[P] A rose in my name

2 fine photos of your gift Boo.

Morris

Boo said:

An aunt gave me a rose bush for my birthday earlier in the year as
she'd seen it in a grower's catalogue as it was in my name (not
Boo, my given name) and as it was described as a rusty colour and
I'm auburn, she thought it a perfect gift. Which it was.

I've had several lovely flowers on it, but each time one has been
at its most perfect, I've either been away, or the weather has been
lousy. Today there were several lovely looking blooms and there
are no more buds showing yet - as the sky was absolutely black and
we've had several very sharp storms this week that have ravaged my
garden badly and the flowers are only perfect for a day before they
open too far, I decided to take the chance to try and get some
photos, even though it was very dark and blowy. I took a lot with
different settings and with and without flash, hoping some would
prove worthwhile. I did resort to black paper this time, I usually
try and just drop out the background with careful positioning and
exposure, but cheated this time.

I like these two, so thought I'd share. The top one is untouched
apart from cropping and a bruise on one petal cloned out, the
bottom one was lightened with curves slightly. Considering the
weather, I'm pretty happy with the lighting:





--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live
music tutorial

Click to expand...

morris said:

2 fine photos of your gift Boo.

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly. I forgot when I posted them yesterday that I took a few more shots with flash on another card and didn't download them until later, so this is a different treatment of the first view:



The tight bud in the lower view posted initially has opened some more this morning and is absolutely gorgeous, so I'm going to try and repeat the process, but the weather is very inclement today, more so than yesterday, so fingers crossed for an opportunity before it opens too far.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial

Boo said:

Today there were several lovely looking blooms and there
are no more buds showing yet - as the sky was absolutely black and
we've had several very sharp storms this week that have ravaged my
garden badly and the flowers are only perfect for a day before they
open too far, I decided to take the chance to try and get some
photos, even though it was very dark and blowy

Click to expand...

The tiny bud just opening, that I posted yesterday (shown top below) has opened significantly today and looks gorgeous - before the weather ravages it!!

Today the weather is even worse than yesterday and it is blowing significantly, so I struggled to get the pictures sharp, so I took a load and hoped that at least some were sans motion blur, I was working around 1/60 in the light levels today - I tried dropping to f2.8 but needed the DOF really and the ones at that aperture lacked enough for my taste, the bottom petals looking too soft. These were both taken at f4 and 1/100 and 1/60 respectively, at ISO 160 in manual - I actually deliberately underexposed them to prevent the light, curled edges of the petals being blown. They are out of camera, apart from modest cropping.

Yesterday:



The same bud today:





--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial

Hi Boo

These are just gorgeous shots of roses! You have taken such care to capture them them, and it has (is) really paying off. Excellent!

GB

Boo said:

Boo said:

Today there were several lovely looking blooms and there
are no more buds showing yet - as the sky was absolutely black and
we've had several very sharp storms this week that have ravaged my
garden badly and the flowers are only perfect for a day before they
open too far, I decided to take the chance to try and get some
photos, even though it was very dark and blowy

Click to expand...

The tiny bud just opening, that I posted yesterday (shown top
below) has opened significantly today and looks gorgeous - before
the weather ravages it!!

Today the weather is even worse than yesterday and it is blowing
significantly, so I struggled to get the pictures sharp, so I took
a load and hoped that at least some were sans motion blur, I was
working around 1/60 in the light levels today - I tried dropping to
f2.8 but needed the DOF really and the ones at that aperture lacked
enough for my taste, the bottom petals looking too soft. These
were both taken at f4 and 1/100 and 1/60 respectively, at ISO 160
in manual - I actually deliberately underexposed them to prevent
the light, curled edges of the petals being blown. They are out of
camera, apart from modest cropping.

Yesterday:



The same bud today:





--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live
music tutorial

Click to expand...

--Those three picture are all beautiful Boo but No.3 is a real POD shot IMHO, Great work!
Regards
Mike533
Fuji Finepix S602 Zoom and Vivitar 283
http://www.pbase.com/mike533
p.base supporter

gingerbaker said:

These are just gorgeous shots of roses! You have taken such care to
capture them them, and it has (is) really paying off. Excellent!

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly, although I now feel a bit of a fraud, there wasn't a great deal of effort or care put into them - I pinned up some black paper behind the rose bush (it's in a pot against a wall) and just took masses of shots off in macro mode, tweaking settings and taking lots, hand held, from different angles. I used a foil reflector to try and keep some light on the lower parts as the weather has been very poor - which in some ways can be good as you get much more even distribution of light and less shadow cast - I have been known to move natural subjects into shadow or make a shadow - standing over it myself if needs be, to soften the intensity of light on occasion. It's a trick my Dad showed me donkeys years ago for small subjects - block off the sun, then use a diffuse reflector to reflect it back onto the subject from the opposite direction, but more gently - I use a piece of card with scrunched aluminium foil spraymounted and then rubbed onto it.

The rose itself is certainly the star, I've been lucky that the two blooms I've photographed have been almost perfect and unusually for me, not ravaged by bugs or hailstones etc. which considering the rain storms we've had this week, if the flowers weren't under the wide eaves of the house, they would have been knocked off, like much of the rest of my lovely little garden has been.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial

mike533 said:

--Those three picture are all beautiful Boo but No.3 is a real POD
shot IMHO, Great work!

Click to expand...

Thank you kindly. I'm never sure if the PODs are worth anything other than making the photographer feel good for a short while. I looked at possibly submitting photos sometime ago and most are only eligible to residents in the US, so I've never bothered looking since.

I'd rather someone e-mailed me and asked if they could use or publish one - I got my first cheque this very day for three music photos being printed in a magazine alongside a gig review - ironically they weren't ones I was very pleased with and wasn't even sure whether to put them on my site!

I've just seen your location in your profile - I was born there and my family all still live in that area - I'm about 50 miles east myself now.

--
Fuji S602Z and 2800Z
http://www.peekaboo.me.uk - general portfolio
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk - live music photos
http://www.boo-photos.co.uk/lowlight.html - available light live music tutorial

Boo said:

I did resort to black paper this time, I usually
try and just drop out the background with careful positioning and
exposure, but cheated this time.

Click to expand...

Grin I dont call that cheating at all ...

its just "emphasising the subject" perfectly allowable in my book ...

no worse that the news reporter waiting until the waving kids have been shooed away out of the background before a piece to camera ...

I used one of my wife's black jackets this week to do the same and some white cards to bounce some flash - up under - but your result is much more pleasing than mine was ...

Boo said:

Click to expand...

I think that one is about as good as it gets Boo .... very nice image indeed.

--
Mark