[matthew]

I'm really not as happy with this as I thought I'd be. I took a lot of shots of it, so I have some variety to choose from, but I'm new to macro landscape photography. The sure sign that I haven't gotten the picture right is that I don't like the title, and can't think of a better one.

Please make this a learning experience, I'm stuck.

[shuttertalk]

Hey Matthew, firstly congrats on a beautiful and unusual shot! I love the droplets - they're like little gems!

I think with macros, the DOF can be quite shallow, so you really need to pick a subject or something of interest in the frame and focus on that.

But I like your concept - macro landscape - and can try to imagine what it would have looked like...

[Toad]

There are a couple of good detail shots here. The bottom left 1/3 is really good and the stringy area at the top is good - I call these detail shots because each of these crops would have a clearly defined subject and focus. I like what you have done technically, but I would like to see the whole shot have a clear subject. To do that you need to crop to focus the viewer's attention - just my $.02.

[matthew]

Thanks for the comments.

I'm glad it's not just me that thinks there's no subject in the existing shot. (My usual reaction to landscapes is a shrug, so I'm not the best judge.) I'm starting to think that the problem with this photo - and the rest of them that I took of the same bush - is that I don't know what I'm doing. Technically they're fine; I'm quite happy with how they look, but that's just the camera. I just didn't have anything in mind other than recording the scene. If I knew what I was doing with these, having a subject, theme, and title wouldn't be an issue.

I may need to find this scene again.

Any thoughts on the OOF/Bokeh areas? I like it, but it's the only lens I could have used, so of course I like it.

[Irma]

I love macro pictures, specially of waterdrops... I know what you mean when you say you have a lot... I always take a lot of pictures when I am in the garden taking macros...

Your picture has some things I admire, first and very important to me it is that you are close to the subject to the level with your subject... the other thing is the light, you have very nice light in your picture... I like it... You have a blurred background and bokeh, this is a very good start...

I thing you got already advice about to concentrate your picture on one subject. I think this is also very important, and this why I love macro pictures... You can make of a little insignificant droplet a beautiful picture when you take it as your subject and you give it a nice background...

I have found that isolate your subject with the focus is important but also to isolate it with color... This strengthens a lot your subject and makes it shine...

Finally, as you say you are new in this field I would suggest to find a picture you like and try to emulate that picture... I have done this and it has helped me a lot to learn about macro and about the capacity of my lens... I don't have a macro lens I take my macros with a panasonic in macro mode...

Look forward to seeing more of your macro pictures

Irma.

[Toad]

You may not need to reshoot this - maybe just try a couple of crops of what you have to focus the viewer's attention - I played with a couple and you have great raw material here ot work with.

[Don Schaeffer]

This is a very remarkable photo. It's a new world. Good work.

--Don

[matthew]

Irma, thanks, I'm looking forward to taking more macros, and thanks for the tips, especially about colour. This is something that I haven't spent much time learning about, so this photo was just luck and enthusiasm. (This isn't really a bush, but a low ground cover. I took this photo practically lying on my stomach with my head stuck into a fine misting sprinkler. That's why the light is good -- it's a bright sunny day behind me.) I enjoyed shooting these so much that I'm considering a 50f/2 macro lens for my next purchase, although my kit lens does them pretty well.

Panasonic makes some great cameras. I was considering waiting for their new dSLR, but decided to go with the older, cheaper (I'm assuming - the Panny still isn't out yet) Olympus model instead. There's always a chance it'll be my next one, years from now.

Toad, I'll dig up my archived originals from this shoot and take another look at them. This is already a crop, trying to get the sense of a miniature river, out of a larger frame. Most don't have the spider web, which is why I chose this one to work with.

Don, thanks.