ROSES FOR POSES

[elsid]

From my garden

[Seapy]

#4 for me, possibly #5 too except the ghosting at the back of the rose head, just find it a bit distracting, not sure what it is?

Whats the lens and aperture?

[elsid]

Hello Seapy, Here is the info: Camera D810, all photos taken hand held.
1. Nikon G lens 85mm, f/11, 1/1000
2. Same lens, f/8, 1/1000
3. same lens, f/11, 1/1000
4. same lens, f/4.5, 1/1000
5. Nikon micro 55mm AI, f/5.6 1/60
6. same micro lens, f/8, 1/400

[Seapy]

Thanks ElSid,

I don't recognise the fringing as background blur, I have and use the micro 55 f2.8 for flowers white a lot. I usually keep it wide open.

The first and third could be seen as over saturated but while you *may* have lifted them a bit, from experience I have found many bright red flowers such as these can be very difficult because they may fluoresce especially in bright ambient light.

#4 remains my pick.

#6 I would have softened the saw edges of the leaves top left, again, they are distracting from the main image... Just my thoughts   

[elsid]

Dear Seapy,
None of the photos are saturated. I use Lihgtroom and mostly adjust exposure, contrast, highlights, black, clarity, vibrance,  not all of these
every time. I have noticed that photos from the 2 Zeiss lenses that I have (21mm, 135mm APO) need less post processing than those from the Nikon lenses.
I am not very familiar with post processing software and I prefer to do other things than study manuals.
Here is a photo from the Zeiss 135/2 APO. Taken at f/2.

[Seapy]

Very nice, both of them.

I hit a wall some years ago trying to photograph deep red Rhododendrons in very poor light, they were over saturated straight from the camera, yet the surroundings were normally exposed.  To cut a  long story short, it seems some natural dyes are fluorescent and it can be very troublesome for fashion photographers when trying to get accurate images of dresses for product photographs.  I found a paper from Kodak detailing the issue but not a solution, except of course now with digital it's easy to mask and reduce the saturation.  Back in film days it wasn't so easy.

Have you tries any of the excellent video tutorials, accessible directly from the Lightroom control panel?  I have picked up a lot of very handy tips that way, in a spare moment of course. 

[Akira]

Hi, ElSid,

I really like the brilliant colors of the roses.  At first, I though the lighting was too contrasty, especially that of the red roses, but then I found they are rather interesting graphically.

That said, my favorite would be the second last one of the first batch.  The deteriorated flowers fascinate me sometimes...

[elsid]

Thank you Akira. I also like the colors of the roses. I am posting some more. Seapy, what you describe about the rhododendrons happened to me with the first 2 photos.
These roses are from the same plant. Two points: first, their color was not the same when I made the shoot and it shows in the photos, second, they look more vivid (saturated) in the photo
than in their natural state. In post processing I have only reduced the black.

[armando_m]

really like the colors of the yellow / orange rose, like a ripe peach

beautiful series

[Seapy]

The first time I came across this was at Clapham in Yorkshire I was researching Reginald Farrer, he was a plant collector in the early 20th century. He is said to have loaded rhododendron seeds into a shotgun and fired them into a gully.  As I approached the gully I noticed some bright red blobs in the distance, I thought they were climbers helmets, they were so bright. It was a dark February day.

This was over half a mile away. Eventually I realised they were red rhododendron flowers.  I have photos of them at home but I am away at present posting on my iPhone. 😀 

[elsid]

Thank you Armando,
Here are another 2 with colors you might like.