DSLR Photography Forum

[attachment=4226]Hi
I'm new here and would love to have my photo critiqued

Lovely, can you clone out the white bits, and, a bit of sharpening. Icing on the cake. Ed.

Nice subject...great colour... Agree with Ed on the white bits though... but, I don't think sharpening will help... I suspect you used a Tele lens with something close to f2.8 maybe at 60th or 125th, hand held and a low ISO100...? it is either not in focus or suffering from camera shake, or, if the tulip was outside in the wind, that would have caused movement and blurred the subject and sharpening wont fix that. Tripod mounted, plant outside in the wind... moving around, would give you the same blurred effect. A lot of sharpening and you will get noise and that will not be good. Perhaps you can retake... maybe at f5.6 and mount the camera on a tripod and fire it either with cable or radio trigger... Try to focus towards the centre of the tulip and you should get it in focus front to back... but still get the background largely blurred... Maybe shoot it from a slight angle from above... so you can gat a central focal point... If the plant is outside shield it from the wind...

What Camera/Lens and what setting did you use? Always helps here for us to give feedback...

All of this is only my personal opinion... Plantsman here, does a lot of this type of photography and would be able to advise you in perhaps more depth.

I have looked hard at the photo and thought it might be rescued by making it look as if it is meant to be in a fog or dreamy... see what you think... end of the day, it is your pic and only you know what it should be.

[attachment=4227]

Thanks for sharing... appreciate your time and effort.

Kind regards

Rolf

(Feb 7, 2015, 18:25)Rolf Wrote: [ -> ]Nice subject...great colour... Agree with Ed on the white bits though... but, I don't think sharpening will help... I suspect you used a Tele lens with something close to f2.8 maybe at 60th or 125th, hand held and a low ISO100...? it is either not in focus or suffering from camera shake, or, if the tulip was outside in the wind, that would have caused movement and blurred the subject and sharpening wont fix that. Tripod mounted, plant outside in the wind... moving around, would give you the same blurred effect. A lot of sharpening and you will get noise and that will not be good. Perhaps you can retake... maybe at f5.6 and mount the camera on a tripod and fire it either with cable or radio trigger... Try to focus towards the centre of the tulip and you should get it in focus front to back... but still get the background largely blurred... Maybe shoot it from a slight angle from above... so you can gat a central focal point... If the plant is outside shield it from the wind...

What Camera/Lens and what setting did you use? Always helps here for us to give feedback...

All of this is only my personal opinion... Plantsman here, does a lot of this type of photography and would be able to advise you in perhaps more depth.

I have looked hard at the photo and thought it might be rescued by making it look as if it is meant to be in a fog or dreamy... see what you think... end of the day, it is your pic and only you know what it should be.



Thanks for sharing... appreciate your time and effort.

Kind regards

Rolf

Hi Ed & Rolf
Thank you for taking the time to look at & critique the photograph for me. A friend of mine took it and I have to say it looked good to me in print. I'm trying to persuade her to join the forum. I was a member previously under the name of Charlie but I forgot my password and it didn't matter what I did it wouldn't let me re-set my password so had to join under my surname with a different email address. Its great that you all take the time to point us in the right direction and I love looking at the pictures of other users and reading all the tips etc
Rolf I loved what you did with the picture but looking at in on my large screen I have to admit it did look very blurry.
Regards
Wendy

I was trained in a different era, so ? Ed.

@ Wendy What I did with your shot was to not try to sharpen an out of focus or blurred shot but to use that to mimic a soft focus lens shot. Whatever you want from your photo is always good... mine is just an opinion and in no way is it authoritative... Have a great day

Kind regards

Rolf

@ Ed Good try ... but it's still out of focus... I did try sharpening but the amount of noise I thought was too much... I have rescued some of my earlier camera shake shots by trying to make them look like they were deliberately shot in soft focus... sometimes it works... I do like what you did though... perhaps if Wendy likes it too then all is good... Appreciate your skills though... got my first camera when I was 10... so been at it for about the same time as you but really am not that clever with the PS as I try not to use it.

Kind regards

Rolf

Thanks Rolf, I have pushed the sharpness as far as I can decently do, commensurate with file size. Noise is an issue with file size. When soft focus first "appeared", my then boss, said it was another name for dizzy! Times change.
First camera at 10, started part time, after school, full time school holidays, with local photographer, at 12, then was given a job at 15, apart from 3 years in the RAF, was there for 51 years. Am now 80. Lot of changes in that time. Cheers. Ed.

(Feb 9, 2015, 04:11)EdMak Wrote: [ -> ]Thanks Rolf, I have pushed the sharpness as far as I can decently do, commensurate with file size. Noise is an issue with file size. When soft focus first "appeared", my then boss, said it was another name for dizzy! Times change.
First camera at 10, started part time, after school, full time school holidays, with local photographer, at 12, then was given a job at 15, apart from 3 years in the RAF, was there for 51 years. Am now 80. Lot of changes in that time. Cheers. Ed.

Yes a lot of things have changed... I hated the soft images from the Canon 20d... always felt I couldn't get a decent shot in focus...portrait people couldn't get enough of them though...loved the early Spotmatics and even Petrie's.. first camera was a hand me down Leica ll. I'm only 3 years behind you

Have a good evening
Kind regards
Rolf

Thank you for all your comments, love the different ways of editing. Im only just trying out ps and have watched more videos than tried out the editing.
Thank you again
Wendy