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Photography Question 

Shawn Wilson 		 

Shooting flowers?


I am trying to get some great pictures of flowers up close and I'm running into sharpness issues. It's not too terrible, so far an unsharp mask in PS has been able to clean them up, but I wish I didn't HAVE to do that for it to look sharp.

I'm currently using a 75-300mm lens to get up close since I don't have a macro lens and my closes lens right now has a .9ft focus distance.

My first problem is time of day I'm sure... I first tried at about 2pm so the sun was rather harsh. When would be the best time to shoot flowers? particularly white and red ones?

Second, I've experimented with f-stops from 9-45 and I'm not sure if there is much of a difference in the ability to capture detail with a fast shutter and large aperture, or a slow shutter with a small aperture. Any tips on 'ideal' settings? I'll deal with DOF seperately, I'm trying to get as much detail as possible now.

I've been using a tripod because of the 300mm focal length and using my remote to trigger the shot to avoid any camera shake. My handheld tests were showing signs of shake.

I should mention that this is all in color, although I'd like to do some B&W as well and my new Rebel XT has some filtering built in that I want to experiment with... any suggestions there would be appreciated as well.

Thanks!


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June 01, 2005

 

Daniel Diaz 		  Well I'm not sure this will help but I have pretty much the same range in my camera (Fuji S5100). I like shooting flowers early morning 7am or early evening 6pm. Tripod is good like you say but I use my widest aperature as possible, take a look at my gallery if you like. I also suffer the same sharpness details and pretty much use the unsharp filter as well. It could be my camera's limitations also. Good luck!!


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June 01, 2005

 

Irene Troy 		 
 
 
Flowers are one of my most favorite things to shoot, so perhaps I can offer you some help. First, time of day is everything! I prefer either the early morning, when the dew is still on the flower or at least the light is still low in the sky and not so harsh; or late in the day when again the sun is not so harsh. The absolute best light for shooting flowers is bright overcast. I sometimes use a diffuser to soften the light or a reflector to bring light where I want it. Second: a tripod is absolutely essential for the reasons you have already spoken about. You want to zoom in on the flower and make sure that any background does not detract from the image you are trying to capture. Only by using a tripod can you be certain that the camera is as steady as it needs to be in order to capture detail. Third: I usually use my 90mm macro when shooting, but I have used my 35-100 zoom at times. I like to move in very closely to the flower and to focus on the area that I deem most important to the image I am trying to capture. As to ideal settings, I am not sure that there is such a thing, but I do find that most of the images I shoot are made with the lens open fairly wide so to darken the background and to eliminate any distractions in the foreground. You may find that it helps to use exposure compensation so as to bring out the color of your subject. I often deliberately over-expose when shooting something white because white can trick the TTL meter into thinking something is brighter than it really is. Lastly, consider the use of a piece of black or dark green fabric as your background. I sometimes will drape a piece of fabric across some of the plant so that a too busy background does not overwhelm the shot. I hope that this helps.


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June 01, 2005

 

Irene Troy 		 
 
 
Flowers are one of my most favorite things to shoot, so perhaps I can offer you some help. First, time of day is everything! I prefer either the early morning, when the dew is still on the flower or at least the light is still low in the sky and not so harsh; or late in the day when again the sun is not so harsh. The absolute best light for shooting flowers is bright overcast. I sometimes use a diffuser to soften the light or a reflector to bring light where I want it. Second: a tripod is absolutely essential for the reasons you have already spoken about. You want to zoom in on the flower and make sure that any background does not detract from the image you are trying to capture. Only by using a tripod can you be certain that the camera is as steady as it needs to be in order to capture detail. Third: I usually use my 90mm macro when shooting, but I have used my 35-100 zoom at times. I like to move in very closely to the flower and to focus on the area that I deem most important to the image I am trying to capture. As to ideal settings, I am not sure that there is such a thing, but I do find that most of the images I shoot are made with the lens open fairly wide so to darken the background and to eliminate any distractions in the foreground. You may find that it helps to use exposure compensation so as to bring out the color of your subject. I often deliberately over-expose when shooting something white because white can trick the TTL meter into thinking something is brighter than it really is. Lastly, consider the use of a piece of black or dark green fabric as your background. I sometimes will drape a piece of fabric across some of the plant so that a too busy background does not overwhelm the shot. I hope that this helps.


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June 01, 2005

 

Andrew Laverghetta 		  I wanted to try getting closer macro shots sometime in the last few months so I went out and bought some of those macro lenses which act more like a magnifying glass that you can screw onto your lens like a filter. The set that I got were a +1, +2, and +4 and I can usually get pretty close with all of them added. Of course, the quality will not be as good as a real macro lens or perhaps extension tubes, but it also doesn't cost near as much. My macro filters/lenses were about $40 total. I have some pictures in my gallery that took with them. I used my 50mm f/1.8 lens since it's a prime lens and the quality is better so that helped a little. These magnifying filters will ONLY allow you to focus close so you'll be less than a foot from your subject. With these on your 300mm lens, you could get insanely close. The only problem is that I used them on my 80-200mm lens (very cheap) and the images got pretty cloudy for some reason. Perhaps the quality. So I never use them on that lens. Still I really like the pictures that I have gotten on my 50mm lens which is more like 80mm on my Canon 20D. Since you are so much closer, you will definitly notice a difference from f/4 to f/45. Sometimes, I do try to use a larger aperture because background things can really get distracting unless you have a backdrop thing like Irene, which is a great idea that I should look into. Hope this can helps some too!


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June 01, 2005

 
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