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Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.

I took these at a local park here in Darwin at first light, a very pleasant time of day around here...

Comments, critiques, suggestions, recommendations... All welcome

David.

Both images are very nice, I prefer the second for the complete symmetry, I would maybe just brighten and add alittle contrast to make it jump out at me, however that could just be my monitor. I would also just straighten that second one up, make a straigt line across the flowers.

good insight to pick the pano crop on that second one.

Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.

welcome

Hi and welcome.

Both are great compositionally.
The first though is too dark overall, but paradoxically, the flower is blown in the reds. You have lost a lot of detail there.
Increase the exposure overall, just a little - You don't want to lose that early evening feel - but reduce the exposure in the red channel. Perhaps just back off the saturation will do it. Otherwise you would need a PP program that will allow you to adjust each of the channels independently.

Welcome!!!

I would crop in a bit on the first, and as Greg has said, maybe back off with the saturation a bit as well.

I look forward too seeing more images!

Welcome to the forum David. Great first posts and we hope to see a lot more from you in the future. I'm a fan of bouncing warm colours off cool colours so your images work for me.

I like them both! Very interesting way of highlighting the subject with color. The symmetry in #2 is quite nice as well.

As mentioned, perhaps try to reduce the blown reds in the first.

Welcome to the forum!

Hi David, and welcome.

Great first post; thanks for sharing.

As others have mentioned, the reds in the first image are blown. Th issue here is that the sensors on our cameras don't always agree with red as a colour, and I frequently have to face a similar issue when shooting bands on a stage, as too often the stage lighting is predominately red.

The difficulty is that you are facing a high contrast situation within the overall image: you don't want to over-expose and blow out the reds, but equally, you want to keep the dark background dark.

If you're using some form of average metering - matrix in Nikon terms, or evaluative in Canon terms - then this becomes more problematic, as the metering system tries to bring everything back to what it thinks should be a normal type of image ... which is not what you're shooting.

I generally use spot metering most of the time, and because of the tendency to blow reds, I will meter of the red, but dial down about 2/3 of stop to counter this.

Cheers.

Thanks for all the feedback guys. When I get an opportunity, I'll have a play with your suggestions (blown reds the common theme) and see how they come out. Just to answer a few questions:

Increase the exposure overall, just a little - You don't want to lose that early evening feel - but reduce the exposure in the red channel. Perhaps just back off the saturation will do it. Otherwise you would need a PP program that will allow you to adjust each of the channels independently

I'll give it a go when I get a chance. I'm using CS3 and I understand what you're talking about. oh, and it was morning, not evening

If you're using some form of average metering - matrix in Nikon terms, or evaluative in Canon terms - then this becomes more problematic, as the metering system tries to bring everything back to what it thinks should be a normal type of image ... which is not what you're shooting.

I generally use spot metering most of the time, and because of the tendency to blow reds, I will meter of the red, but dial down about 2/3 of stop to counter this

Depending on the situation, I vary the metering mode. For this one I was in spot with -1 EV, however this was metered on the water, not the flower.

As I mentioned, when I get a chance to have a play I will, but unfortunately for all of you, I'm off to Kakadu, Litchfield, and Katherine Gorge for the next week. I will no doubt have something to show when I get back.

Thanks again.

David

As above, and thanks for sharing your photos
with us.