Spanish Bluebells

[edG]

Haven't posted here for a while so here goes, so I thought I would submit this.

[QuietOne]

Overall, a lovely flower. I like the quiet tones of the petals and the background. There are a couple of spots that seem just a touch too bright to me, but it might be because I want to see just a little more of the greens on the buds. Might also be because it seems like the dark lavender blues just tend to give you bright spots. My 2 cents, and hopefully bumping the thread will net you some more answers.

[Mad Aussie]

Yeh sorry Edg ... been a hell few days from me ... scanning a few threads and hitting spammers at best lately from me.

I like this a lot. The composition works for me except for maybe that big green stalk. But it's part of the garden I suppose.
The hotspots aren't too much for me. In fact on my screen they they look maybe borderline but I probably wouldn't describe them as being over-exposed at all.
I really like how I can see up inside the blooms. Good sharpness on the 2 main blooms.

Good shot!!

[Iguanasan]

Overall, to my eye, it looks pretty well done. I agree with MA that the exposure seems excellent. The "hot spots" being a focal point and not over-exposed at all. Focus looks good and you've picked a fairly interesting subject. If I was being nitpicky then I would complain about the stray blade of grass, bottom left, and the dark line in the cement wall going across the background as distractions from an otherwise great image.

[edG]

Thanks all for the input, much appreciated.

This was shot with the new nikkor 16-85mm (2 ED optics and 3 aspherics) in the shade, the stray blade of grass is in fact part of the actual plant and this plant does have a really big stalk for such delicate flowers. Haven't looked into this much as we did not plant it and have only just noticed it this spring.

I punched the image up slightly in Lr3 Beta2, if memory serves me I actually knocked the saturation down 3-5 points in the presence section and left all values at 0 in the colour section, in the tone section Black was enhanced (moderately) and the contrast brought up to clearly define the petals of the bloom/bell, a touch of clarity and vibrance. The tone curve is usually set to linear with shadows dropped a few points, dark about half of the shadow drop, light slightly bumped and highlights slightly dropped.

[Marko]

Very strong image Exposure and composition all around is fine for me. My only niggle here is the blade of grass (despite the fact that it's part of the plant), it's a distraction.
I would have have moved it away at the time of the shot. (I'm not a purist in that way )

[edG]

Appreciate the feedback and niggling Marko - sorry for the late reply, just got back from a job in Parry Sound. I'm not a purist in that way either, will keep it in mind in future shots.