7 Stem Pompon

Gallery: FloraPosted March 9, 201641 views5 comments

The tag said 7 stem pompon, but it doesn't look much like the ball I'd expect. My girlfriend was a master gardener...still teaches sometimes, so I'll have to start checking with her what I have bought. Right now, I pretty much go for things I think are pretty.

I found a few soft light boxes and a strobe that weren't being used anymore at work, so I brought them home. I also picked up a plamp and have it hidden behind holding the flower. For this image, I used a softbox behind/above as well as another front/above left.

I wanted to expand on the last image I posted by getting in tighter and focus stacking. For this I took 3 images and stacked them with a trial of Zerene Stacker. This is uncropped. I plan to attempt a manual blend as well. I tried auto-blend in PS, but that left artifacts.

I like the imperfection with the central 1 o'clock leaf beginning to shrivel and the central green glow from the back light.

sony a7r2, tamron 180mm macro, f/16, 1 sec, ISO 100.

Thanks in advance for your critiques!
Jeff

Comments

5 comments

Comment posted by Bill Fach on March 9, 2016 at 11:44 AM

Jeff: I like what you've done with the lighting here and the overall high key presentation. The detail on the center parts is excellent. My only suggestion has to do with presentation. When you post an image with a lot of white against the white site BG the edge of the frame gets lost. I usually put a one pixel stroke around the final image to separate it from the BG or use a dark site BG.>=))>

PS: I see you edited the frame. Works better for me this way.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1805 Posts, 26981 Comments

Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on March 9, 2016 at 9:12 PM

A well constructed studio shot, Jeff. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments

Comment posted by Nathan Buck on March 14, 2016 at 3:48 PM

Very nice Jeff. Great experimentation and excellent results. I like the high key effect. Nicely done!

Nathan

Registered on November 1, 2003, 1101 Posts, 13589 Comments

Comment posted by Giuseppe Guadagno on March 16, 2016 at 9:21 AM

A lot of light and an excellent sharpness in the center. Have you tried to lower the contrast? Just for giving a try.

Registered on February 3, 2007, 827 Posts, 5052 Comments

Comment posted by Jeff Martyka on March 17, 2016 at 11:39 AM

Thanks for the thoughts!

It started off with less contrast. I boosted it using NIK ColorEfx in a similar way as I'd boost a landscape. I preferred it this way as it just felt too flat before adjustments. I probably used the dynamic contrast and color contrast range filters within ColorEfx...don't recall exactly but I use those on a lot of images.

Registered on June 20, 2014, 30 Posts, 155 Comments