Poppies by the Road

paskinmj

4

16 Jul 2012 - 11:13 AM

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Nice POV.
Matt

Focus_Man

3

16 Jul 2012 - 1:39 PM

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Well spotted but I think I would most probably have looked for three poppies close together so that I could capture all three in sharp focus. Three is a good number to use.

I don't know how many of these you attempted to get in focus but feel sure that just one in the bottom corner is insufficient to form a nice composition: your aperture of f4.5 most certainly won't oblige you. Better to set up the three close together (by a bit of photographic gardening) and then assess the Dof required, probably f11 or thereabouts. If your shutter speed is too slow to be able to deal with that aperture then you will need to use a tripod with some means of off-camera shutter operation. A blue sky wouldn't help much either as you have kept most of it out of your frame.

Have a look through other similar pictures uplaoded into the CG and see how they have been set up then read the comments appended, it is the best way to learn.

Frank

pamelajean (Critique Team)

7

16 Jul 2012 - 9:52 PM

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Poppies always make good subjects for photography, Graham, but they are so delicate and prone to movement from the slightest breeze. So you need a fast shutter speed and/or a tripod. There was a lot of potential here, but a little pre-shot "gardening" was required in order to move the intruding long grasses out of the way of your subjects. This may seem tedious, but it's certainly worthwhile if you want a sharp image.
With the three foreground poppies in focus, this would have been fine, but the bottom right-hand poppy is flawed and the left-hand one is obscured by grass.
Your versions under Modifications are closer, a better idea, but are suffering with the same problems. (I think you have duplicated the same picture). Taking the three poppies on the right, having removed the grass, you could have had a good picture here.
It's tempting to shoot from above the poppies in order to see their black centres, so I have no problem with your angle.
Compositionally, it would be better not to split your background with part sky and part grass. This isn't always easy.
This all seems negative, but I hope it's of some help.
Pamela.