I shot this live orchid because it was so beautiful. What orchid isn’t!?! I wanted to emphasize the texture of the petals and produce a hyper-realistic essence of the flower. I used available light, hence the high ISO. Basically dodge and burn.
Please look at the picture before you read the rest.
Some people see a baby in the top flower. Is this a distraction, if you see it? Should I change it? How? It was not intentional.
Sony A7riii with a Canon 100 mm lens, 1.3 sec. ISO 2000
PS This is my first post. I hope I have done it correctly.
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Welcome aboard. Your first post looks great. The B&W choice works really well and I love the high contrast. I would leave it as is. I would never have seen the baby had you not mentioned it and even if some do, well, they do. Looking forward to seeing more of your work and reading your comments.
Really beautiful image! The B&W image has a perfect balance to it - and love the contrast with the black background. You did a wonderful job with the highlights and shadows - not an easy feat.
Thank you for sharing this.
Hi Carol, what a great image for your first post. I think the B&W was a nice way to go with this. It makes me more aware of the shapes and textures, which with color, I might would have missed. Speaking of missed, I pulled the image up full before reading anything, then read about the “baby” and sure enough, without it being in the large view I could see it! That is so cool. And no, I would do anything to remove or change that. Excellent!
Your choice of converting to b&w enhances the textures and shapes. And yes, I did see the “baby” before I read you intro. Beautiful subject, nicely presented. Welcome aboard. Look forward to seeing more of your images!
Carol: Welcome to NPN and to Flora specifically. This is a wonderful post, especially for your first. I do see the baby and think its a cool perception. The conversion is excellent as is the lighting. My only admonition has to do with your image size. Please resize to about 1500 pixels on the long side before posting. Full resolution images tax the server a bit and are tastier targets for image pirates to steal. Great to have you aboard and looking forward to more. >=))>
Carol: You’re welcome. How long have you been shooting your A7RIII? I’m a long time Minolta/Sony shooter looking to upgrade to mirrorless. Not sure the A7RIV isn’t overkill for my kind of shooting so I’ve been contemplating the A7RIII. I would appreciate any of your insights. >=))>
I’ve had my A7Riii for about a year—since it came out. I also got the 24-70 lens. It’s big… much larger than I expected. However, both are very, very nice. This combo os not a small mirrorless unit. It is substantial but very good.
I’m not the person to ask about cameras; I can only comment on my experience with this one. I shot Canon and got a metabones mount so I could use my Canon lenses on the Sony.
I totally get that gear is good but vision is better. And vision is even better with a decent camera. I really like this one. If I get a bad shot, it is totally my fault!
I also expect that it will be the last camera I every buy. Not trying to be morbid; I plan to get a lot of use out of it. BTW, I got my first real camera—a Minolta—in 1969. I hope something in here is helpful.
This is lovely and very well processed in B & W. I see the baby once you point it out, but I wouldn’t have noticed it on my own and don’t think you should try to change it. Fantastic first post.
