Dogwood Dreamin' +Edit

Image Critiques Landscape Critiques
1

Edited version (First, single frame of stack sequence)

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53Z1061SQ-npn2298×2298 1.78 MB

Original:

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53Z1061FS10SQ-npn.jpg2298×2298 1.97 MB

Critique Style Requested: Standard

The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.

Description

Well, I finally got out for some photography and have a new batch of images to work on, but alas, it’s just another trip to Yosemite… :roll_eyes: :wink: As most know, this year’s winter and now aftermath have taken it’s toll across the West and Yosemite is no exception. They closed the campgrounds and half the Valley just days before I was to camp. I resorted to grabbing a motel room and went anyway. The day after I got there, the Park Service re-opened the campgrounds as the Merced never reached the critical flood stage; thanks in part to yet another weather pattern that came in dropping the temps, slowed the melt and actually brought rain and MORE snow to the high country… then the day after I left they closed 1 of 3 access highways to the park due to a 200ft long crack in the road… won’t be fixed til June or July, the 2nd highway I take was closed temporarily due to at least 2 big rock slides… Good thing I got out when I did. What a mess.

The Merced river was about as high as I’ve ever seen it; for those who know the valley, the water level was about 1ft below the bottom of the Swinging Bridge… And because of the long, monster winter, spring is coming way late to Yosemite Valley and most all the dogwoods were just beginning to leaf out, while there were a handful scattered around with very small blossoms - like this one here near the Ahwahnee meadow.

The other part of the story is that I rented a Nikon Z7ii for the trip. I spent a couple days ahead of time getting familiar with the camera, custom modes, functions, watched videos, etc. etc. Of course with anything new, you’re bound to muck something up. One of those mistakes was I somehow unchecked RAW image capture in one of the custom User modes and so about half the images from the trip are jpg only… :frowning_face: Lesson learned quickly. Fortunately for this image I was back on track and able to try out the Focus Shifting feature. More on the camera and my experience another time hopefully (maybe a review?)

Specific Feedback

EDIT:
I took some of the feedback and re-worked from a single RAW file. So, no focus stack. At the distance I was shooting even f/6.3 was sufficient to keep the dogwood tree and bloom in focus. I also boosted vibrance, including the bg greens/yellows. I think an improvement! Thank you!

As always, just looking for general feedback, processing, colors, comp, etc. This is obviously a crop as the full frame had a road sign on the left and with the crop purposefully framed the left and right with the cedars. I don’t think I necessarily needed a focus stack here, but I believed image quality would be better at the wider aperture and faster shutter speed rather than smaller aperturn f/16 and longer SS, plus the stack allowed all the cedar trunks to be rendered sharp. I was pretty happy with the results.

Thank you for any comments or feedback.

Oh, BTW, this is the same exact scene for the Dogwood ICM I posted recently. Needless to say we worked this dogwood scene a bit…

Technical Details

(rented) Nikon Z7ii with 24-200mm @110mm, f/6.3 1/60th iso 160. A 10-image focus stack using Helicon.
I was trying out the focus stacking feature on the camera, Nikon calls it “Focus Shifting”
Interesting because there was movement of leaves between shots so there was some manual “repair” in Helicon. I probably missed a bunch, but not really noticable at this web size

4 Likes
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Lon, this is a lovely photo. It’s always so difficult to get a balanced and not crazy-with-too-much forest-exuberance composition! But you nailed it here. Good job. I don’t think there is a problem with enough focus. Sounds like an adventure there in Yosemite. As much as I am sad for all of the problems this years weather has caused for people, there is a part of me that rejoices that mother nature always has the last laugh…

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I see wavy lines of white specks over a background of wider darker vertical lines. There is a gentleness about this image which is further emphasized by the relative low contrast. I can’t really suggest much in the way of composition. You could experiment by warming it up some. That would make the leaves more lime green and the trunks more cinnamon. I might raise the white point a bit but that may just be my monitor. I think the square aspect ratio works pretty well for this composition.

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Really nice and clean looking mix of colors with a good amount of contrast showing that wonderful texture and details.

I would imagine that the Z7ii would produce good, sharp details even without stacking at that focal length but it does depend on the distance from the camera to the trees.

I like that you framed this with half a tree trunk at the sides, the Dogwood has just enough blossoms to give it a salted look.
I like the sweeping line of blossoms at about 1/3 the way up from the bottom, nicely composed! :slight_smile:

Thanks for the backstory on the park, they’ve had a few bad rock slides in the past at El Capitan, the last two slides resulted in loss of life. :frowning:

I guess the upside of the weather is the water table levels, the west coast has had some serious issues with drought and the threat of agriculture shortages, not to mention minimal water needs for millions of people.
I’m just glad that you and others are safe! :slight_smile:
And glad to know that the recent rock slide didn’t result in loss of life this time!

Thanks! :slight_smile:

5

I love the framing between the two trees, and the graceful lines of the dogwood are gorgeous! DOF looks great – I’m surprised the delicate branches were still enough. It reminds me of a large format image. I like @Igor_Doncov’s idea of some warming, or maybe just a bit of Vibrance. Hard to know without trying and I imagine you did and landed here with good reason.

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Lon,

Another wonderful photograph from Yosemite. You should be the park’s Photo Ambassador! I love the contrast in this scene. The white dogwood flowers against the dark cedar trunks are wonderful and grab the attention immediately. The crop with the two trees on the sides is great. The slightly off-center dogwood is throwing my sense of balance off just a bit, and if those two trees to the right of the dogwood were not there, I think the balance would have been totally discomforting.

I guess I am still a ‘doubting Tom’ with regard to the focus-stacking approach. Would the scene really have been that detrimentally degraded had this been done with a single frame at say f11? I would experiment with this technique, however, all my lenses are manual focus primes from my 35mm film days. My only AF lens is a Nikon 100 mm f2.8 Macro lens I bought to digitally scan my 4x5 transperancies.

7

A totally wonderful image! So much to visually take in and wander around the scene.

One nit…it feels a bit too sharp to my eye. When I initially opened the topic in my browser, whatever the default image size was on my screen, the image appeared a little crunchy. It wasn’t until I viewed at full size (whatever that may have been in my browser) that crunchiness relaxed.

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Thank you @Tony_Siciliano , @Igor_Doncov , @Merv , @Diane_Miller , @Youssef_Ismail and @rjWilner for your comments and valuable feedback!

I re-worked this image from scratch and this time used only the first frame (I focused on nearest blossoms). More on that and the focus stack in a moment. So I incorporated much of the feedback and suggestions. First, warmed it up a few points in ACR, also boosting vibrance and the greens and yellows for a bit more pop. Also boosted the reds a little for the cedars. Additionally, added a slight vignette and even a low-opacity Orton layer. Comparing the two now, the first looks dull! So thank you for the suggestions!

Good call on the white balance Igor, thanks! I wonder though if the slight boost in contrast reduce that “gentleness.”

I believe you are correct Merv. In fact, my findings are that the RAW files from this camera/lens combo are exceptional! (at least relative to what I’ve been processing for years) In fact, so far, most all the images I’ve looked at, bringing them in to Topaz DeNoise - is actually not even necessary!

Thanks for the kind words and suggestion Diane! Agree about the vibrance and glad I went back to rework this one!

Thanks for the comments Youssef, much appreciated. I think your observation on the focus stacking is spot on. I don’t believe it was necessary and honestly in most situations like this I might normally have not thought about doing a stack. If anything, this was an exercise in getting to know the features of the camera that I didn’t previously have. Did I need 10 frames? No, in fact, I didn’t even need but 5 to accomplish the depth of detail. And actually, the single frame does have a much softer background which actually upon pixel-peeping review makes the dogwood blossoms stand out more. Having said all that, viewing this kind of chaotic-detailed scene, I don’t think the viewing of the image - or a print, really makes too much of a difference if there was a focus stack, or not. But it was certainly good practice using the technique from capture thru Helicon and then to post processing. Good stuff!

Thank you all for the valuable input. It’s most always a good thing when we can improve our work! And I hope this is an improvement! I think so!

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I love this image, Lon! It’s the kind of image that I keep trying to make. Well balanced composition with the bookends of the two trees, sharp exposure throughout, and everything fills the frame nicely. You’ve kept the colors subtle but distinct. I am very partial to these “tapestries”.

1 Like
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The reworked single exposure image looks better in my view, Lon.
And by better, I’m referring to it having a more natural look because the trees further back are a bit softer.
The sharp pine needles in the distance seem to compete with the blossoms in the stacked version.
The warmer tone is a plus as well.

I completely understand wanting to test out the focus shift feature of the Z7ii though, I probably would have done the same thing myself.
For me, the focus shift feature would be implemented more on close-ups and macro work, some subjects almost demand focus stacking in my opinion.

Nicely done, Lon :slight_smile:

1 Like
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Chalk up one preference for the re-worked version. IMO, the ‘softer’ bg helps isolate the dogwood. Given it is the ‘leading actor in a starring role’ of the image, anything that enhances that concept is a good thing…IMO, of course.

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This is lovely Lon. I like the single image with the softer background best. The delicate, snow white dogwood blooms are beautiful.

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Hi Lon,
that looks beautiful. Nice to see this version of the ICM image you posted a few days ago.

I also prefer the edit with the softer background. Well done!

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14

Lon, this view speaks beautifully of spring. Comparing the two versions, I like the greens in the edit but the flowers stand out stronger in the original. Being totally nit picky, your removal of the hanging branch at the top is not quite perfect (there’s a bit of the bright branch showing where it overlaps the two crossing, darker branches…of course this would be extremely hard to catch without being able to compare the two views side-by-side…

1 Like
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Mark,

Good catch on the cloning/healing remnants. I’ll need to pay closer attention! I did end up removing a number of errant banches - which could be an endless chore with this kind of image.

thanks for your comments!

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Just another trip to Yosemite, eh? As a midwesterner, I would pine for such repeat visits - no pun on the trees; they may be cedars anyway. I am hooked on images of trees. I see three main elements: the tall well placed trunks, pillars of the image; the dense green background ; and the flowering dogwoods. Although there seem to be three distinct layers (not as in Photoshop) they blend beautifully. I prefer the original as to me it has more luminance and punch. The image reminds me of some of Michael Frye’s images. Thanks for posting this Lon.