Critique My Wife's Orchid --3RD PHOTO ADDED

[Mike Buckley]

Setup
Photos of the setups are displayed lower in this post.

Focus Stacking
Photo #1: 11 focus-bracketed images at CamRanger step size Small stacked in Helicon Focus at default settings
Photo #2: 37 focus-bracketed images at Nikon step size 3 stacked in Helicon Focus at default settings
Photo #3: 15 focus-bracketed images at CamRanger step size Small stacked in Helicon Focus at default settings

Photo #1

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Photo #2

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Photo #3

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Setup for photos #1 and #2 except that the background in the first photo is as shown below and the background in the second photo is purple presentation paper. The black round object in the top left corner is the rear of the reflector of the only lamp.

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Setup for Photo #3 -- The flashlight lit the background separately from everything else.

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[Randy]

beautiful

 

[jbailey930]

That is a beautiful orchid. Super impressed with composition. We have such a hard time gettin orchids to bloom.....

 

[Pa]

That came out very well. The bulb in the upper right corner looks a tad blown out near the stem, but it's not a major distraction.

 

[Terri French]

Nice one!!

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Randy, John, Jim and Terri!

The bulb in the upper right corner looks a tad blown out near the stem,

ACR didn't indicate that that area is blown. Even so, after seeing your comment, I tried toning it down just a small amount and liked it better. I didn't change the image displayed above but I did make that a permanent change to the image file on my computer. Thanks for mentioning it!

 

[Binnur]

Lovely orchid images Mike. I really like the colors and composition in the second image. But is there something wrong with your selection ? Because I can see some dark pink frame-like thing around the two big flowers.

 

[Mike Buckley]

in the second image. But is there something wrong with your selection ? Because I can see some dark pink frame-like thing around the two big flowers.

Eagle-eye Binnur comes through yet again! I didn't see those but I see them now that you have mentioned them. There is no masking in that area, so that issue was surely caused by the focus-stacking process.

 

[drr1531]

Beautiful floral, Mike. I really like the composition on the second shot. Focus stacking makes such a difference on flowers. In most cases I much prefer it over conventional floral images.

 

[Terri French]

I love the second shot even more than the first!

 

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you also to Dan and Terri!

 

[LyndeeLoo]

Lovely! I'm really studying your lighting techniques and am learning a lot. Beautiful photos and thank you!

 

[Mike Buckley]

I added a third photo to the first post in the thread.