Water drops in the heart of hydrangea flower

Image Critiques Macro/Close-up Critiques
1

Ageing hydrangea petals have perfect surface to hold round water drops. I sprayed with water bottle over hydrangea flower ball before taking pictures.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any feedback

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

All comments

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

Canon 5d mark iv, marco 100 with 2 extension tubes

_MX_8056-054-Edit
_MX_8056-054-Edit2048×1536 2.52 MB
, f/16, 3.2 sec, ISO 100, 22 exposures stacked with Helicon Focus

If you would like your image to be eligible for a feature on the NPN Instagram (@NaturePhotoNet), add the tag ‘ig’ and leave your Instagram username below.
2

Lana, your composition looks very good here, with the color change as a corner-to-corner diagonal. The water drops are a good addition.

3

Lana, I agree with Mark, the composition looks good. Nice magnification in the water drops.

4

Agree with both Shirley and Mark. Lovely colors, composition flows well, water drops add to the impact.

5

@Shirley_Freeman, @Mark_Seaver, @ravi, thank you! Are 22 exposures too much for this photo? With extension tubes the lens is not as sharp and I wonder if extra exposures in focus stacking can compensate for it. Seems like not too much.

6

Lana, I can see with two extension tubes, the dof further decreases, so one may need more frames. it also depends on how deep the subject is. I have stacked up to 30+ images to get everything in focus. There is a big learning curve in manual focus bracketing and assembling them in a software. I am a slow learner, but it took me a good 3 years to learn the nuances of Zerene stacker and also how to do focus bracketing. Hopefully, the newer generation cameras can make focus bracketing part easier, as they have auto focus bracketing features.

7

@ravi, this is very insightful. I admire all your flower photos. The depth of detail is absolutely amazing! I got Helicon as everybody recommended it. I find it very easy to use and very accurate too. Best, Lana

8

Lana, if you’ve added so much extension to your lens that it is beyond the limits of its optical design everything will be soft. There’s no software fix for that. As a rough estimate, I’d guess that you should be able to add at least 50 mm of extension when using your full frame camera. At high magnification, a bit of softness may be a camera stability problem, try using mirror lock up and either a delayed shutter or a cable release. There’s no limit to the number of slices (as long as they’re sharp and have overlapped areas of sharpness). I done 40 slices.