Shot from last spring in Japan

Shot in Hirosaki, Japan.
What would you do different on this shot?

that is gorgeous.. i love cherry blossoms..
and japan!

show more if you can

Its a great shot, nice colours and a great composition with the rower looking up at the blossom. Good stuff.

Love the avatar by the way, I love WhatTheDuck

So far as I'm concerned, the out of focus boater is unforgiveable. If you are going to include something that is that recognizable and would add to the picture, then it should be in focus and sharp. On the other hand, were it not to be part of the picture, the crop would be quite simple.

Nice flowers - I would have used them to fill the image. Since the background is so far away, the shot could be taken at about f/8 to get the flowers all crisp. I'm thinking that the XTi + the 70/300 would have worked well.

Contrary to what Robert believes, I like the out of focus boater. It adds depth.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #3279884
So far as I'm concerned, the out of focus boater is unforgiveable. If you are going to include something that is that recognizable and would add to the picture, then it should be in focus and sharp. On the other hand, were it not to be part of the picture, the crop would be quite simple.

thats what I was going too say also.

thank you for the comments!

I have another shot too but only the boat is in focus not the flower.
I could not get both of them in focus,... I have a slow hand (and mind I think) and could not change to a higher ISO, I would've missed the shot.

Glenn, thank you for the comment. I think I shot this at 2.8 and sigma 18-50mm, but I could be wrong. I agree with you, f/8 would make the flower sharper and still have enough blur on the background.

How about any post processing that I could do to improve this shot?
What I did was upped the contrast in DPP to 1 and "click white balance" to the white part of the boat.

great shot and i dont see much to fix on it cept maybe a color balance tweek. really nice compostion. i like it alot.

I think the out of focus boatman draws your attention away from the flowers. I can't look at the shot as a whole it seem to be in two parts to me, upper and lower.

Robert_Lay wrote in post #3279884
So far as I'm concerned, the out of focus boater is unforgiveable. If you are going to include something that is that recognizable and would add to the picture, then it should be in focus and sharp. On the other hand, were it not to be part of the picture, the crop would be quite simple.

I think the OOF boatsman makes the image, I'd leave it as is.

Thank you for the comments everybody !

Makes me really think, I have to take a different approach (of how to see the image) than I usually do. Somehow it is broken the rule of Point of Interest and Background. Now I am really confused which one is background which one is focus.
What I wanted to show with this image was the theme of Spring, which the Cherry blossom is the focal POI. However the background is still too strong that it takes away the POI, even though it is blurred. But in an instant in Japan, Spring time is identic with love... it's time for love. somehow that also illustrated through the two people in a boat looking at the Sakura..

If the sakura is placed on the bottom and the OOF boat on the top,... I think it's more normal shot as how we perceive things (far at the top, near at the bottom, CMIIW)


Arghh.. now I am really confused.

I like it overall, I'd consider burning in some of the negative space so the flower and the boater stand out a bit more.