Oh great, another flower macro...

[glitch]

Seeing as this got naff-all response when I posted it in another thread, I thought I'd post it in a new one.

This is a Sun Rose (Cistus x purpureus) and was shot in my back garden on Sunday, in-between showers. I didn't really plan the shot as it was a demo for someone on here who'd requested a flower macro, but I'm actually getting more and more pleased with the result as the days roll on and non-photographers have been commenting quite positively.

5D | 100mm Macro | f/2.8 | 1/400 sec | ISO-50 | MF | Sun Rose [Cistus x purpureus]

It's by no means perfect, and I'll re-shoot it over the weekend to overcome a few of the niggles I have with it, but I'm relatively happy with the outcome from 5 minutes in the garden, dodging the rain.

What do you all think? Probably won't be everyone's cup of tea, and some will think it's a bit simplistic, but what do the rest of you think?

 

[martinturner]

I love the composition and colour, although I think the DOF is not working enough (for me) as the detail/clarity of the central inner bit is not sharp enough. Only the tips of the inners are sharp, I would love to see the stems of the inners sharp? (not blurry). I have to say I am really nick pickety - I do really like this shot all the same!!!

Tis hard to be original with macro's of flowers ... I do have a green macro of a flower I done one my flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/martinturner , although have to admit I have taken loads which come out generally uninspiring, nice to see you have done something a bit different with the DOF.

 

[Messiah Khan]

I agree with martinturner. The colours, composition and lighting is all spot on. The dof however doesn't work for me. I think if you stopped own a bit to make more, if not all the stamen in focus while retaining some of the bokeh in the foreground it would look better. The problem at the moment is that you have the focus split across two areas, a bit of the petal in the foreground, and the tips of the stamen. this makes my eyes jump between these two areas and not settle anywhere. I think if you joined these two focal areas together it would work much better.

 

[glitch]

Well that's the plan for the re-shoot, so good to know it'll be worth it. I just need a few more millimetres in the centre so I can get the DOF right down to the base of the ovary.

The plan is for everything this side of the darker spots to be OOF and for the focus to get gradually sharper as you move in. Well, that's the plan anyway. The bloody flower will have probably dropped off in all this wind, knowing my luck.