# WOO HOO!!!! Spring is FINALLY here!



## 480sparky (Mar 21, 2012)

First 'flower' of the season.  Since last fall, I've been accumulating gear... lighting, focus rail, extension tubes..... all to try my hand at shooting up the garden.  

Went out to get the mail, noticed a shingle on the deck.  Ooops.... windstorm took a couple tabs off the roof.  So up I go this afternoon for a little handy Dan work, and I notice my Bradford Pear tree is juuuuuuust starting to blossom.

So after my home fix-it foray, I headed out to snip off some of the blossoms.



So far, editing what I felt was the best image, my first results of the spring!








Comments welcome.


----------



## DorkSterr (Mar 21, 2012)

Beautiful! Soooo sharp!!!!!!!!


----------



## slackercruster (Mar 21, 2012)

A+++++


...but what is a wonderpole for?


----------



## 480sparky (Mar 21, 2012)

slackercruster said:


> .............but what is a wonderpole for?



Getting a camera 45' off the ground.


----------



## Desi (Mar 21, 2012)

Woo Hoo.  Beautiful shot


----------



## TheFantasticG (Mar 21, 2012)

Nice first result.


----------



## 480sparky (Mar 22, 2012)

Three more!


----------



## jjng (Mar 23, 2012)

beautiful shot! great work!


----------



## Joel_W (Mar 23, 2012)

All four pictures are perfectly exposed. The whites are truly white, yet not blown out.  The colors are rich, but not saturated. Technically, like I said, perfectly exposed. 

Compositionally, Picture #1 takes a different perspective from the usual macro shot, and I really like it. The water drops just adds even more to the picture (as well as the rest of your set).  Picture #2 is just a little too centered for me, but still a rock solid image. Love both pictures 3 & 4. 3 has the perfect Bokeh background, but Pic #4 with it's crystal sharp image shows the delicacy of the petals to the nth degree.  

Maybe I should spend less time looking for photo opportunities at my usual haunts, and spend some quality time on my roof. :lmao:


----------



## 480sparky (Mar 23, 2012)

Here's the set-up:













The goodies:

Nikon D7000
Auto Extension tubes
Nikkor 70-300mm
Manfrotto 055XB tripod
Manfrotto 804RC2 head
Fotomate 4-way focus rail
Two Strobelite 300ws strobes w/beauty dishes
Yongnuo RF remote trigger
MC-DC2 wired shutter release
99¢ mist bottle from Dollar General (not shown)



The process:

12-18  frames each, shot in raw. Edited with Nikon Capture NX2 (black and white points set via histogram, saturation, contrast & exposure tweaked, high-pass focus filter added), focus stack  complied with CombineZM.  Final edit & crop in Gimp 2.6.


----------



## Bitter Jeweler (Mar 23, 2012)

That first one is quite nice.


----------

