[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Made this "production shot" for Assignment #10: Commercial Shot

But i thought i show it here aswell to get a little feedback on it.
(if this is against the rules or bothers anyone, please let me know and ill ask a mod to delete the thread)



For a better look use the link to view a larger version.

Larger version


Comments and Critique most welcome.
/P.L

[Irma]

I like it a lot! I find the composition very good... The combination of colors is great!! I like your idea of using fruit and fabric in your picture...

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Thnx Irma. I realize that the fruit would probebly suit a perfume named peach much better. But i thought it work anyway.

Thnx for looking.

/P.L

[Petographer]

Excellent photo. The fruit slices work but I think I'd rather have seen a pink rose. I'm having trouble tying peach (or nectarine) slices in with "Blush". Other than that the image is put together very well. 8 out of 10.

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Thnx Petographer, yea a rose would have been much better, ill get some plus points and buy some fore the wifey.

/P.L

[Petographer]

Thnx Petographer, yea a rose would have been much better, ill get some plus points and buy some fore the wifey.

/P.L

[guerito]

Lovely shot, Paul. The colors are strong, and the details, especially on the bottle and the fabric, are exquisite. I agree with Colin on the peaches vs rose subject, though.

What was the setup for the lighting? It looks very professional.

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Thnx Guerito.

The setup was rather simpel.

a patch of fabric laying on my open tube table (the most primative photo table you can get, its made entierly out of cardboard)

Light was ambient from 2 windows. no flash or additonal lights.




/P.L

[Kombisaurus]

Fantastically put together shot Paul,

Really professional.. I'd swear you'd just posted an advert straight out of a magazine.
Unlike the others though, I'm glad you *didn't* use a rose in this shot. I think the nectarine (or is it a peach) has a fantastic colour and texture and contrasts beautifully with the blue fabric. It also makes the image a bit more original and therefore memorable than if there were a rose in there IMHO.
It also provides an excellent splash of colour in the reflection of the letters that spell out "Blush", and the silver cap.
But I agree that it perhaps doesn't suit the name "Blush" as much as a Rose might... but I guess it also depends on how the perfume smells, as both a rose and peaches evoke the idea of very different smells. Still, maybe it is the name of the perfume that needs changing, not your photo

I am a little curious about the shot itself though. You say it was a 30-sec exposure at f/36 which seems quite extreme given the lighting conditions.
I can understand wanting a tight aperture to get a large depth of field (and that would obviously slow the shutter speed down accordingly), but I would have thought f/36 would not only be more DOF that you actually need, but is pushing the lens out of its "sweet spot" and actually decreasing its sharpness. I've heard a number of people say that most lenses start to get softer when the aperture is closed up tighter than about f/16. I would have thought a 7sec shot @ f/16 would have given pretty much the same result, but possibly with optimised sharpness.
Obviously the shot is lovely and sharp, so I'm not trying to fault it here in any way... I just thought there might have been another reason you chose these settings, or that your lens is an exception to the rule or something, or that you really did need f/36 to get everything in focus. I'm just curious about it.

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Thanx for the kind words Kombisaurus.

The reason i chose such a high aperture was to get a large DOF (as u mentioned) @ 16 one of the peach slices would have been blurred. Its true that the sweet spot of a lens is closer to wide open and the middle.

My experience with the D2x and 60mm Nikkor however, is that it performs very well even @ F/30+. (opposed to the rest of my glass) And yes the 60mm/micro is a exception since it has a planar focus not curved like most lenses have.(dont know if that is the correct tems in english lol) forgive my bad grammar and typos.


If you look at the Berry series you will notice iv pushed the lens to its max here aswell
I was amazed at first cuz of the shaprness in the corners. The blush shot is uncropped, so are the berry shots except the last with the lemons(had to cropp out som reflections in the corner)

http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=3149

But true it would probebly worked with a slighty wider aperture aswell. Also worth mention is that this pciture isnt sharpened much, the reason i didnt apply my normal sharpening is that i didnt want the fabric and peach slices to dominate with their texture. I always shoot raw and all my settings in camera are set to 0 or normal. I prefer to do all my processing in post.

Once again thanx for the kind words.

A long and tiresome post. bare with me.

/P.L

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

Forgive me Kombisaurus.

I fear my post didnt make much sense at all. Im no english grammar master and the fact that it was early didnt help. lol

so if u want me to explain something in proper english dont hesitate to ask

(iv must have edited my previous post like 20x for spell and grammar error. )

[Kombisaurus]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your very informative response.

You explained it all very well, and please don't apologize for your English, it is absolutely fine. I'll ask if I see something I'm not sure of, but everything you wrote there made perfect sense to me. I can now see exactly why you did what you did.

Seeing as I pretty much can't speak *any* other language, I've got a lot of respect for anyone who takes the time to learn English as a 2nd language. I appreciate the effort involved in you posting in your non-native language.

That appreciation also goes out to any others on this forum who don't speak English as their first language.

Thanks!

ps: I don't know how "long and tiresome" that post was to write for you, but it certainly wasn't too long or tiresome to read.

[Paul.R.Lindqvist]

You are to kind. Glad i make my self understandable though.

To be honest i have my self to blame, i skipped english class.

/P.L