Flower by the road

[Tristin]

Nikkor 105mm f/1.8 Ai-s +6T @f/2

[Bjørn Rørslett]

A very nice presentation of the ubiquitous poppy.

My only nitpick would be a wish for slightly less stopping down to render the background even smoother.

[Tristin]

Bjørn, I wish that were so as well.  I have found that the only impact that f/1.8 has on the image compared to f/2 is the center portion of the image being brighter.  All other attributes are virtually the same, so I usually only use f/1.8 is when I have a subject in the center that I want to stand out more as it can unbalance the tone of the image.  I consider this lens to be a 105mm f/2 with a special setting for a bright spot.  I do wish the bokeh was smoother and less bulged, but the only other 100mm f/2 I know of is out of my budget, and I don't know how it compares.

[Frank Fremerey]

I like it very much, esp the way you chose the sharp plane to stop behind the subject. Did you control this with live view?

[Tristin]

Used the VF, the bazing sun above me would render a LV unviewable without a loupe.  I have an S type focus screen, so the exact dof is visible with this lens if you have a few seconds to really pay attention to the fine detail.

[Mikes]

Beautiful minimalist image, Tristin. The red poppy presents itself dramatically against the greys of the roadway.

[John Geerts]

Yes. Very nice contrast between the 'evil' grey and the Poppy.

[Frank Fremerey]

"Type S Focussing Screen" Which? Where? How? I had Katzeye screens on both of my D70 bodies for MF and currently only use guesswork and "green dotting" to find manual focus, which works quite well.

[Anthony]

I like this, for the reason Mikes gives.

[Jakov Minić]

Ver tender and fragile looking poppy.
Nicely shot minimalist image! No secret I like those
(perhaps less sharpening would have provided a creamier background given that you have shot it practically fully open @f/2.0)

[Tristin]

Frank, it is the Canon S type from focusingscreen.com which I can highly recommend.  Though f/4 is as slow as I would go with it, f/2.8 even for dim lighting

Jakov.  Perhaps selective sharpening could help a bit, but this image suffers because the oof region is at an angled plane.  I have noticed that I get particularly bad bokeh when the background is situated like this, it begins to look a bit "barfy" in my opinion.  The higlights/etc. get distorted which really upsets the smoothness.  I got as low as I could to knock the road oof more, but could only go so far before the road lines appeared in the image.

[Tristin]

After commenting on my recent squirrel picture how I used a negative clarity value to soften the bokeh, I thought maybe I should use the same technique on this image.  What do you guys think?

[Akira]

Tristin, the second version looks nicer to me.  And I really like the natural point-color effect of the image.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

This approach does wonders to the background, Tristin.

You could juggle settings to make a sharp and a soft layer and brush in the sharp detail where it is needed. A simple yet efficient technique, but does add overhead to the work flow of course.

[Jacques Pochoy]

Great picture of that solitary poppy... :-) I do prefer the second version !