Tender Flora + Repost

Very dramatic lighting on this day lily. The larger version shows more detail. I still think the flower could be lightened a little more and still be able to retain the drama. Thanks for posting.

Thanks, Patricia. Funny thing is, it was lighter, but when I posted it, it became darker. Not as bright as the original file in photoshop. I'm going to try again, and compensate to see what happens. Thanks for the feedback!

The light really sets this off nicely, I also would liked to see it with a little less shadow.The same thing happens to me every once and a while, and I could never figure out why, anyway, I like this very much. Nicely done Marie.
John

Mary, I love the atmosphere and the emotion rising from the special light. Excellent controls of the highlights.
Take care.

Nice one, Marie. I like the subtle lighting and the shallow dof

Marie: I like the lighting and the exposure although a tiny bit brighter would be a slight improvement. My main suggestion is in the choice of DOF/POF. I shoot a lot of day lilies and find that if the anthers are included it generally works best if they are all sharp or just one is isolated. Here there are three that are significantly OOF. Your plane of focus including the pistil end is good. I'm guessing you shot this around f4 or f5.6. Shooting at this distance you ought to be able to get all of the center parts sharp at f8 at the worst. On my most recent post at a higher mag than your shot I got all the center parts sharp with f5.6. At macro distances I use my DOF preview pretty regularly. My camera allows me to adjust focus while stopped down so I can see in the viewfinder what impact changing the POF has. If your rig allows give it a try on your next outing. >=))>

Thanks to everyone who has commented. I really appreciate the suggestions!
So, what I did was lightened the image a bit and opened the shadows a bit also. Would like to know which one you like best.

Also wanted to share with you the original file, that I only made the filesize small enough to post here. No cropping or adjustments were made. Gives you an idea of where I started from.

Hi Marie. Nice touches of light on the petals. I like the angle and perspective too. It looks like Bill had some good suggestions below. My top two would be to clone out or eliminate the greenery above and to the left. Also was this shot on a tripod or handheld? It appears just a bit soft on my monitor.

Keep them coming!

Nathan

Marie: I like the repost. Sorry about all the acronyms but looks like you got the correct answers. >=))>

Beautiful shot Marie. I don't mind darker images. I think they provide a nice bit of drama that perfectly balanced exposures often miss. I like both versions but the second certainly has more bang.

I really wanted to take a moment and thank you all for giving me some wonderful feedback. I really appreciate all the time and info given here. This is the best group of folks! Thanks!