Where the rainbow ends... C&C Appreciated

Deliverance XXV

Comments and critique are greatly appreciated.

Click on the image to view enlarged version.

Where The Rainbow Ends...

1.



The Flower Experiment...

2.


3.


4.


5.


6.


7.

xia

Like them all:)
Ok, like rainbows anyway. But the atmosphere is well captured. Just wonder how it would be like if the rainbow ended in the flower pot...Kind of "pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow"...Dont' know if that would have been possible.
On the flower-side I like #4 the most. Probably because it's a more uncommon view.

smelltheglove

Like them all, great set.

kgiller

Really like #2 and #5. I think they are excellent. How did you take them to get the black background?

Deliverance XXV

kgiller wrote: »

Really like #2 and #5. I think they are excellent. How did you take them to get the black background?

Just a black sugarpaper background held up by a clamp to the wall.
Sometimes less is more

l pearse

Beautiful set Deliverance,

kgiller

Deliverance XXV wrote: »

Just a black sugarpaper background held up by a clamp to the wall.
Sometimes less is more

Ya. Really like the flower pics. What the hell is sugarpaper? WHat kind of lighting did you use? Off camera flash?

melekalikimaka

kgiller wrote: »

Ya. Really like the flower pics. What the hell is sugarpaper? WHat kind of lighting did you use? Off camera flash?

looks a bit warm for camera flash, i'd say maybe lamps?

Deliverance XXV

kgiller wrote: »

Ya. Really like the flower pics. What the hell is sugarpaper? WHat kind of lighting did you use? Off camera flash?

melekalikimaka wrote: »

looks a bit warm for camera flash, i'd say maybe lamps?

I used on camera flash for some and a lamp for others. Sugarpaper's name is a bit deceiving. It's more or less ordinary paper but a bit rougher. You can get about 50 sheets of A2 size for about a fiver.

TheNorthBank

Beautiful set of pictures, the flowers look great. I love the menacing sky in the Inistioge one too. (I used to go down that hill in the snow on fertiliser bags when I was a kid)

PaulieC

I like the flower shots - the focus is nice and they're a bit different from the usual head-on shots. The lighting is a bit hinky though, it seems very inconsistent both in colour and placement

Morrisseeee

The Rainbow shot is cool !

Deliverance XXV

Thanks for all the comments people

kgiller

Deliverance XXV wrote: »

Thanks for all the comments people

I think im gona try to copy your flower shots. So all i need is to set up some black paper on the wall and get some lights and diffuse the light a bit. Would you recommend 2 light or more?

Deliverance XXV

I prob wouldn't even use a external light but that's coming from someone with no experience with external lights.
The couple shots I did with the onboard flash, shot in RAW, definitely came out the most realistic.

Eg. #4, #5, #6.

elven

I'm going to go out on a limb here... I don't intend to come across as condescending or anything like that so I apologise in advance if i do, i just want you to look harder at the pictures and see what you might do differently, and what you might not have noticed this time.

The rainbow shot is lovely. Nice framing, green rolling hills, clever viewpoint, i like.

The flower shots - overall, they seem underexposed to me. I'm sure the absolute highlights in there are approaching pure white, but something feels wrong when i look at those pictures and I know the flower was white, but most of the pictures are shades of grey. The black background would maybe give a nicer contrast with the light flower if you did actually push it a bit more to make that contrast really work.

The depth of field seems a bit off - it's not quite enough to get the whole flower sharp and give it separation from the background, but it's not quite shallow enough to draw attention to a single element and render the rest into a smooth blur. It means that the out of focus petals that are closer to the lens are still not out of focus enough and they are quite distracting. the best use of shallower depth of field would be 4 where you've got the edges of the petals in focus and the rest of the flower in the background is blurry - although you've still got the absolute foreground as a blur.

The compostition seems a bit off as well, I know it's difficult when you're faced with a flower head to do something interesting with it in the frame rather than just plopping it bang in the middle. Again, I'd say 4 is the best composition - but it's slightly uncomfortable that you've cut a tiny bit off at the right. It's best to either keep it all in the frame, or make it look like you're supposed to have pushed it out by balancing it up better and cropping more off - if that makes any sense. If you look at 2, the flower is 'looking' up and to the right. Imagine it has a wee face in the middle there. You've got it up in the top right hand corner of the frame, so it's looking straight out and away from the empty space in the bottom left. If it was a person, you'd have them in the bottom left in this case, so they were looking into the empty space. This, of course, is all based on those natural aesthetic values of what is most comfortable for us to look at and find pleasing to the eye, i'm guessing that's what we're going for here, like knowing the rules before you break them kinda thing. The composition in 3 is a bit strange too with the bottom of the flower cut off, and it's just slightly too close to the right of the frame to be comfortable. 5 is a nice composition, actually, it illustrates the whole 'looking into space' thing because the wee face is looking up to the top left - and it's strengthened with the petals sort of pointing in that direction too. I'm not sure what you were going for with 6 and 7, they seem a bit sort of chopped off at the bottom, and the yellow in the background is distracting, which is unbalanced because it's out of focus.

I really do hope this helps you look a bit closer at them and see what you might do differently, and not just think i'm talking for the love of it. If anyone feels differently, i'd also be interested in their opinions...