Lilies

Lilies (Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens - 1/4 second, f/16, ISO 50)

Well, these last few days have been very eventful. We helped our oldest son move back into the house this last weekend. We went to the hospital also this weekend to begin the process of becoming Grandparents 2.0. So I didn't get pictures of kids this weekend. However, Julie's mom said that she had some lilies that had bloomed and wanted pictures of them. As it turned out, they were almost perfect specimen - beautiful, full and open. I was able to get some with existing light, some with flash, using bounce and not. It was very exciting to get so many great pictures. Believe me, it was hard to pick the finalist for the album.

I like this picture because I don't see 2 lilies in a picture too often - especially two such beautiful specimen. I had the Canon 5d setup on a tripod with remote trigger with the EX 580 II on top. On this one, I bounced the flash into a white reflector to soften the light from the flash. Except for a little extra saturation, a little unsharpen mask and little levels adjustment, there wasn't anything done to this photo.

I used the f/16 to keep the depth of field up. I used the ISO 50 because I had the tripod and 1/4 sec shutter wasn't bad with the remote trigger. Since the flowers were located outside the garage, I got some brick wall, door and a chair in the background, but because I was using the flash, I could adjust so the background was dark. I used the levels adjustment to darken the background even more. I put in just a little unsharpen mask to try to bring out the details. It seems that it was harder to do than I first thought. I was hard to strike a balance between getting the details sharp and creating halos around some of the objects. Anyway, I hope it's good enough.

Well, I guess it's time to get back to be being a granddad again. Until next week...