That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

[John Liddle]

The reason why I couldn't possibly mow the grass at the front of the house.

Cowslips by John Liddle, on Flickr

The more I looked at the shot above, the more I thought it was a little soft - so as the sun swung round and lit the subject, I had another go - results below.

I have a feeling that the problem may have been the focus limiting switch on the 100mm macro lens - I had set it for the close range and then moved further away, so I wonder if that prevented the lens from achieving proper focus - lesson learned!

Cowslips - 2 by John Liddle, on Flickr

[tigerburnie]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

[briansquibb]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

Lovely to see

[Stan]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

Neither look sharp which is a shame

Stan

[briansquibb]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

I am sure that a touch of sharpening would make them look good. They look as though the have only been processed with DPP. However they look a lot better under Flicker so perhaps it might just be a computer issue?

[John Liddle]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

Thanks for looking and commenting chaps - 3rd time lucky?

Cowslips - 3 by John Liddle, on Flickr

[Columbarius]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

The third one is much better John. It seems to me that the problem with the first two was DOF. Always an issue with a macro lens. What settings were you using for each shot?

You're right about the focal range switch though. I bet it's caught us all out on more than one occasion.

[tesarver]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

John

Tom

[John Liddle]

Re: That's my excuse - and I'm sticking to it!

Russell & Tom - thanks for looking and commenting.

The third one is much better John. It seems to me that the problem with the first two was DOF.

Yes, a problem I deliberately made for myself since I was attempting to have the flower against a well OOF background - unfortunately this meant the DOF was too small to encompass enough of the flower to make it look reasonable. Had this not been outdoors in the elements, I might have tried a focus stack, but the wind-induced movement of the flowers would probably have been too problematical.