keeping cool until noon

[cristen]

Camera Canon EOS 500D
Exposure 0.1 sec (1/10)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 42 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash Off, Did not fire


Been taking pictures of flowers but they don't seem to pop out of the photo. How can I make them look so vibrant and crisp? I also want the water drops to look brilliant. Anything wrong with my settings? Comments on composition and other elements are also welcome.

[PaulE]

What post processing do you do on the photos?
for instance saturation, levels, sharpening?

[cristen]

Originally Posted by PaulE

What post processing do you do on the photos?
for instance saturation, levels, sharpening?

I have photoshop but with my limited skills and knowledge, I can only do a little tweaking of the sharpness, brightness, contrast, etc. No levels, no masks. I still can't figure them out.

[lando_pr]

Correct me if I'm wrong because I am such a begineer, but perhaps if the flowers were more on focus instead of the droplets on the leaf then the flowers would look more vivid. I might be wrong though

[PaulE]

I took the liberty of downloading your flickr image and did some saturation, levels and sharpening on it. I shall upload it to my flickr account (pelmypel). Have a look at it and tell me what you think. If you want to I shall link to that uploaded photo here? I shall then remove it after a few days.

[NgaiHill]

I'd like to make a comment more about the composition rather than PP that may help your picture.
Lovely flowers BTW but when I look at the picture my eye is drawn to the flower at bottom left, because it is the brightest. But as its not in focus I then wander around the shot until I find the water drop, which is nice and sharp. I understand that you'd like the water drop to be part of the focus of the scene, have you thought of moving around to the right and focussing just on that flower? Or my shot would be to focus on the flower in the middle bottom of the shot - put some water into it if need be.
Hope this helps

[cristen]

Hi, everyone, thanks for looking and for the input.
@Lisa, yes, you're right. my focus was on the water in the last flower. i never thought of composing my shots (like putting water on the front flower ) i just take my pictures in situ. lol. but i will give it a try next time.

@lando_pr, i've this problem with focusing really... but in this pic, it was the water on the last flower which i intended to focus on, though, it was kind of high for me i had to tiptoe to take the shot.

@paulIE, thanks for editing. i will love to see it in this page.

[LoveDSLR]

Is this what you're looking for? Also I cropped the photo based on Golden Spiral.

[cristen]

this is so nice, LoveDSLR. I feel so inept... thanks

[PaulE]

Originally Posted by cristen

this is so nice, LoveDSLR. I feel so inept... thanks

Please do not feel inept! The reason that most of us are here is so that we can learn from the more experienced and share what we have learnt with each other!
Here is the linked photo (I only concentrated on the three factors that I mentioned earlier.) The cropping (either rule of thirds or golden spiral I think is for you to decide what is the focus point of your shot and crop accordingly or even better frame it in that way when you take the shot so that minimal or no cropping is done in pp.