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I noticed a cool-looking flower today while doing some yard work. It looked pretty symmetrical from the top, in an interesting way. So I decided to photograph it from that angle.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod
Didn't turn out quite like I hoped. Though the angle is good and the DoF is okay, I think I want to be more careful on the focus for the very top part of the flower. Also, as the top of the flower is a definite highlight, the exposure was clipped to high for it. So I'll probably go back and re-shoot this one on a cloudy day (or using some sort of diffuser to block the sunlight).
First, the good news. I spent a lot of time studying up on HDR today, and some on the Zone System as well. I'll definitely be delving into those more deeply, and soon. But for today, you get boring flowers. Not that the flowers are boring. Just the fact that I shot them exactly how I shoot any other flowers.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 41mm
Tripod
Hopefully better stuff will be up soon.
I know that title sounds ridiculously corny. But it's the name of the plant featured in this post, and I must say it's pretty accurate. Once again, I shot this indoors, so I didn't have to deal with wind. I love that.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/2
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod
I liked the lines from this shot, although the angle wasn't super creative. That being said, my original idea of having the line start closer to the lens and go further away from it, and at a slight angle to create more depth, didn't work out. Even at f/32, I had too much blur.
To compensate a little for the boring angle, I added a tiny bit of Orton effect. I had to try a lot of adjustments and stuff before I was happy with it... too much Orton looks bad; I've found myself getting more and more subtle about it with each time I apply it.
I shot it on a very windy day, handheld. Recipe for blur, even at f/2.8, because it was a cloudy day with limited light.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Handheld
So in an attempt to cover up for the motion blur, I applied a light Orton Effect. See! It's blurry, but on purpose.
Also, I just looked at the EXIF, and I guess I shot this at f/4. But even that was kind of pushing it... the DoF is almost too shallow anyway.
I love shooting plants indoors because I never have to worry about wind. And I love shooting plants outside on a cloudy day because the lighting is perfect. So naturally, when I get the chance to take the best of both worlds, I go for it.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod
I'm not sure what this plant is called; it's some sort of succulent my mom is growing on a windowsill. And after I took a few shots like this one, I busted out my friend the spray bottle and tried some water ones... they didn't turn out. I don't think it was the water, just other things went wrong. So I may revisit this one with the water droplets again sometime.
Other than being maybe a little bit too busy, I'm pretty happy with this. At least I can say it was composed pretty well and there's a definite point of interest. The the lighting. Oh, the lighting.
Ahh, new card reader got here today and I was finally able to unload about 2 gigs of RAW files from my card. Not only that, I was able to finally EDIT some RAW files on my computer and get the best results I'm capable of again.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod
I hadn't realized just how dependent I've grown on using RAW whenever possible. I love it. Anyway, we have a flowering plum tree in my front yard that will probably be cut down this summer, so I wanted some photos. Besides, it looks really good this time of year. Once again I can thank my dad and his macro lens.
Also, I'm pretty proud to say that the thought of cropping this photo didn't even cross my mind during editing. I think I'm finally starting to get better at framing things. The more things I can get right in-camera, the better.
Flowers are finally coming up around here. Today I went out and shot tulips and daffodils. It was the first time I ever used the RAW+JPG setting on my camera, because while I want to keep the RAW files and process them later, I'm currently unable to transfer anything but JPGs to my computer. My new card reader should get here Tuesday at the latest though, so I think I'm in good shape.
So today's photo was shot in JPG, but hopefully the results still look pretty good.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 46mm
Tripod
I've been trying to get more triangles in my compositions; apparently they're subconsciously pleasing. I fixed my watermark, too, by the way.
Also, my apologies for not posting yesterday. I was at a wedding all day, and at a date all night, with little or no time for photography in between.
After yesterday's train wreck of a photo, I did a little research on the theory behind the Orton Effect. That, combined with a little practice and a new method of applying the effect digitally gave me much more satisfactory results.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 37 mmHandheld
Still not perfect, but I have a much firmer grasp on how it works now. Furthermore, I learned how to do it film-style, which I think can be closely reproduced digitally. More on that tomorrow.
I was gone most of the day, but the lighting was pretty good for flower photography when I got back. I snapped a few crocuses again (I know, original). In an attempt to make the pictures stand out a little more, I applied the Orton Effect... and was reminded of how either rusty I am, or how I was never very good at it in the first place. I may have just gotten lucky with this photo. Either way, I pretty much ruined this photo.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4.5
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 37 mm
Handheld
It looks fake, and too contrasty, and frankly, like a prime example of this. So. I put this up here to show you that sometimes my photography sucks pretty bad. I'll try again though. When applied correctly, the Orton Effect is really pretty beautiful.
I've enjoyed looking at some of the insect macros I've seen, but never really been super interested in doing my own.
Yesterday, I went outside around 6:00 to do some past-due flower macros, now that our purple and white crocuses have started poking up. I couldn't help but notice that there were bees swarming all over them. Since I was already armed with my dad's macro lens and my monopod, I quickly switched into TV, then set for burst shooting and servo AF based off the middle AF point (the sharpest). About 150 pictures later, I had a couple of keepers. This one is my favorite.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Monopod
I like it because the bee is in an interesting position, the composition on the flower isn't compromised, and the main interest points are acceptably sharp. I apologize for the boring center composition of the subject, but I was using the sharpest AF point on camera, which is the center, and I couldn't find a crop that I liked very much, so I just left it as-is.
So, long story short, I covet my dad's macro lens like, five million.
I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong here yet. But I'll fix it when I figure it out.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod
The color looks kind of sickly to me. I think I shot at a rather uncreative angle. On the other hand, the focus is good, and the glass in the macro lens I used is excellent. I need to keep experimenting, but I need to do it on a day when I don't have 100% direct sunlight beating down on me and the flower.
On the bright side, some purple ones started coming up today. I have a feeling they'll be more cooperative subjects.
Finally, spring is arriving. We have a few crocuses poking out of the ground now, so I figured I'd start up the old nature macro habit again. As I've said before, the kit lens does a reasonably good job with macros... though not so well that I don't want to get a macro lens. :)
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Tripod
I'm pretty unsatisfied with this shot, actually. I used the screw on the bottom of my tripod column to mount the pan head. This gets me in a really good position to do macro work, though at the cost of a little ease-of-use. Oh, well. Worth it. That's not really the problem. The problem was the intense, direct sunlight. I really should have brought something out to diffuse that. An 8.5x11 sheet of printer paper would have done the job with a subject this small. Also, it's a bit overexposed. The white-balance is off in this shot, because I had left it on Tungsten and forgotten to change it. I corrected it afterward shooting this one, but that messed up my focus, something I didn't realize until I had packed up. Which brings me to another point: I should have shot in RAW. Oh, and I should have used Mirror Lockup. And been more careful with the manual focus.
Anyway, I'm being pretty hard on myself here, because I know I can just head out later and try again for a much better result. In fact, I think I'll do just that. But not right now. Some other time.
