It's our 10th wedding anniversary so what better subject to use for the Still Life challenge.
Remote flash (to the right and pointing up) plus onboard flash used. I don't have any studio lighting; I wish I did to completely remove the shadows from the rings. Took about 50 shots to get the best composition and focus; still not quite happy, but it will have to do. I'm annoyed at the line on the bottom right corner (being the end of the invitation paper). But I didn't want to sacrifice pleasing composition.
Used long focal lenght (105mm), open aperture (5.6) and focused in close to get the most shallow DOF I could achieve. But that made it difficult to to get the focus point spot on the big diamond. Auto focus didn't cut it; I had to switch to manual.
I usually don't like to post-process too much, but this time I was able to make heavy adjustments which resulted in significant improvements:
-Curves
-Saturation
-Levels
-Vibrance
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First, congratulations on your 10th anniversary!!! :)
I really like this photo, and find that the DOF and the colours are very strong. I didnt notice the shadows you referred to until I read your description, so I dont think they hurt the photo at all. Especially not for the 5 second voters.
Not sure why you had to go with manual focus though. I shoot with a Nikon as well, and can lock the focus on a certain point and move the camera to achieve the composition I want. Regardless, your photo is well focused, so I dont think it was an issue here.
I agree with mileskea about rotating the photo. The first thing I did when I saw the photo was start to tilt my head to try to read the invitation. I was tempted to turn my laptop upside down, but that would have looked funny.
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