Bee entering Cactus flower

iancrowson (e2 Member)

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24 Feb 2013 - 12:12 AM

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Good capture of bee on flower.
The stamens at the centre are very sharp although the bee maybe not quite as sharp.
The composition works but I feel would be improved by a camera angle more to one side. A tighter portrait crop would exclude some of the back ground which tends to distract the eye.
White flowers are very difficult to expose for especially in bright sun shine. Where the petals are in direct sunshine detail is starting to be lost. The best light for most flower photography is bright but diffused, either in the natural shade or using a white diffuser.
Yes I agree this is better than your last. This has more appeal. You could have framed tighter making the centre and bee the main point of interest.
If your outside and shooting one of a number of flowers try and chose one where the background is a long way away. The more out of focus the background the less distracting, read up on aperture and depth of field.
The more your shoot the better results you will get, look at other flower photo,
Regards
Ian

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Sooty_1 (Critique Team)

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24 Feb 2013 - 1:14 AM

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The star shape makes a natural frame, but you could crop a little tighter. You could also rotate the flower a little anticlockwise to improve the composition by placing the bee closer to an intersection of thirds.

The main problem is that you have used a decent aperture, but the focus is deep in the flower, so the depth of field extends behind it but only part way in front. That's why the background is well defined and the bee isn't. You needed to focus on the front of the flower which would have kept the bee and petals sharp and allowed the background to blur more (the depth of field extends roughly 1/3 in front of, and 2/3 behind, the plane of sharp focus).

As above, bright light is hard for shooting white (or any colour really) flowers, as you get high contrast and deep shadows. Diffused lighting or even light cloud is much better, though you can hold a diffuser over the top of what you're shooting, and/or hold a reflector in front to bounce light into the shadows.

If you are deliberately shooting flowers, you could even use a neutral coloured card behind them to get rid of ugly background intrusions.

Nick

Constructive Critique!