Spring Trees

[mtngal]

Wow - some great suggestions here. I'm going to try flash next time since I've had good luck playing with it recently. Since taking this scene at anything other than noon isn't an option for me, it looks like flash or a reflector.

Glenn - I really like your first one. It might not have a focus point, but the scene is pretty and calming. I'd be very happy to have something like that as my computer desktop. I've taken a number of similar pictures to your second one, and have felt much like you do - they are nice but don't quite work the way I envision. If you figure out how to get something like that to work, let me know so I can steal your idea.

Penolta - I've been using two layers of mylar to soften the flash and that seems to work reasonably well without cutting down too much on the light. Your suggestion about paper made me think that I might try using the coffee filter I carry to use as a white balance target.

As far as this set goes, I took the first one and cropped it, changed the shadows and exposure, then sharpened differently. The bee still is either just out of focus or else was moving, but I think it's a bit better.

I also took a couple of detail pictures of bark. The bark looks really neat when you look at it, but I didn't like my detail shots - it became just an abstract and was rather uninteresting. It seemed to lack a subject and the texture wasn't interesting enough to overcome it.