The original data for this flowering weed, Henbit Deadnettle
Nikon D7100
1/800, f7.1,
ISO 800
105mm Nikkor Macro
A beautiful flower, Greg. That black background sure makes it pop!
Since this is a critique forum, IMHO the lighting is a little too harsh and direct. Love the black BG and subject matter.
Thanks Shirley, and Michael. I was indeed looking for a way make the detail and the fine hairs stand out but I tend to agree with Michael in the the lighting could be a bit more diffused. It was winter until I got around to post processing this one so perhaps next year I can try again.
Thank you both for the comments.
An incredibly cool flower, Greg. Your detail looks excellent, but I think a diffuser or some other means of taming the light would have made for an even better image.
Thanks Dennis. Yup agree about the lighting.
Hi Greg! I agree the light is a bit too harsh, particularly in the light green areas. Other wise this is a very nice image. You captured great detail and the black BG make the colors pop.
Greg: I’m going to be a contrarian and state that I like the light just as is. If there were hard shadows on the flowers I might not say the same thing but there aren’t so I’ll commend it. Superb detail and really good DOF control.>=))>
I’m not familiar with this flowering weed, so thanks for posting it. You achieved your goal of showing the fine details. Well done.
Thanks Bill but on full disclosure about the DOF. This was my second stack I tried. I liked the outcome.
You’re entirely welcome Patricia. Not sure where you are at geographically but the field guide says it ranges throughout North America except the arctic regions.
Thanks Greg for sharing a beautiful wild flower that I have not seen before not even in image. I love the photo. For a critic, I agree about the light a bit too high. Have you tried to lower the contrast?
My take. Please pardon the use of your image. I lowered the dynamic range rather than the contrast by: darkening the midtones about 11% and the highlights about 17%, finishing up with TK sharpen for web at 50%.
Hi,
The saturation is too high for this picture. The flower color for dead nettle is pale mauve to pink. Dropping down the saturation of cyan and red may help tame down these colors. You should also diffuse the light to soften those shadows. I like using a large diffuser for small flowers and it makes a big difference in image quality. I like where you are going with this image…Jim