Fake Flowers 5

For sake of completeness, I may as well add a D300 image. I didn't have the original to copy the set up, but I figured you might like to compare the colors and bokeh and whatever...

The D300 follows Nikon tradition in being set up a bit on the soft side. I have not changed this yet and, in fact, I may not, so long as it is easy enough to change in Photoshop Elements. I will have to try some in-camera sharpening to decide which way I want to go. I am not a professional photographer, so I do not have the same work flow issues.

This has been sharpened a bit, using 500% at 0.3 pixels, but I almost cancelled out any sharpening by setting the threshold at 10 levels to try to keep the background as smooth and creamy as it was in the original image. If you want to see what I consider to be near perfection in smoothness, please click on "All sizes" and then "Original" and look at the parts that are NOT in focus.

Nikon D300 (12.2 MP)
CMOS sensor (23.6 x 15.8 mm)
Nikon 60 mm macro lens
f/3.2 - 1/10 second
ISO 200
Custom White Balance

I am about 10-12" from the subject, so the plane of focus is very narrow. In the others in this series, I was about two feet or so away.

See www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/sets/72157603455598439/ for all five versions of this subject. Go to the first image in the set (No.1) and just click on each image in succession for easy comparison.