This is an unusual type of cherry tree with striking red flowers. It blooms a bit later than other cherries and has many petals. This tree had only one set of flowers which I could realistically stack, being on a very short branch. Despite this stabilization, the intermittent breeze had its say.
Specific Feedback Requested
I stacked 11 photos using the very easy Affinity Photo. Thanks to said breeze I had to clone out quite a few double lines. I still find the result fairly soft, but I’m not sure if this matters.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
D500, 105 f2.8 micro lens, 1/800. f10, ISO 500 and tripod.
I chose f10 to simplify the rotation of the focus ring, and found I had underexposed a bit, so I adjusted for this in PS. I also raised the red channel as I wanted to reproduce the colour as accurately as possible. These flowers really do look a bit over the top. NR and Sharpening with Neat Image.
Mike, the flowers are indeed striking with their very saturated red. Your stack looks good. I see the touches of red softness along some of the edges, but only at the largest size, so unless you’re planning to display this on a large screen or as a large print it will be fine. Depending on how your stacking software works, those kind of motion artifacts can be cleaned up while the images are aligned for the stack if there’s also a clone tool and the ability to select which image in the stack that you want to clone from.
Gorgeous image, Mike! I’ve never seen red cherry like this. I like the red color of this flower. I think your focus stacking is perfect. IMHO UR branch would be a little distracting.
Beautiful image, Mike. The branch in the upper right was a bit of a distraction, so I agree with removing it as Nao did. I was also going to suggest removing the dark area along the left edge, but now I’m thinking that I like it. It seems to add a bit of depth to the image. I love the red coloring too - it feels like it’s both soft and vibrant at the same time (if that makes sense), and I think it plays nicely against the background. Nice shot!
Mike. I have been viewing this image often without figuring out what was bothering me about it. Technically it is fine, great subject and beautiful colors. So, I attempted to work on it in NIK, just adding the white vignette. In the end, I guess the background wasn’t working, so the vignette seems to bring the focus back to the flowers, IMHO it works.
@Patricia_Brundage: Thanks very much for your reworking, and I agree it looks better with the white bg. I’ve tended to shy away from vignettes in the past, but I can see it works here, drawing the eye into the central flower very effectively, so I’ll keep this in mind next time I have a shot like this.
