First time post, Mountain flowers

[needhamp]

Olympus E500
50mm macro lens
f/5.6
Shutter 1/320 sec

Cropped from a larger image.

Thanks in advance for any feedback.

Mike

[marc_714]

From how I see it - there is just too much light. Its something that I have trouble with myself. You tend to think - Great a sunny day , perfect day to shoot. But this is too bright and it is difficult to focus on a subject.

Certainly the background is a killer and the flowers and plant are just too bleached out

[jiminyClickit]

needhamp, Welcome

One of my favorite subjects, so more is always welcome. In the photo, more of a crop towards upper left would still indicate outdoors as much as this one, and could eliminate the partial leaves, and blurred b/g repeat below. Sunlight is in good position, and maybe a little contrast could enrich the colors. Good first-time post.

[needhamp]

Here's a re-crop and I messed with the saturation and colors a bit. Is this an improvement?

[clockdoc]

You are on the right track. This is a good lesson to remember to look beyond the subject and evaluate the background, which can make or break a picture. Hopefully you shot other vantage points for comparison. May also want to try bracket exposure when you are faced with such a high contrast range as in this shot. You probably know this already but the specular highlights from the back ground are shaped by the design of your aperture/iris blades and are more pronounced because of the large aperture opening.

[jiminyClickit]

needhamp,

You have the idea. I was hoping to emphasize the color of blooms and that pleasing sunlit leaf in the center, while downplaying the background. So I cropped on right and bottom, made two layers (background and blooms), and worked b/g darker and softer, blooms brighter and more contrasted. The point is to make blooms the center of attention.

[velvet4269]

I will say that one of the things I've done while out during a bright, sunny day, is drop the EV to -.3 or -.7 (occasionally, a -1.0 is needed); everything else comes out a bit washed out :\.

The quick review on the LCD is enough to tell me if I need to re-shoot at a lower exposure or not.

[jiminyClickit]

velvet4269,

Compensation is my friend! I can get close on most settings, then fine-tune from there.

[velvet4269]

Yeah, I started playing around with it on my P&S camera, since it was a quick switch at the top of the camera, and after the first snap with the Oly E-300, I was adjusting it down. Almost everything I've posted has had the compensation adjusted

The only problems I run in to are when I try to take pictures of something in the shadows - since I'm underexposed most of the time, I forget to adjust it back

[jiminyClickit]

That's how I end up with so many extra shots.