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ctfchallenge | all galleries >> CTF Challenge 165- Big Color >> CTF Challenge 165- Eligible > Orchid 4
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02-AUG-2008 Karl C.

Orchid 4

front yard

Well, the sunlight isn't the same today, and the colors aren't as subtle from a profile as they were from above and behind, but here's the closeup people requested.

Canon PowerShot SD950 IS
1/200s f/5.0 at 23.5mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Guest 05-Aug-2008 20:23
I like how you cropped the picture. The petals seem to be stretching to fill the frame ~dtallakson
Karl C. 03-Aug-2008 13:06
I'd wanted to re-shoot this today with less cloud cover, but the foreground and backgrounds both spread out across more of the histogram and didn't keep such a clear separation as seen here. It would have looked jumbled.
aam1234 03-Aug-2008 05:23
I like this version more.
Jim B (MSP)02-Aug-2008 18:19
I really like this version. Good composition, good DOF. Pretty colors in the flower.
Jim
Karl C. 02-Aug-2008 17:27
Thanks, I've been playing with this macro stuff partly to work on composition in a little more abstract way than I am accustomed with landscape or portrait shots...

On this one I used a pretty strange levels curve to compensate for really flat (overcast) sunlight. The flower is quite linearly mapped through the upper two thirds of the range, but then I dropped the lowest one third for more background contrast. The hue and saturation are unmodified from the camera. I used a healing brush on a couple of small brown spots on one blossom because they were distracting, and I think I may have applied a very weak unsharp mask before I cropped and scaled it down.

This is more post-processing than I normally would do, since I was trying to make a picture to order instead of just shooting what caught my eye. I've been pretty please with the semi-manual mode on this elph, using center spot metering. I only wish I could find a way to get separate exposure and focus lock...
ctfchallenge02-Aug-2008 15:36
I like the composition you chose and the color of the flower really stands out from the green. Penny Street
ctfchallenge02-Aug-2008 15:01
Do you do any post processing? I like this as a flower pic that uses the main subject in more than just pretty ways. The angle and crop provide a dramatic composition as well as effective color contrasts between the foreground and bg. -tv