Some flowers for perusal and critique

All of these images were taken with the K10D, 77mm Ltd with Circular Polarizer, ISO 100, AdobeRGB, RAW Natural, SR off, all f2.0 except Flowers 3 & 6 which were f4.0.

Absolutely no adjustments. These are the RAW files converted to JPEGs in sRGB.

Sorry if there are too many. I don't think so.

What do you guys think?

Flowers 1



Flowers 2



Flowers 3



Flowers 4



Flowers 5



Flowers 6



Flowers 7



Flowers 8



Flowers 9

I'm not sure why you used such a wide aperture, but with little DOF to play with most of the images are out of focus.

The closer you are the more you need to stop down to get any DOF. Focusing needs to be very carefully done. If some of the image is to be defocused that's fine, but the composition should make it clear what the intent is.

A final, maybe contentious for some, point is that IMHO if no processing is to be done then I don't see the point of shooting RAW.

I like the wood in no 3 but IMHO the foreground needs to be in focus as well.

Otherwise I agree with Johns points totally. Also I don't feel you need the Polarizer, take it off and you'll get more light so you can stop down further.

In general I think the shallow DOF works fine in your pictures. In #3 I would have preferred the focus a bit closer to you.
In #2 the red tulips are a bit too dark for my taste, I would try a curves adjustment on this.
In #5 (and #7) the reds look a bit flat, i.e. not much detail in the petals, perhaps you should darken this a bit. I guess some of the detail is lost on the conversion from AdobeRGB to sRGB. Have a look at #9, I think it's just right there.

Most of the pictures would look more natural if the saturation was turned down a bit, and more detail would show up on the petals.

Thanks for the input. I think I did overdo the shallow DOF a bit, but I also wanted a sense of depth. I was also fishing for some tips on how to PP these raw images. I was highly impressed at the quality of the images that came out. These are 25% size, and at 100% size they were absolutely *sharp*!!!

Do you think the polarizer was more detrimental than beneficial?

Can't say that unless you have identical compositions taken without the polariser, I find they enhance these types of shots more often than not, but then that's just my preference...

Dan

Matt will be better able than me to answer this, but I would make two points:

First, RAW conversion software in the computer might do the conversion to JPEG more accurately than the K10D could.

Second, if the final version of the image is not a JPEG, but a file format that handles more than 8 bits per colour, then there certainly would be an advantage to shooting RAW (provided the additional bits are not lost along the way).

In normal practice, however, most images end up as 8-bit, and I shouldn't think point one would make a very big difference.

But the idea of buying such a capable camera and not doing at least some post-processing seems bizarre to me. It's like buying a Rolls-Royce and choosing to walk behind it.

G

OK, I'll get into the Rolls in future....

But absolutely agree with that, although I could imagine a photographer who wanted the best quality or maybe to photograph something specifically needing an SLR, but who did not want to do any computer work.

It's just like an LX user having the pictures printed at Happy Snaps.

In my mind there's a difference between "shooting RAW and doing no post processing" and "shooting JPG in camera".

Because... when you shoot RAW and just use the RAW conversion software you have so much control - exposure, white balance, colour response (e.g. film responses), contrast, curves, selective colour control, sharpening, noise reduction etc etc etc.

Technically you could claim most of that is actually "post processing". However, as George will agree, you can use something like Silkypix and find you don't need any PS PP at all.

Even the Pentax converter (based on Silkypix) will do a better job than the camera because it's got heaps more processing power. The fact that Silkypix DS3 on my quad-core Xeon with 2Gb QDR RAM takes about 20 to 30 seconds to process a PEF file properly shows it's doing a load more than the camera ever could

And, as I've found out more than once, shooting RAW means you can always revisit the image later as RAW software gets better and eek out more from the image.

...now where was that Silkypix user guide...

But that's going a little off topic...
Matt

I agree with Mattmatic.
as a person who shoots primarily jpeg, for workflow reasons,
I've found that aperture allows me to integrate RAW into my workflow as easily as using jpegs. I've not seen a single image with detials blown out in the reds since. For me the one touch Raw button on the k10 allows me to "hit the button" for important, or difficult shots, and not have to think twice about getting bogged down at the post phase!