Red flowers 24mm Miranda

Really liking this lens at the moment, certainly finding it more pleasing to the eye than what I have been getting out of the 50mm SMC-A 1.7. Plus the close focusing is great.
I feel a macro purchase coming in over the next couple of months...

Here are two shots taken in a friends garden yesterday, all at f2.8 on K-m set to spot metering.







Not sure which one I prefer, and actually if they are that sharp. In my eyes the mid focus one looks sharper?

Not sure on any editing required. Clicking on one step edit in X2 gets the below, which is brighter, more shadow, sharpened quite a bit and boost highlights. I often think it goes too far.

There's a couple of shots to demonstrate selective focusing! Nice colours in the first two, but, as you say, going too far in the third. It makes the background compete for attention, which is rarely a good thing.

I actually prefer the last one as the in focus part seems to have more pop. I'd agree with John about the background though, I'm not sure if your editing package facilitates it, but you could try (very) slightly desaturating & darkening the yellow channel which would then let the subject stand on its own merit.

I normally appreciate a lovely creamy background, but I think the background in #2 is delightful, full of colour, enough detail to suggest foliage but without being busy. This will have been due to the longer focus distance giving slightly more depth of field. I would have been interested to see the 1st shot at f4 or f5.6 to see if it resulted in an equally delightful backround.

Seems my wife prefers the last edited shot too.

The second one seems sharper to my eyes, but possibly due to the stamen standing out.

I think the yellow a nice contrast to the red, but possibly lightening the green background is causing a distraction to the flower? Might have a tinker with it tonight, using corel x2.

I like the first one most but would prefer the main point of focus to be brighter! Love the lens: I've been looking for one at a reasonable price for six months!

Tried editing the last photo above, that had already gone through the quick edit in X2 but it seemed to have lost definition between the colours. Must learn how to apply mask and then boost saturation to the areas I need.

Anyway, below I just used the level curves to adjust the highlights without applying to everything, and a function called Clarify which seems to have boosted the sharpness a bit.



Got some more that Sunday on the 24mm at f2.8 out with the dog




He's very skilled at throwing the ball at you too!



Managed to catch a smaller creature with the 18-55 which isn't too bad at getting close at the long end