White Lily - Second Attempt

[ellie mac]

Hi all,

After taking some of the suggestions in my previous thread on board I have done a new series of lily photographs. I think they are much improved & would be interested to see whether others agree & get some additional critique.

I came home to discover one of the lilies had been flattened by the newspaper delivery - a tradgedy for my garden but a bonus for me as it allowed me to bring it inside, put it it a vase and then set up to photograph it as I wished to rather than having to deal with the difficulties I had been having with the background in the garden.



I set up in front of my living room window, with some dark fabric as a backdrop and used my tripod. I've done some very minor pp to brighten a fraction & then cropped. This one is my favourite, there are some more on flickr if anyone is interested.

Settings were as follows:
Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Thanks for taking the time to have another look.

[Arvid]

Hi Ellie, you are definitely on the right track. This one plus those on Flickr look very nice although they may still be slightly underexposed. Is this flower a little old since the top folds under?

A word of caution. You said you took this picture “in front of my living room window”. I tried that by our large windows and the colors didn’t turn out as good as I though they should. I found that our high E windows affected the camera’s AWB setting and I had to go to manual WB. I tried by the only clear glass window we have and AWB worked.

[melanie2457]

This is a HUGE improvement over your last set of lilies! Way to keep at it and thanks for taking everyone's advice!

[epeyton@tampabay.rr.com]

Simply Beautiful

[ellie mac]

Thanks very much guys - It's great to get some positive feedback.

Arvid - The flower isn't more than a few days old - both of the blooms fold over in a similar way & always did, I think that's just how they are. This one has a small amount of damage, but again it came out that way & I kind of like the idea of a small flaw in the beauty.

The tip about windows is a good one - we are in a pretty old house here & all the windows are clear glass so shouldn't cause an issue such as you describe. (whether they are clean is another matter!) The colours on these look fairly true to life to my eye other than the problem I've been having getting the exposure right.

[Nicole]

It doesn't look underexposed to me, in fact, I think you did an excellent job ensuring that you kept the detail in the white, while still getting a nice bright white. The composition is good too, and excellent simplicity. Nicely done.

[ellie mac]

Thanks Nicole

[windrider86]

May i ask why you used 400 iso? using that high of an iso (i learned the hard way) tends to get a more grainy picture. I see a tad bit in yours but i must say you did a wonderful job

[cathyetta]

Love the simplicity of the photo. Beautiful!

[ellie mac]

Thanks Windrider86 & Cathyetta, glad you like it.

I think I probably used iso 400 because it was a relatively dull day & I was indoors. I don't tend to use the tripod very much so possibly upped the iso rather than thinking to increase the exposure time. Thanks for pointing it out, hopefully it will help me to think about it more next time.