phalaenopsis
K100D Super, 18-55, 50-200, Sigma 10-20, Sigma 70mm macro and lots of old lenses
I'd hang this on my wall.
Mac from Montreal
SP, SPII, SPF, PZ-10, P30, SFX, K110D, istDS, Optio 60, Z-10, H90, RZ10, I-10, f3.5 28mm, f1.8 55mm, f1.4 50mm, f3.5 135mm, f2.5 135mm, f4 50mm Macro, f4.5 80-200 F, f4 35-70, f3.5 28-80, f3.5 35-135, f3.5 18-55, f1.8 31mm Ltd., two Auto 110's, Auto 110 lenses and filters, tubes, bellows, Manfrottos and a sore back.

Fired many shots. Didn't kill anything.

But

Dan
K-3, a macro lens and a DA*300mm...



Excellent exposure, superb composition, very nice.

But

Dan
Thanks for all your kind comments, Dan I've just noticed it too - stood at the other side of the room from the monitor and thought WTF! Everything is still set up and it looks like the back light is creating a shadow from a stem behind the petal. This is what I hate about studio flashes, or mine at any rate, the modelling lamps aren't strong enough to show things like this. Alternative? Hot lamps but they would have melted the ice in my other pic and wilted the flower and would only deliver something like f5.6.
Stand by, I'm going back in there. Hold the front page.
Ken
Ken
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -

Dan
K-3, a macro lens and a DA*300mm...



... exactly why do you think the composition is good?
The centre of the foreground orchid doesn't look too sharp to me, and the OOF background one has the edge-on petal quite sharp, so for me it's a distraction.
I don't really understand the point of the way it's cropped, either.
It doesn't do much for me, sorry..

But I'd like to know why people think it's good.
since you are reshooting......
try one shot where the flower position/dof gets the background flower with the (what do you call it...Pistol?) colored bits in focus....
Fired many shots. Didn't kill anything.

Regarding the sharpness, I did wonder whether it was a little too far forward, but at this resolution it's so hard to tell which bits are critically/acceptably sharp that I didn't comment. The shadow was the main concern for me.
And you don't need a

Dan
K-3, a macro lens and a DA*300mm...



And you don't need a

Thanks. I know technically an apology isn't necessary.. but I never enjoy raining on people's parade. And when everyone else is saying 'top notch', and 'superb', and I'm going... 'huh?', I usually assume I'm missing something - especially amongst the company here.
Usually I can see why people think something's good, even if I don't like it... so if others think there's merit that I can't see, in something, then I have the opportunity to learn something. So thanks for the elaboration.
I thought the idea work nicely.
the two view points show the flower in an imaginative, unconventional composition.
it's a tough one to light.
there's lots of nice detial in the texture of the petals (even on the bits of the back flower).
and even the shadow, ties the foreground flower to the background flower, if it had not been there my first assumption would've been photoshop, and that would've made me wonder why the back flower wasn't more in focus.
I wouldn't be embarrassed to print that one on watercolor or canvass and hang it.
I think three flowers would've forced a more conventional composition...
but by having the option of extending the background black, along the top and right side, any gardening magazine editor might give that one serious consideration for a covershot....
Fired many shots. Didn't kill anything.
www.mieritz.net

Ken

EDIT:
By the time I'd re-shot and posted I didn't realise others had posted and a good debate as always. At the risk of being pedantic this isn't 'cropped' it is framed. 99.9% of the time I dont crop (moving picture background where it isn't an option) and for ME cropping is minor failure though I wouldn't judge anyone else by that measure. I had other ideas about the composition but I didn't think my wife was going to appreciative about severe pruning with the kitchen scissors. Of course, imagining an image and realising it are very different things.
I'm reminded of working with someone who had visited Albert Speer (Hitler's architect) in Spandau prison. He asked Speer how he coped with being denied drawing materials by his Russian gaolers. When the guards weren't looking he invited my friend to lie down and look at his herb garden - architecture in macro.
Ken
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -
gartmore
Member
Glasgow, Scotland
Set up was one flash head shooting through a white brolly, above and to the right of camera and a backlight with honeycomb and snoot. *IstDS 200ISO, 160th @ f13, Pentax F 28-80 at macro setting.
Ken
“We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole.” - Henri Cartier-Bresson -