Tree Flowers

[kiley9806]

I took some shots of that flowering tree in my yard & thought Id post them to get feedback. I was pretty happy these 3...

[tegan]

Wow! Considering the limitations of the camera you are working with, these are really well done.

Some pointers on photos of flowers and some challenges:

1. composition: isolating the flower or flowers you want in the photo from the
stems and parts of flowers that you don't want. This requires carefully
looking at the flowers and their location and sometimes tight framing or
having an assistant hold back stems, leaves, or other flowers in the way.

2. focus and depth of field: The guideline is to NOT have anything blurred in
front of your visual centre of interest. To accomplish this, it may be
necessary to change your camera angle.

3. bright sunlight and flash create shadow problems so a bright cloudy day
or sometimes the location of the sun in the sky and time of day needs to
be considered as to the best time and conditions for shooting flowers.

4. Shooting flowers in bright sunlight against a darker background such as
shadow areas, treees in the shade etc. can be darkened even further by
using a low ISO such as 50, 80, or 100, depending on your camera
settings.

5. Reflectors can reduce shadow problems and some enthusiasts use white
bristol board or foil over a piece of cardboard. For size, take a look at the
reflectors that are sold in a pro camera shop.

6. When shooting non-white flowers, check carefully that the colour is
accurate. It may be necessary to tweak camera colour in the menus to get
it right and the menus tend to vary considerably in different cameras.

These are just some general pointers which I hope will help you in shooting flowers. :)

Tegan

[Marko]

Although they are general pointers - they are EXCELLENT tips tegan.
Thanks for sharing them.

marko

[kiley9806]

thanks very much tegan - for what the camera does, im really happy with what i can do sometimes - lol! those tips are good for future help, thanks for sharing.
i was sitting in a chair, underneath the tree, taking the pictures - no moving around for me a that point. the tree was filled with bees, so i got quite a few shots of them, but none as clear as the 3rd shot here. i was very dissapointed that the blurry leaf got in the foreground on the top, otherwise, it would have been much better.

[cdanddvdpublisher]

while in general harsh lighting is something to avoid, in the first shot there's something about it that works... the bee was a lucky capture... keep in mind too that, even the best camera won't make you a better photographer - that's up to you ;)

[kiley9806]

in my defense, i cant think of that bee picture as 'lucky'. i spent around 2 hours and 300 frames on those bees, so i think that had something to do with it... and those pics were taken with a sony h5, so its not a 'best camera', with any stretch of the imagination.

[cdanddvdpublisher]

in my defense, i cant think of that bee picture as 'lucky'. i spent around 2 hours and 300 frames on those bees, so i think that had something to do with it... and those pics were taken with a sony h5, so its not a 'best camera', with any stretch of the imagination.


some people can shoot 500 frames and still not get a shot like that ;)