Beginner Toadstool, please critique.

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ScottT

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Scott
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Taken yesterday in some local woods
77D 100m macro f2.8 1/30 ISO100.
Image reduced to 25%, no cropping, no editing

My thoughts are:
I went for the big space look, the point of interest in the 1/3rd
I under exposed by 1/3rd just to add a little darkness, it looked to bright on my LCD
The focus on the toadstool was right, it looks sharp enough to me.
There was a little sunlight coming through the trees that i used as it gave the toadstool the orange glow, if i had moved position i would have cast a shadow on it blocking the sunlight.
The depth of field has done a great job bluring the background but sadly its taken out to much of the foreground apart from a thin line from side to side where everything is in focus and to me doesnt look right.
So where have I gone wrong? I'm quite new to this so any point no matter how small will be helpfull.
5833.jpg
 
Hi my first impression is not enough of the subject Crop it to make the subject more prominent
 
Hi Scott, f2.8 ?? I would suggest a low tripod and off camera flash and around f9 would produce an image that has the detail required for macro - the f2.8 is too shallow buddy

here's one I shot @ f9 using an off camera ( low down) flash - just for comparison

Fungi @ Swell Woods by Les Moxon, on Flickr

and an f8 with my flash mounted on the camera with a reflector

Back Garden "Wood Ant" by Les Moxon, on Flickr

Les
 
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Thank you all, its given me something to think about and try next time.
 
I'm in the "looks a little lost" camp also for the Fungi,
 
GreenNinja67 thank you, I love that first picture the lighting is brilliant what did you do to get that effect?
 
Sony A7ii with manual tubes and Pentax 50mm manual focus lens.

Manual exposure with handheld speedlite over the top & to the left. This had the effect of darkening the rest of the image.

That's it really Scott.
 
I only have a Yongnu macro ring light, though i can take it off the lens and hold it in that position, i'll try that and see what results i get, thanks again.
 
I disagree with everyone. I love the heaps of negative space and minimalist feel. Why shouldn't this little mushroom look lost? It's in the middle of a woodland on its own. You could even say f*** the rule of thirds and stick him right down the bottom to add to the feeling of space and isolation. All depends on your intention. Deep dark forest = loneliness. Here's the image with a 16:9 crop to remove some of the bottom. but still on the right hand thirds line. Also added a bit of saturation to the little guy but masked out the background to bring him out a bit.
 

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I think how you conceive and present an image is a very personal thing, and for your images it is how it strikes you that matters.

FWIW my thinking is pretty much in line with Tom's. He said "Why shouldn't this little mushroom look lost?", and in the top post you said " I went for the big space look". That all makes sense to me.

The first crop I tried was very similar to Tom's. Like Tom, I too tried to bring out the mushroom a bit, in my case by sharpening it. Below you should see the image alternate every 1.5 seconds between a crop of the posted version and the same crop with some sharpening applied to the mushroom. As with Tom's adjustments, whether you like the effect and if so how much or how little of it to use is for you to decide. The same with the other suggestions you have had, which give you some good ideas to explore.


NOT-MY-IMAGE---ScottT-mushroom-PP-versions-animation by gardenersassistant, on Flickr

As well as exploring subject size and placement in the frame when capturing your images, I suggest you freely explore crops during post processing. Sometimes you may find things suddenly fall into place, perhaps in a rather different way from how you were thinking/seeing when you captured the image.

I tried another crop where the space was vertical rather than horizontal. This one is not animated, but with the mushroom sharpened like in the previous version.


NOT MY IMAGE - ScottT mushroom- GA PP2 by gardenersassistant, on Flickr
 
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