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Another Clarkia view
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Another Clarkia view

by Dennis Plank

Gallery: FloraPosted July 14, 201379 views9 comments
I was sitting on the back porch with my morning coffee and the arrangement of these flowers on the stem made me break out the camera (that and the nicely still air). This is a four image stack. These plants can get 2-3 feet tall. The blossoms are about 1-1.5 inches in diameter and spiral around the stem (three per rotation). As shown here, they come into bloom from bottom to top with only a few in bloom at a time.

5Diii, 180mm f3.5 macro. The originals for this stack were taken at f6.3, 1/80, iso 800 Av mode with no compensation. The stack was done in CS6. The only cropping on this was to handle the slight misalignment of the individual images. Taken at 5:56 am on a slightly foggy July 11th.

I always appreciate your comments and criticisms.

Thanks for looking,

Comments

9 comments
Comment posted by Morris McClung on July 15, 2013 at 3:16 PM
Great color, and the light makes the flowers glow. I could see cropping below the top right bud, and above the leaves on the bottom to bring all of the focus on these beautiful flowers. Excellent dof and detail, too.
Registered on May 7, 2007, 670 Posts, 19650 Comments
Comment posted by May Haga on July 15, 2013 at 4:14 PM
Very pleasing image Dennis.
May
Registered on February 22, 2007, 714 Posts, 8470 Comments
Comment posted by Ramamohan Pai on July 15, 2013 at 7:05 PM
Dennis - Thanks for showing us the plant in full - sometimes the scale can be deceiving when we look at the blooms up close.

I really like this photo - with the stem going up as a S like curve with the blooms at front, side and rear. The background is clean and a bit textured so that is nice as well.

If you are not a purist, you could think of cloning out the clipped bud at the top and also the clipped leaf at the bottom.
Registered on November 1, 2003, 550 Posts, 9037 Comments
Comment posted by scott lanz on July 15, 2013 at 7:36 PM
Beautiful image, Dennis. I'd probably crop the top two buds.
Registered on November 14, 2003, 840 Posts, 12902 Comments
Comment posted by Philip Hodgkins on July 15, 2013 at 8:16 PM
I will just echo Ram's suggestions. :smile:
Registered on July 24, 2006, 2741 Posts, 12349 Comments
Comment posted by S Govindarajan on July 15, 2013 at 10:03 PM
Splendid image, Dennis. The colors are overpowering. I too agree with Ram about removing the half-bud at top. Part of me wants to see the full bud and the entire leaf at the bottom - so shooting this from a little further may also work. I will have to try image stacking myself one of these days. :toast:
Registered on April 19, 2008, 115 Posts, 1921 Comments
Comment posted by Mark Seaver on July 16, 2013 at 6:32 AM
It is a lovely flower and having it spiral through the frame works very well. I see you've already got multiple interesting crop/clone suggestions. I particularly like Morris's crop from the top suggestion as I find the topmost bud very distracting while removing the second bud puts more focus on the flowers. I actually like the bit of leaf and the spent flower stem at the bottom and think cropping them makes the bottom too tight.

In my experience with stacking, photoshop does a great job at getting the background right but often leaves small oof areas scattered through out the sharp regions where it's piecing the images together. This problem usually can't be seen at NPN sizes, but if you look at 1:1, you'll start to see these.
Registered on January 23, 2011, 1103 Posts, 17270 Comments
Comment posted by Ian Wolfenden on July 16, 2013 at 6:57 AM
Just shows what a cup of coffee can do !! Nice sharp stack and a fine comp., Dennis, with the movement of the flowers up through the frame against a lovely soft bg. Might agree about a crop from the top and possibly the bottom, but nice as is.
Registered on May 18, 2007, 1108 Posts, 7647 Comments
Comment posted by Albert Darmo on July 16, 2013 at 10:18 PM
Hi Dennis :wavey: beautifully captured. amazing detail and sublime color. excellent work :toast: yes ! a crop on top would make this even better :toast:
Albert Darmo
Registered on November 25, 2008, 1386 Posts, 11978 Comments