Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
I photographed this image at local botanical garden. Camera was handheld. I used a 90 mm macro lens. Magnification is not quite 1:1. It was photographed using diffused flash. f/8.
Camera: Nikon Z8
Lens: Laowa 90mm 2.9
Exposure: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/200
Flash: Nikon SB-500
ISO: 400
Woah, I bet these are so striking in person. Especially if there’s a mass planting. What a treat to have a botanical garden so close by. No such luck in the northwoods here.
Your technicals look really good here - sharpness/focal point, exposure and processing - all very natural. What I’m tripping over is the crop. The bottom petal is cut off. Sure, these are large flowers and so you can run into problems with intruding bits of other plants (like the bud behind), I’d rather have the whole thing in frame. When I’ve done this I crop even further - taking away even more of the flower for a more deliberate look to my crop instead of an accidental one. If you have other views, those would be interesting to see, too.
Thank you Kris for your feedback. Yes, i’m afraid it was an in camera crop so I’m stuck with it. As it happens, I was hand holding, shooting manually and trying to achieve 1:1 magnification so to get that I compromised, clipping the bottom of the flower. I normally would be on a tripod. Still, wish I had pulled back a little and then could have cropped in a bit in post. Thanks again. John
Wow, what a lovely image! I love the bold, bright, and inviting colours. It must have been a joy to photograph in a botanical garden. That’s something I would really love to do and could easily see myself shooting an entire day there. You’re use of flash is also very good. The lighting looks really natural and clean. There are a couple small things that in my opinion would have made this shot even better and that is not cutting off petal at the bottom (not a deal breaker though) and hiding the out of focus flower bud that is behind this bloom. If you had shot this from a tiny bit lower down and to the right I think both these issues would have been addressed. Still a great image though, that’s just something to think about.
Thanks Tom. Glad you liked the image. I agree on the out of focus flower bud. I couldn’t quite make the adjustment and maintain my focus without resetting. Would have been better shooting from a tripod.
