrounds, but your edges. The flower behind is almost touching the bottom border which feels awkward.
Phew! Hope that helps and we get to see more of this project and anything else you’re working on.
Here’s a link to a discussion about stacking you may find useful -
I have to admit that I was surprised by the limited depth of field on the flower given the stack of 30 images, but when I consider the relatively large aperture that I used, the macro lens, and the distance from the subject it makes sense. Dennis’ comments are on point with respect to the lighting and the large bright spot at the back of the flower. The placement of the flower relative to the edge is the result of a crop that took out some distracting parts of the larger image and constrained the background a little. I do love your comments about what “should” be done and our creative latitude these days. Because I haven’t done a lot of stacking I didn’t consider some of the options fully - I’m tremendously grateful for the comments and will be thinking about them as I move forward. Thanks.
