This Claret Cup was about as red as they come. No saturation enhancements here - just a bit of pull-back on the background to reduce the "noise" of the surrounding foliage. Have I mentioned that I love CS3?
Nikon D2X, 80-400VR at 120mm with Canon 500D close-up lens, handheld at 1/80 sec, f/13, ISO 400.
Cool shot! The detail is quite extraordinary, and I love the soft focus BG.
There are two yards near my home in Pueblo that have outageous claret cup displays right now. One of them I've photographed a few times before, but I'm reluctant to ask the homeowner if I can step into his side yard again, for fear of him telling me the cacti look the same as the last few times I photographed them. But there's another home where I think I can get away with it without even disturbing the homeowner. The claret cup are practically glow-in-the-dark right now!
I'm not sure if I was blessed or cursed by the gauze of cloud that followed me around on the trip, but it certainly enhanced the colors of the flowers. I really wish that Claret Cup Cacti didn't enjoy the company of grasses so much, though. I'd have loved a clearer background.
Does your neighbor come with a shotgun? Or just exasperation... You don't get much cactus above 9000' - I'm a bit jealous.
Glad you're not distracted too much by the BG; I used CS3's Quick Selection to select the flowers out, then cranked up the highlight recovery threshold on the remainder to take some highlighting out of the BG and tone it down a bit. The other thing Claret Cup seem to like out there is to be near the crypto crust - couldn't plant a tripod to take this picture, so I snapped about 8 rapid-fire shots handheld and got a few with the right focus (on the stamen and edge of the flowers...).
Does your neighbor come with a shotgun? Or just exasperation... You don't get much cactus above 9000' - I'm a bit jealous.
Glad you're not distracted too much by the BG; I used CS3's Quick Selection to select the flowers out, then cranked up the highlight recovery threshold on the remainder to take some highlighting out of the BG and tone it down a bit. The other thing Claret Cup seem to like out there is to be near the crypto crust - couldn't plant a tripod to take this picture, so I snapped about 8 rapid-fire shots handheld and got a few with the right focus (on the stamen and edge of the flowers...).
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10 repliesNikon D2X, 80-400VR at 120mm with Canon 500D close-up lens, handheld at 1/80 sec, f/13, ISO 400.
Thanks for sharing!
There are two yards near my home in Pueblo that have outageous claret cup displays right now. One of them I've photographed a few times before, but I'm reluctant to ask the homeowner if I can step into his side yard again, for fear of him telling me the cacti look the same as the last few times I photographed them. But there's another home where I think I can get away with it without even disturbing the homeowner. The claret cup are practically glow-in-the-dark right now!
Glad you're not distracted too much by the BG; I used CS3's Quick Selection to select the flowers out, then cranked up the highlight recovery threshold on the remainder to take some highlighting out of the BG and tone it down a bit. The other thing Claret Cup seem to like out there is to be near the crypto crust - couldn't plant a tripod to take this picture, so I snapped about 8 rapid-fire shots handheld and got a few with the right focus (on the stamen and edge of the flowers...).
Glad you're not distracted too much by the BG; I used CS3's Quick Selection to select the flowers out, then cranked up the highlight recovery threshold on the remainder to take some highlighting out of the BG and tone it down a bit. The other thing Claret Cup seem to like out there is to be near the crypto crust - couldn't plant a tripod to take this picture, so I snapped about 8 rapid-fire shots handheld and got a few with the right focus (on the stamen and edge of the flowers...).
John