The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
In a beautiful field of , I believe, black eyed susans, the tiny frogs seemed to find the perfect place to lay his head for a rest. Waiting for his princess to come perhaps?
Specific Feedback
I always seem to struggle with yellow flowers and their brightness. It seems no matter what I do, they are too bright, or dull if I darken them. Same with red. Is this too bright? I know some detail is also lost when brighter. Also, depth of field, how does one get the whole flower, and frog, to be in focus? Do you have to step back farther and shoot with a zoom lens perhaps? I know if I change my aperture to a larger number, it doesn’t seem to make a difference when this close.
Judi, this is where a macro lens would help you get the detail you are after. Move in closer with a lower number (f13 or even more closed) and the frog would really pop (I don’t think he’d pop away!). If you don’t have a macro, your suggestion of using the zoom lens is also good, especially to blur the BG more. In that case too I’d zoom in close, not caring if the whole bloom is not in focus. It’s a great moment, and my eye would like to have the frog and flower centre filling the frame. That said, your composition has its own charm and balance.
@Mike_Friel touched on one point I was going to suggest. I would have stopped down to probably f/13. You don’t mention the focal length of the lens you were using, but check the minimum focusing distance of your lens.
Concerning your struggles with yellow flowers and brightness, one thing I have noticed in viewing your photos so far is that you tend to shoot in fairly slow shutter speeds. (That assumption is based on a very small sample size.) It appears you had plenty of bright light for this shot and, when I have that much light, I increase my shutter speed. You might experiment with your ss. You could have probably easily shot this at 1/800 sec. (That’s just a guess.) At 1/125, light is pouring in. In comparison, the sunflower I shot with the butterfly you commented on was shot at 1/800 sec. in shady conditions. Lastly, many cameras tend to oversaturate yellows and reds. I would try desaturating in post processing to pull those yellows down. Anyway, experiment! That’s part of the fun of photography!
All that said, it’s a fun photo! I have black-eyed susans and have never seen a frog on them!
Oh I feel your pain. Overloading the main color channels can happen easily. What I’ve done is switch to a standard or neutral RAW camera style instead of Landscape or Vivid - this is in camera. If you’ve already got maximum density, you can try a Linear Profile if you use Lightroom. What this does is start you with the flattest, least saturated or contrasty version of your RAW file as possible. Adobe profiles most all add those two things and can compound problems in a photo that is clipping colors or close to it.
You will need to install a Linear Profile as a plugin to Lr and you can get one from Tony Kuyper’s website - https://goodlight.us/linear-profiles.html - if you don’t see your camera, email him and he’ll make one for you. He did for me and I use one when I know my luminosities or colors are close to being overloaded. You will get a VERY low contrast image when you use one, but then just hit the sliders a little harder to make it what you want.
In terms of getting more DOF I can offer two things - a long telephoto might do it because it will naturally compress the DOF and make things seem closer together than other lenses. The second is focus stacking. This takes a whole lot more field skill and post processing technique, but can give fantastic results and a shot like this deserves it for sure. Great catch.
Here’s a link to a discussion here on NPN about focus stacking -
Hi, thank you for your critique. I usually sure on aperture priority. Lately, with doing some birds, i am experiments with shutter priority to get wing stop. So reading your comment, you are saying I should shoot at a faster shutter? I thought that was only applicable if you are shooting a moving scene, such as birds in flight, a flower slightly moving in the breeze, etc. I’m learning! Thank you for sharing your knowledge, and I will play with my settings to see the difference.
Hi, thank you. I’ve seen focus stacking done, and I’m not really that into it, but thanks for the suggestion. I will look at a webinar tho and learn more about it. I believe I was using my 100mm macro for the shot. I don’t use LR, but I do use PS. Thank you again for all your helpful comments.
You’re in luck with the Linear Profile plug in - it works in ACR as well. I don’t use one all the time, but when things get hot and are pushing luminosity or color boundaries it comes in very useful.
My apologies, Judi. I don’t actually shoot macro; my “macro” is shot with a telephoto zoom. I suspect shooting with an actual macro lens is much different, so I should probably butt out. My response was intended mainly to address the difficulty in getting yellows and reds exposed correctly. One way to begin doing that is with shutter speed, which of course controls the amount of light hitting your sensor. I just thought 1/125 sec. was very slow for as much light as you had available, and where I would have started adjusting for the light, but I could be wrong. I didn’t mean to confuse the issue.
No problem! It’s all good and I take in all critiques and learn from them. Sometimes I do have on a zoom lens and see something and just step back and zoom in bc I have no other choice. I am going to shoot macro flowers on Friday and will play with my ss for sure. I’m excited to try it out! Thank you again!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge, and I will play with my settings to see the difference.
