# Three Orchids



## Joel_W (Dec 17, 2011)

Spent a considerable amount of time this afternoon re-editing these three images of Orchids, all were taken inside a greenhouse. All 3 pictures originally suffered from a lack of proper color saturation, and just too soft of an over all exposure. Now all 3 Orchids look just like they should, as they do in real life.


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## mishele (Dec 17, 2011)

These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=)  I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!! 
Keep shooting!!


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## cgipson1 (Dec 17, 2011)

Diffused flash! Best way to bring out the beauty of the color and texture, is to wrap these lovelies in some soft, warm light!


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## Natalie (Dec 18, 2011)

Those are some beautiful flowers! I particularly like the white ones with the apricot color in the center. It looks like in addition to the low lighting, there is a bit of motion blur there, probably from shooting at a low shutter speed. Can you post the EXIF data for the photos? If you were shooting at a low ISO, you might be able to bump that up to 400-800 and get the shots you want without a flash. However, in greenhouses where there is a lot of overhead vegetation, a flash might be necessary. The next day after I got my macro flash earlier this year, I headed to the Pacific Orchid Exposition to give it a spin... I found that the flowers responded very well to the flash, it made their colors pop more rather than washing them out. An external flash is definitely a big help if you're shooting orchids indoors.


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## Joel_W (Dec 18, 2011)

mishele said:


> These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=)  I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
> Keep shooting!!



Sorry, but you're so wrong.


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## mishele (Dec 18, 2011)

LOL......good luck to you.


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## Bitter Jeweler (Dec 18, 2011)

On a calibrated monitor, these look fairly under exposed.


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## Ysarex (Dec 18, 2011)

Joel_W said:


> mishele said:
> 
> 
> > These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=)  I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
> ...



Not exactly. Here's the histogram for your first photo:







The tonal response is badly compressed and shifted left. As a result of the compression, the photo is flat and lacks contrast. As a result of the left shift it appears too dark which is what Mishele accurately noticed. Under normal conditions a histogram like that requires correction.

Joe


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## Joel_W (Dec 18, 2011)

I can only see these three photos on my laptop. There, they look exposed correctly, are soft, and diffused in natural light. Several of the florals I recently posted in another thread and in the User Gallery/My Gallery have brighter lighting including fill flash. On my screen, I wasn't thrilled with the final images. 

One of the problems with digital photography, and then posting online is that you don't have a clue what others see, nor how you see their work.  Even the tilt of your screen drastically effects the image brightness. 

Since I'm a rather new member, and by your join date and post count, you've been here for some time, why do so few members bother to post photos, and even fewer use the User and Personal galleries? 

As for calibrating one's screen, mine isn't. It's a laptop that is used for everything including work and spreadsheets.


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## SCraig (Dec 18, 2011)

Joel_W said:


> ... One of the problems with digital photography, and then posting online is that you don't have a clue what others see, nor how you see their work.  Even the tilt of your screen drastically effects the image brightness.


This is the reason for calibrating a monitor.  Then, at least, you know what you are posting is correct and that if someone sees it differently it is their hardware and not yours.  You can't hold their hand and make them do anything about it, but you can at least make sure that yours are correct.

Take a look at This Page.  My guess is that the gray tone bar on the first page does not show distinct differences on your monitor.

Oh, and they are underexposed on my calibrated monitor as well.


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## Ysarex (Dec 18, 2011)

On a calibrated monitor these photos look underexposed. That's a fair statement, but technically the dark appearance of these photos isn't the result of a bad camera exposure, but rather bad processing. They all have compressed tonal ranges that are left shifted. Look at the histogram I posted up above. If they were underexposed then the histogram would be piling up against the left wall and it's not. Don't want to start a semantic argument or heaven forbid an attempt to define exposure, but identifying the problem goes a long way toward fixing it. A very straightforward Levels correction will make a huge difference.

Joe


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## cgipson1 (Dec 18, 2011)

Joel_W said:


> mishele said:
> 
> 
> > These are all underexposed. Lighting is everything...=)  I have always found orchids to be one of the hardest flowers to photograph!!
> ...



You are telling Mishele she's wrong? lol! Have you checked out her work? Maybe you should!  

The shots are  underexposed... they lack definition, the colors are very muted. And yes.. I calibrate my monitor!


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## cgipson1 (Dec 18, 2011)

If you would allow editing.. maybe we could show you!


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## Bitter Jeweler (Dec 18, 2011)

Joel_W said:


> One of the problems with digital photography, and then posting online is that you don't have a clue what others see, nor how you see their work.  *Even the tilt of your screen drastically effects the image brightness. *



"Even the tilt of *YOUR* screen..." Exactly! Laptops suck for editing.
No you can't control what others see, but when I view things on my craptop, I will adjust the screen angle to what looks best for an image, regardless of how it actually is. You are posting on a photography forum for critique, and a lot of people here do calibrate their monitors, and that helps with a degree of consistancy in viewing work by others with calibrated monitors.



> Since I'm a rather new member, and by your join date and post count, you've been here for some time, why do so few members bother to post photos, and even fewer use the User and Personal galleries?



I can only speak for myself, but I post plenty of images. I don't use the forums gallery because everything I have can be found here: Flickr: Bitter Jeweler's Photostream and it's pretty easy to use and link to.





> As for calibrating one's screen, *mine isn't*. *It's a laptop *that is used for everything including work and spreadsheets.



Two problems in bold.


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## Joel_W (Dec 18, 2011)

The darkish appearance was purposely done to achieve the softness effect I was looking for. The amount of brightness apparently varies more then I ever thought by monitor. On mine, the end results is exactly as I wanted.  

Here is another picture from an earlier shoot at the same Arboretum. the exposure, like all my florals are shot in Aperture preferred, widest Aperture, and let the shutter speed fall where it may. ISO is 160, which is the lowest my camera goes, and I always use a tripod. Older folks (I'm 64) do have a tendency to shake. f 5,6 @ 1/6 of a sec. focal length 89mm No flash used.  The 1st photograph was shot at f5,7 @ 1/160 of a sec. Focal length 144mm.


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## Bitter Jeweler (Dec 18, 2011)

But dark does not equate to soft.


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## Natalie (Dec 18, 2011)

Hmmm, your Vireya shot (I think that's what the last one is) is properly exposed, but it still looks quite soft. It doesn't appear to be out of focus, it looks more like either slight motion blur or that the image is heavily cropped, reducing resolution. If you're using a tripod that can definitely help, but there is till the possibility of camera shake while you're pressing the shutter button or if some accidentally bumps the camera slightly. Additionally, it might be your post-processing methods or the hosting website you're using to post images that can be contributing to the softness (I've noticed that Photobucket in particular does a horrendous job at compressing photos). If it was me trying to photograph orchids in a greenhouse, I would use a higher ISO (~400) and a faster shutter speed (~1/200 sec) even if the camera was on a tripod. You can set your camera to shutter speed priority and let it figure out the proper aperture.

As for other members not sharing photos, I do post a lot of my photos as well, though mine aren't hosted on this site either. Mine are on Flickr, which is a great site that ensures the images still look right, even when they are resized and posted on a different website. If you wish to see the photos I took at the Pacific Orchid Exposition this year, you can click the link below (it's just seven images).

Natalie McNear's set "Pacific Orchid Exposition 2011", on Flickr


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## Frequency (Dec 19, 2011)

As of now, i liked the images. Joel sir, would you please brighten up the images a bit and post them again, so that every one can see what difference would it bring? 

Regards 
PS: the last image (just above this post)appears not well focused; i am not sure though


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## Joel_W (Dec 19, 2011)

Thanks to all for your honest comments and evaluations.  I thought about the actual conditions I shot in, and I can see some issues that I didn't think of. There are fans that move the air around in each of the various greenhouses, and with my slow shutter speeds, there could certainly be a little, hardly noticeable movement. I tend to like my indoor florals shot with consistent soft light as it adds to the texture of the flower. 

Natalie brings up a excellent point about Photobucket, and all of my pictures are posted through them. I thought I noticed a slightly consistent decrease in the brightness, but never thought much about it.  I will take all of your comments and try to rework the photographs, and repost through Flickr.

As many of you can see, I tried to build a my gallery here via the User Gallery, as I just assumed that most people posted their pictures there. That and the fact that so many of you have 0 photos in your gallery just seemed odd to me, especially since it's a photo site. 

And Natalie, I will certainly take a look at your Orchid pictures today before I have to leave for work.


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## Joel_W (Dec 19, 2011)

I opened a Flickr account, and uploaded one test picture, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how to download that picture to this thread. Can anyone help out?


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## mishele (Dec 19, 2011)

Click "You"
Click the picture you want
Click "Share"
Highlight BBCode
Copy and paste what is in the box!
If you have anymore trouble just yell!


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## Joel_W (Dec 19, 2011)

mishele said:


> Click "You"
> Click the picture you want
> Click "Share"
> Highlight BBCode
> ...



I must be really thick, but I don't have share. I clicked on You, then right clicked the picture, as left clicking just highlights the image. There is no save that I can find. Tried all the various options, but none of the save ones work. Save image works but once I go to Go Advanced, I only get the link.


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## Natalie (Dec 19, 2011)

To post the image, navigate that particular image's page (left click it instead of right clicking it), then on the new page, above the image there will be drop-down menu title "Share". Click that, navigate to "Grab the HTML/BBCode", then make sure it is on BBCode by selecting that (I think the default is HTML at first). After that, a box will appear that has a bunch of text in it, that's what you copy and paste. Here's a quick screen shot:







Hope this helps.


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## mishele (Dec 19, 2011)

Left click on the picture you would like to post.
That should take you to a page where that is the only picture you can see. 
Now you should be able to see "Share" at the top.
Copy the BBCode and paste it here =)
No worries....you'll get it.


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## Joel_W (Dec 19, 2011)

Natalie, thanks a million. I think I've finally got it. I increased the brightness just a touch, since I didn't have any idea of how Flickr's image quality would be over Photobucket. Take a look and let me know what you think.  




DSCN2690 by jaw101, on Flickr


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## Joel_W (Dec 19, 2011)

Here's two more Orchid pictures that are pretty good examples of my floral technique that I'm trying to develop. 

Even I feel that this picture is a little under exposed. 



P9200009 by jaw101, on Flickr




DSCN2680 by jaw101, on Flickr


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## Natalie (Dec 19, 2011)

Those look much, much better! 300% improvement at least - see what a difference the hosting site can make?  The first one from Flickr you posted is much more crisp and vibrant than the version on the first page. I agree that the second image of the a tad underexposed. But it is perfectly focused and the water drops on the flowers add a bit of interest as well.


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## Joel_W (Dec 20, 2011)

Natalie said:


> Those look much, much better! 300% improvement at least - see what a difference the hosting site can make?  The first one from Flickr you posted is much more crisp and vibrant than the version on the first page. I agree that the second image of the a tad underexposed. But it is perfectly focused and the water drops on the flowers add a bit of interest as well.



Natalie, thanks so much for your critiques, and your help with Flickr. The 2nd picture was shot with on camera fill flash @ -1.0.  Helped to some degree, but I it has that flash feel to the image. I've always been undecided if I like that or not. I've deleted way too many good pictures that were ruined by the over use of fill flash in the green houses. 

BTW, the 2nd photo with the water drops was shot with fill flash set at -1.0. The darker background and to some extent the highlights along the center of the leaves is a dead give away.


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