An Unusual Flower
 

This is a Cactus flower in my garden. taken on my Nikon D60 set at 200mm zoom. Shot at 1/500 at f5.6

I really would appreciate feedback on this as macro and nature photography is new to me and I want to improve..

I am struggling to get the photo to show so this is the link to it...Sorry..

[url]http://www.photoradar.com/photos/117389/footski/an-unusual-cactus-flower[/url]

Take note of this difficulty - and get it fixed - please !?!?!?
 

[QUOTE=Footski;9262]I am struggling to get the photo to show so this is the link to it...Sorry..

[url]http://www.photoradar.com/photos/117389/footski/an-unusual-cactus-flower[/url][/QUOTE]

[B]Yet again more people finding it well nigh impossible to link their galleries with the forums - for goodness sake Admin - get a grip - and get it simplified.:mad:[/B]
[IMG]http://www.photoradar.com/files/imagecache/original_large/photos/users/footski/flower-tests-656-medium_0.jpg[/IMG]

[B]Sorry Footski - you have not been the first - and without a fix - you wont be the last to have had this problem - I can only refer you to other posts where the laborious methods needed have been explained in great detail by myself and others - it's a disgrace - hope you don't mind me posting your photo for you. :([/B]

Not at all, many thanks for your help. These forum problems are a nuisance and can take some time to sort out.....I am sure they will get there in the end..

I think the shot would have been more interesting if you'd changed your viewpoint on this flower. As it is, the composition just does nothing for the viewer. If the flower is still around for you to shoot again, try moving around to your left and taking a shot of it looking directly into the stamen from either slightly above or below, the bit shown pertruding out the front from the petals, whilst the flower is open and use a shallow depth of field to pick out just one part of the flower and keep the rest just out of focus.

Also, is it necessary to shoot this flower with such a high ISO to achieve the 1/500th of a second shutter speed, as it looks a little grainy? Use a tripod and a remote release cable to avoid camera shake if this is why you had to use such a high shutter speed. The focus also looks a little soft. What format do you shoot in? As there are a number of editing techniques you can use to sharpen the image.

Ian,

Thank you so much for your comments. I really need to put more thought into the shot before firing the shutter. Great ideas from you and I will try again when the cactus flowers early next year. As for the ISO....It was shot at 100, not high at all. the high shutter speed being down to the natural bright light. Santa has a tripod and monopod for me this year so I should have more success....I hope.

If you want some further inspiration on how to take better macro shots of flowers you should checkout the video tutorials on the subject on this site. You'll be amazed by some of the images shown on them and see how getting the composition right has an almost magical effect on the resulting image.

Now going back to your shot, do you see the speckled effect in the areas of your shot which are blurred. How do you think that speckling got there? If it's not from using a higher ISO then you've either got some dust on the lens or sensor and they need a good clean or its been caused by what editing you've done to the image. How knowledgeable are you about editing your images and would you say your editing skills were quite advanced or are you a relative novice? You see you could improve the quality of your final images quite dramtically if you know the various editing methods and techniques. If you don't, then it would be worth your while enrolling on a short course on editing techniques. It might be worth doing a course that offers fairly general skills and then find one that specialises more in macro photography.

Most important of all though is to keeping snapping away and keep experimenting to see what works and what doesn't. Self-critiquing is an essential skill if you want to continue to develop as a photographer, even if it's just a hobby as if you cannot evaluate what you've done right from what you've done wrong then what shots you produce that you are proud of will always be more by luck than by judgement.

Best of luck with your photography and enjoy it!

Many thanks for the advise.......Family out for Xmas so little time to work on it at the moment, but I am very grateful.

Barry

Hello guys!

The cactus flower is similar to those of other flowering plants. It is a perfect flower, which means that it bears sepals, petals and functional pistils and stamens. Most cacti have numerous stamens. All cacti, except for some specie s of the primitive Pereskiahave epigynous flowers. The flowers of some primitive Pereskiaspecies are perigynous, which differ from the epigynous flowers of all other cacti in that the ovary is superior rather than inferior.[url=http://www.bloomexau.com/]Flower delivery[/url]