Purple Tulip

Kathy, I really love the flower and even the shadow on the tip of the leaf. Looks as though your background is even enough that you could experiment with something different. Another color is the first thing that comes to mind. Other ideas might be to use this to create a wonderful graphic design. Lots of possibilities.
Out of curiosity, how do you control the distance when you are using the 500D? I use it on a Nikon 70-200 when I'm doing macro shots but I sometimes go a bit crazy with the distance. It seems that I have to be exactly 17.5 " away from my subject.
Regards,

Carol

Nice light and a really good looking BG color Kathy. Very nice shot.

Nathan

Thanks for your comments, Carol. I had a blast with these. I also have an orange tulip with variagated leaves that I purchased at the same time as these, and will post some of those later. The background is my dining room wall paper, which has a pattern with clumps of grapes, so I had to strategically place my shot between the grapes so they wouldn't show. Did lots of closeups, too, so may post some in Macro. I found the 500D to work well for me here because of the limited space in my dining room. I was able to get a lot closer, even in non macro shots. I did find myself wanting to get closer, though, for the more intimate shots.

Outstanding comp and colors Kathy, I love this!

Really nice color and light, and I like the neutral background.

Wonderful work Kathy, the color is really nice and the bg works well with your main subject, well done !!

Kathy:
A great comp. Tulips are such great subject to play around with. The comp is a bit tight and a little more room may help.

You brought all the elements together wonderfully Kathy. Super effort and result
Bob

Very nice portrait Kathy. I like the muted bg, but wonder if another solid might work better. I can so relate to your dining room table studio! Do you ever do any vignetting? I think a wee bit might add to the portrait quality Kathy. Just an old dog portrait photographer musing here.

Kathy: Everything works well for me on this one, including the BG color. I can see others that might be good as well but this is a superbly crafted image. Looking forward to more.>=))>

Kathy, I replied to your reply in my post, but will cut nad paste here.

You replied - "To answer your question on my post....I haven't worked with vignetting at all. Is there software you would recommend to do this, or do you do it in photoshop? I would prefer having a plug in and not have to mess as much with layers and masks (The easy route)."

My reply - "There are three plug-ins that I enjoy having in my tool box. Two by nik - Color Efex 3.0 and Viveza. The other is a selective focus plug-in from Alien Skin called Bokeh. All three take some bokeh to purchase."

You said - "My dining room "studio" set up works well for me too." Ditto!

I replied - "We are nearly neighbors. Maybe we could get together some time and shoot. The breeze as well as subjects. Your place or mine, or both. Also, not sure if you feel you are close enough to meet once a month with fellow nature photographers in the mid-Michigan area." That would be in Lansing. They just met this past Saturday. The group is called the Mid Michigan Nature Photographers and the group site is midmichigannaturephotographers@yahoo.com (might have to do a search).

The group meets at 1:00. At 2:00 a group of mostly portrait photographers meet there. The 1:00 group (nature shooters) stay to continue to shoot the breeze or leave. So far (two meetings) just meeting, no shooting other than conversation. Meeting open to anyone interested in nature photography. Interests seem to be birding and wildflowers/flowers.

I have photographed at the Meijer Gardens - but only once, a wedding party, a very interesting experience. Getting ready to photograph out of doors here. Our flower beds are beginning to pop, and I imagine the first of the wildflowers will be coming forth soon.

Hope you find much use for your new purchase - the piece of black cloth. To get a true deep black here I often have to tweak the "black" slider in Lightroom. Or tweak the black slider and use a plug-in. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Alas, someone I might be able to keep up with. I have a "Rhose Island" stride as my wife had put it years ago. We spent the first two years of our married life there when I was a student at URI. Her thinking was that Rhode Island is such a small (intimate?) state that getting from here to there doesn't take long and one can move at a slower pace. I also have short legs. So I tend to move about slower.