Red (NSFW)

Red is hard for cameras. Really hard. Our eyes see the full rich red of a rose or a tulip, with all the subtle gradations of colour and the texture of the plant. The camera sees red and it's little sensor brain is overwhelmed or something.

Then there's editing in Lightroom or other software. It's trivially easy to over do it and end up with an unnatural looking result. Several times tonight I had to reset and start over. Pretty well for anything this red, the auto button is useless.

Still, I love the challenge and the learnings. I'm still working through the aperture settings and getting a grip on the exact effect I'm looking for. I won't say it's more difficult on a full frame camera, it's just more exact, and the camera screen isn't maybe as precise as one might like. I'm trying to get into the habit of finding a shot I like, then playing with aperture more than I do now. That should give me more choice about the artistic nature of the shot. Now that I see that first shot on screen, I'm wishing the depth of field had been shifted towards the back ever so slightly.

These were all shot in the evening, when that side of the house in in shade. I liked the deep ruby glow amid the shade, and tried to capture that. Lightroom wanted to crank the brightness way up. Yes, the two middle ones are the same plant with different camera settings, not just the same shot tweaked differently in Lightroom.