Spring in B&W

[lerabu]

Hi all!

I took a stroll around the city centre the other day, it was sadly an overcast day so richness of colour was a thing best left fogotten. I couldn't get anything but radioactive looking colours from this in post porcessing (maybe due to my lack of skills) so I made a B&W conversion.

My quations is, does it work for this particular shot? The main subject being the flowering tree to the left with the petals on the grass. I am still battling to make a good colour version.

So the question is, does B&W work here?

Of course any other questions regarding composition etc apply

Thanks for looking!



Camera Nikon D80
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 50 mm
ISO Speed 640
Exposure Bias -1/3 EV
Flash No Flash
Subject Distance 15 m
Metering Mode Multi-segment
Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE
Lens 50.0 mm f/1.8

[IABoomer]

I think the technical aspects are there. It's well-focused and there isn't motion blur from the environment or camera movement. The verticals/horizontals look straight. The exposure looks mostly good, although the sky is a bit blown out, but to get the foreground detail, that's a compromise you make unless you can add a graduated filter or bracket shots and combine them.

My eye keeps being pulled to the high-contrast of the street light and the blown sky, so I have to force myself to focus on the tree. The bright house behind the tree reduces the contrast there, which makes the subject not stand out as much as it could. Had you moved further to the left and used the evergreens as a backdrop for that tree, there would be more contrast and the subject would "pop" more, IMHO.

[lerabu]

Bloomer,

Thank you for your comments. I think you put very nicely everything that was bothering me in the photograph.

The blown-out sky is due to a very overcast sky which was really dull, with no texture and the CCD is only so sensitive...

I wanted to include the straight line of lamp posts because I felt it worked nicely. I will see if I can "cheat" and clone out some grass to the right and maybe crop a bit more to the left in order to crop out the granma in the back, granma's walking on grass aren't a very natural situation

Thanks!

[williamawalker]

My eyes are drawn immediately to the first lamp. I find them a bit distracting, but I like the shot overall. The sky is blown out, but doesn't have a devastating effect on the picture as a whole, through my eyes.