Now that spring is in the air, the one thing that comes to mind is “Fresh Flowers!”. I recently attended the New York Botanical Gardens, for its popular annual orchid show. I was pleasently surprised at the number of professional “looking” photographers. If you notice, i quoted the term “looking” – intending to signify that these photographers were mostly shooting with modern DSLRs, big zooms, had professional looking bags/backpacks, and were not afraid to shoot several of shots of each flower.
There are two things specific to know about the location and type of flowers -
- The flowers are inside the glasshouse. This means diffused lighting – you might get away from using a flash if the light outside is bright. However, on the day i choose to go, it was cloudy and raining (already diffused) – therefore not enough light coming in through the glass house.
- The outside temperatures in the region is still cold. Orchids, on the other hand require tropical temperatures. This meant – artificial humidity inside the glass house.
Since tripods were not allowed, most of them were shooting handheld, with only a very few using flash. I even saw one using the Gary Fong’s lightsphere.
Like everyone else, i did shoot several pictures as well. I mostly used my Sigma 105mm f2.8 Macro lens, and used the SB-600 flash in TTL+BL mode. I had the camera in Aperture priority mode, mostly sticking to apertures like the f4 or f5.6, and occasionally using even wider apertures. If the flowers were far-off, i used my Kenko 1.4x TC to bring it closer. Most of the images in the link above had very minimal post processing (White balance and Curve adjustments for contrast).
The only two things i did before i hit that shutter was to (a) ensure that the image was in focus (b) the shutter speed selected was good enough to produce blur free image.
The reason i mentioned these two things are because there are specific guidelines for both -
- In many situations, the AF would simply not work and i had to switch to manual focusing. In those situations – the “green” focus light in the bottom left of the viewfinder is extremely useful. If it stays fully lit, you have good focus.
- The rule about the shutter speed is that it must be at least the reciprocal of the focal length. In this case, i ensured that i always got a 1/125th of a second or higher (since i was using 105mm lens). I sometimes had to bump up the ISO in order to achieve this.
To end the note, i came across images taken by one of my favourite fine art photographers, Tony Sweet recently at the local flower show. His pictures give a new meaning to “Art” and “Flowers”. Now, why didnt i think of that? He is a constant reminder that “Art” is not about getting good exposures…its about how you see, feel and describe your experience.
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