Toward the Light + REPOST
by Carol Hyman
Recently I was house sitting in southern California and once taxes were completed I played with shooting tomatoes and tulips to pass the time.
I've been experimenting with manual focus and used a tripod and cable release. This was taken in the morning light and required very little processing in Camera Raw + an added curves adjustment and the addition of a dark layer matching the darkness on the left and a mask on the left side. That way I could eliminate the light from the window on the right. This is full frame with an aspect ratio of 3:2.
Both the bouquet of Tulips and cluster of tomatoes yielded many, many images, each a little different.
This was shot with a D700 and a 105mm macro lens. The exposure was .3 sec at f/9 with an ISO of 100 and at -1EV. I use spot metering and this was a manual exposure in natural light from the window.
C & C more than welcome.
Best wishes to all,
Carol
Comments
16 commentsThanks again,
Carol
I'm undecided about the overall composition, with the tulips tight left like this.
Nice to see a post from you again.
Nathan
Hopefully I'll be able to post more.
Cheers,
Carol
Space at the top is already mentioned and since the composition was arranged by you, I am sure you like it the way it is.
The only other thought I have is to do a bit of shadow recovery on the dark sides of the Tulips.
Albert Darmo
Canada
Bob
Modifying the original was not the easiest of tasks. Because of the partial mask, the background, while appearing to be black was not quite. I re-worked this last night but went too far with the shadows, so this back to the drawing board with a more subtle hand.
3/4 of an inch was added to the top. I played with the Shadow slider and reduced the lightening to about 12%, give or take; then came the difficult part. Playing with the background to get the added canvas to match all of the flavors of black. I've partially succeeded, but enough is enough and as some of you know, I'm packing to move so I must get back to that task.
Lessons learned. When I discovered I had all but clipped the Tulip on which I was focusing, probably the best bet would have been to re-shoot immediately.
Failing to do that, the next step should have been adding canvas as a first step.
And finally, in spite of dealing with both soft objects and hard elements, it would have been better to make a complete mask first time around.
It's been a learning project and I do thank each and every one of you.
Sincerely,
Carol
That was my first thought, great minds think alike Carol
Great work on the repost, much improved IMHO.
There's a sharp horizontal shadow line? on the tulip right that you might look at..
Take care.
I'm glad you liked my suggestion. I have seen a lot of photos here, in which the main attraction is just too close to the edge for framing.
Nice to see you and your beautiful flower photos also here. Excellent tulip photo, but I agree with Lucy comment.