Getting the Most out of Spring Flowers

"Spring is sprung, the grass is ris, I wonder where the birdies is!" 

In other words, spring is here and the floral season is upon us. This blog post is about getting the most out of spring flowers looking at equipment, subject and composition. Close-up or macro photography is a fascinating sub-genre of nature photography that can give a lot of bang for the buck - you don't have to invest tons of money in expensive equipment to get some cracking results.

Pear Blossom in my Garden || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/400 s, ISO 200

I'm not going to go into complicated things like focus stacking or special lighting here, this post is going to be directed at beginners and enthusiasts - how to get stunning close-ups of flowers in the spring. For those interested in the technical background, the official definition of a macro photograph is one where the subject takes up the same amount of space on the camera sensor as in real life; this is a 1:1 representation of the subject. Anything lower than this is simply a close-up, from around the 5:1 level we're into microscopic photography.

The Equipment

Every lens has a minimal focus distance - the closest distance at which you can focus on an object. On a normal lens this will be somewhere between 20-50 cm, which is too far to get great shots of small subjects. But there are a couple of relatively inexpensive ways of reducing this, allowing you to get closer to your subject and allowing you to fill your frame with the beauty that nature provides. No-one is going to be interested in a shot of flower blossoms that fill 2% of your photo. The aim here is to get up close and personal with nature.

Close-up Filter (l) and Extension Tubes

The first tool I bought for close-up photography was a +3 diopter close-up filter for my standard M. Zuiko 12-100 mm lens that I use on my Olympus camera. This effectively functions as a magnifying glass screwed onto the front of your lens and allowing you to reduce the minimal focal distance. Plus 3 diopter allows you to get significantly closer, but be prepared to dig a little into your pocket for this. I just looked up how much this filter costs on the Big River website and was shocked to see that you'll need to spend around € 100 for one of these attachments at the moment. I'm sure I didn't spend that much when I bought mine, but for a number of years, this was my go-to tool, always in my camera bag in the mountains.

Fill that Frame! Pansy close-up

The next tool I bought was a set of extension tubes. These are essentially hollow tubes that are inserted between the lens and the camera. They don't contain any glass and so won't affect the quality of your photo in any way. Often they will provide connectors that allow your camera to continue to communicate with the lens for purposes of setting the aperture and focus. The tubes also allow you to get much closer to your subject as above. A set of tubes will set you back about € 30 (+/-). The length of the tubes shouldn't be longer than the focal length of your lens, otherwise you won't be able to focus.

If you're really serious about close-up photography you might want to consider investing in a dedicated macro lens. I recently bought the Olympus f/2.8 60 mm macro lens. It's so small that I can take it with me everywhere. 

Normally, a tripod isn't necessary and a lot of macro photographers actually prefer not to use them. For standard shots I don't bother with one, only if I'm focus stacking or dealing with really small subjects.

Ladybird on Nettle Flower || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 400 

All of the above can also be combined and I've already used the extension tubes to great effect with my macro lens allowing me to get some really close up shots of garden insects such as the ladybird above.

The Subject

Not every flower works well close-up. Some look better as a group from a distance, get too close and they can be boring. Complex flowers like dandelions and daisies can look fantastic close up. Others can look just bleurgh... Trial and error is the best approach here. Blossom is nearly always good close up, as are catkins and pussy willow. Experiment and you'll find what works best for you.

Dandelion Detail || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/100 s, ISO 400

One of the beauties of macro photography is that you don't need to go far to find your subject. If you have a garden or even just a balcony, you more than have plenty of subjects to hand. Otherwise, head out to a local park, or even better a botanical garden.

One of the things to bear in mind with close-up photography is that the depth of field gets shallower the closer you are to a subject. This can be both a boon and a bane. It can really isolate the subject matter using sharp focus on your subject whilst throwing the background (and foreground) pleasingly out of focus, but if the depth of focus is too tight you'll struggle to get all of you subject in focus.

Down among the Daisies || Olympus 60 mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 s, ISO 200 

The depth of field (or depth of focus) describes the distance before and after the focal point that is acceptably in focus to the native eye. At it's shallowest, the subject is is in focus and the foreground and background are blurred. At it's broadest, focus will extend for most of the scene. In the shot of the daisies above, the depth of focus is restricted to the plane encompassing the yellow stamen of the central daisy flower. Everything in front of that and everything behind is out of focus.

Just like the exposure triangle (ISO/Shutter Speed/Aperture), there's a depth of field triangle:

Aperture - Focal Distance - Focal Length

The wider the aperture, the shorter the distance from the lens and the longer the lens, the shallower the depth of field:

	Shallower DoF	Wider DoF
Aperture	Wider (lower number)	Narrower (higher number)
Focal Distance	Closer	Further away
Focal Length	Longer	Shorter

The Composition

One of the great things about macro photography is it gives you to present your viewers with details that they perhaps hadn't consciously seen before giving rise to that cherished 'oh wow!' reaction. There are a couple of simple tricks to getting a cool close-up photo of flowers:

One of my favourites is to get low down to the flower, on your stomach in the grass if needs be (taking care not to squash other flowers and don't forget to check for ticks afterwards). This gives a much more interesting angle and view than looking straight down on the flowers, catching your shoes in frame. For greatest effect you need to be just above or below 90° - above allows a glimpse into the flower, below can be really effective against the light.

Down at Daisy Level || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/200 s, ISO 200

Another thing that's cool to do is to put the flowers in their context. The shot here of the crocuses isn't a close-up, but it puts them nicely in their context in the Allgäu mountains. The best way of doing this is with a wide angle lens, making sure to get close to your subject matter so it takes up a significant part of the frame whilst allowing the background to play a supporting role.

Mountain Crocuses in Context || Olympus 18 mm, f/8, 1/320 s, ISO 200

With these primulas I included a bit of the stream to anchor them in their environment. Opening the aperture helped me to isolate the flowers and give the viewer a hint where they're supposed to look, important here given the lack of colour contrast between the flowers and the background.

Primulas at the Stream || Olympus 100 mm, f/4, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Where the flowers aren't necessarily very strong individually, back up a little and take them as a group - there's strength in numbers.

Crocus Field || Olympus 80 mm, f/8, 1/320 s, ISO 400

When shooting tree blossom, diagonal branches can support the composition. Watch out for distracting elements in the background and try to get your focus on the closest part of the blossom for the biggest impact.

Spring Blossom || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/400 s, ISO 200

So, what's stopping you? Get out there, take some stunning spring photos and share them online!

Addendum: Light

I've just been out working in the garden and realised that I'd forgotten one of the most important aspects of photography: Light. Most of the time our instinct is (hopefully) to shoot with the light behind us or to the side. If we shoot into the light, often our subject will be a dark splodge and the background a washed-out blur. It hurts when I see people taking photos like this because I know they're going to turn out badly. Always know where the light's coming from and take it into account when you're taking photos.

The wonderful thing about flowers though is that they're often translucent - they let a certain amount of light through - as illustrated by this lovely photo by my friend Emma Marra. It also shows nicely the principle of shooting from slightly below the flowers and up towards the light. All the better if you can place something dark behind the flowers as here to let them really shine.

Emma's Tulips. Down low and against the light.

Winter Sundowner at the Ammersee

I have the enormous privilege of living about a 10 min car ride from one of Bavaria's most picturesque lakes, the Ammersee. We've seen it in all conditions, from balmy sunny evenings, after torrential rain with mosquito plagues, autumn storms with huge waves and speeding kite surfers to completely frozen over in 2006. Working from home it's really easy to get there for a quick excursion. Although it's really chilly here at the moment - we're talking negative double digit Celsius - I was really surprised not to find more ice when I took off after work on Friday afternoon to check it out. Dawn that day had been really pretty and I had high hopes for the sunset despite the lack of significant cloud.

The Boathouse at Stegen I || Olympus 12 mm, f/4, 15 s, ISO 200 

Dressing up warm is critical in conditions like this. I knew I was going to be spending quite a while outside and so I put on downhill ski trousers over my jeans, heavy mountain boots with a second pair of socks, a windproof jacket, scarf, woolly hat and my latest acquisition, my Vallerret Markhof Pro 2.0 photography gloves. These are great thick gloves with foldable tips on the index fingers and thumbs allowing you to access all the necessary dials and buttons on the camera without exposing your whole hand. The finger tips fold back on strong magnets hidden unobtrusively within the fabric to keep out of the way.

I've included a screenshot of a Google map of Stegen (am Ammersee) detailing where each shot was taken in case you're interested. For more original ideas and inspiration regarding where to shoot at the Ammersee, Google images of the Ammersee or check out some of the local photo websites, such as Werner's Fototräume (also great for other photo spots in the vicinity).

Photo Locations from this Blog

The Solitary Boathouse at Stegen (1)

Arriving at the car park as most people were beginning to leave - not that the car park was very full anyway (had I mentioned how nippy it was?) - I was at first disappointed at the lack of ice, but I'd had the foresight to bring my neutral density filters and was confidant that I'd be able to get a few decent images out of the evening.

The Boathouse at Stegen II || Olympus 16 mm, f/8, 1/50 s, ISO 200

Once you get past the restaurants, the first landmark is the boathouse next to the beer garden. Always a thankful motive in the evening sun. The light was quite challenging so I slipped the Olympus into exposure bracketing mode and hand-took this image. It's not an HDR, but it is an exposure blend, with the sky, water and boathouse are all taken from separate images and assembled in ON1 Photo Raw - though any decent processing software will do the trick.

Boathouse Row at Stegen (2)

The second landmark is the row of boathouses with the Wasserwacht or lifeguard station. Again, sunset is always kind to these huts as you can see here. Whether or not you use the shoreline as a curved leading line is entirely up to you. On a clear day, the Alps form a pleasing backdrop to the right inviting you to taking a wider panorama. This time I had to be content with a pleasant orange glow on the horizon, which also works. The way the trees echo the line of the houses and the reflection all emphasise the structures in the scene.

Boathouse Row I || Olympus 23 mm, f/8, 1/125 s, ISO 200

The Jetty at Stegen (3)

The third stop and my actual destination was the background jetty in the photo here. The jetty leading from the beach huts doesn't work as there are no crosspieces down at the moment and looking along it you just get a wooden skeleton. I took my time setting up for this shot. At other times of the year you can line up the jetty pointing at the sun, but in February that's just not going to work. In order to bring a connection between the elements I elected for this 'compromise', placing the setting sun just over the end of the jetty. Tripod out, filters out. Assemble everything together, careful not to zoom out too far as my filters tend to vignette below about 14 mm. It was here that I noticed that the L-bracket had come loose. The clever people at Vallerret had anticipated this eventuality though. The back of each glove has a little pocket that you can stuff things like lens cloths in. The left pocket comes with a tripod key on a lengthy lanyard and so instead of having to fumble around in the fading light for the necessary tool, it was literally to hand.

You can see from the previous shot of the huts that the although the water near the shore was protected and relatively flat, further out the wind was ruffling the surface. In order to reduce the impact of the phenomenon it was time for the Big Stopper, an almost opaque piece of glass that goes in front of lens to reduce light, turning a 1/60 s exposure into a 20 s exposure, the minimum that was needed to iron out those waves. The almost direct sun was a bit of a problem so the next tool in the bag was the graduated filter. This is less dark than the Big Stopper but is gradated, one half being clear and the other darker for bringing down dark skies.

The Jetty I || Olympus 16 mm, f/5.6, 20 s, ISO 200

Processing-wise there wasn't a lot to do here. I've further darkened the sky and actually de-saturated it a bit to make the colours more pastel. I've done my usual trick of actually brightening the snow on the jetty to emphasise the line. As long as you don't blow the exposure, this is a really great technique to make an image stand out that I discovered when astro-shooting in the Alps in the early summer and revisited in my November edit of an image of the first snow of the season. They say that a good photo has rhythm - a difficult thing to define. One of the things I like about this photo is the repeating structures of the lines which are nicely parallel, from the jetty to the clouds and contrails (remember them?).

I shot quite a few of this scene as the sun sank below the horizon, but I think this one was the best of the set. There are always going to be shots that are blurred due to slight movements of the tripod, so shoot a few and sort out the best when you get back to the warm.

Back to Boathouse Row (2)

With the sun well and truly set it was time to start walking back to the car. A couple more 'togs were lingering around the boathouses and so I stopped to scout around to see what the fuss was about. I found this tiny inlet in the shore that caught my interest. Not a classical leading line, but it still takes the  viewer's eye in the right direction. I went as wide as I could, having put the Panasonic Leica 8-18 mm on the camera for this shot. The tripod was set low to the ground too.

Boathouse Row II || Olympus 8 mm, f/4.5, 5 s, ISO 64

Satisfied that I'd got the best out of the boathouses for the day I combed the beach back towards the restaurants. The sky still had a lot of interesting colour in it and it looked beautiful above the docked pleasure steamers at Stegen. Unfortunately, looking beautiful doesn't always translate to a great photo. I took a few, but none made the cut.

The Solitary Boathouse Revisited (1)

The last port of call was the original boathouse. By now, even though there was still a bit of colour in the sky, it was getting quite dark. But I'd come prepared with both my LumeCube panel and a head torch. The panel didn't like the cold very much. Even though I'd charged it completely before coming out it was only showing 30% power, plus it wasn't really cutting through the dark as I'd hoped. It wasn't the light source for the job. Fortunately the head torch was. My first image was from the east looking towards the sunset (first photo above). You can imagine from the photo why a little extra illumination was necessary. The light beam from the torch was quite narrow and so I waved my head back and forth over the wooden structure over the whole 15 s exposure. If you look carefully you can see the first stars beginning to appear in the sky. This for me is the magic window of light for photography - enough ambient light to be able to see features on the ground, the first stars visible and with a bit of colour in the sky from the setting sun. As you can imagine, it's a very narrow window, but if you get it right you can get some stunning images.

The Boathouse at Stegen III || Olympus 12 mm, f/4, 20 s, ISO 400

This last image is from the other side of the boathouse as the light was really fading. Again the boathouse was lit by my head torch. By playing around I found that if I illuminated for 10 s out of a 20 s exposure the light on the house was about right, though I did adjust it a bit in post - it's always difficult to accurately assess exposure in the dark as the camera screen always looks comparatively bright unless you dim it down. Keeping an eye on the histogram can certainly help, but here it was tricky to judge exactly how much light to add. I was certainly glad of the Vallerrets at this point. I really didn't want to have to be taking gloves on and off to fiddle with the settings in those temperatures.

I love how prominent Orion's Belt is in the winter sky here. Given the wide aperture I was surprised that the stars were as sharp as they have turned out here. That's micro four thirds cameras for you.

If you're local to us in Bavaria and are interested in a pair of Vallerret Markhofs, size L, drop me a line. They were just too small for me and I had to go XL. They're out of stock with Vallerret at the moment so if you want to do some winter photography this season I can warmly recommend them.

Afterword - If At First You Don't Succeed

A couple of the photography YouTube greats have recently released vlogs saying essentially the same thing. The one thing that will advance you as a photographer more than any other, the golden lesson of photography is... ...perseverance. I've had a couple of opportunities to practice this discipline over the last 12 months, whether the various attempts at astrophotography or trying again and again to get the right conditions on the covered bridge at Bad Hindelang, and every time it has paid off in spades. There were a couple of issues with the photos I took on Friday. I was especially unhappy with the photo of the jetty; the composition was off meaning that I had to heavily crop the image to get one that I was happy with and the aperture was so wide open that the depth of field was too narrow to catch the background ridge in focus (below). So tonight I returned, wife and girl-child in tow, to try and rectify my errors.

Reducing a picture to the essential elements

Valentine's Swans || Olympus 57 mm, f/8, 1/125 s, ISO 200

This time the view to the mountains was clear and there was some ice forming on the still water in front of the row of boathouses. On top of this, there were multiple pairs of swans on the water - how aposite for Valentine's day. I allowed myself to be distracted by both the birds and the boathouses before hurrying down to the jetty. I got a better crop, but the bitty ice detracts from the simplicity of the previous image and a lot of snow had gone from the jetty.

Boathouse Row III - HDR || Olympus 17 mm, f/8, 1/80 s, ISO 200 

This time I could get the composition and focus fixed on the jetty... ...but the ice is too gritty after kids were playing on it all day and the colours in the sky weren't quite as good. But hey, ho.

The Jetty II || Olympus 24 mm, f/8, 10 s, ISO 100

It's always a good idea to look around even when you've got a specific composition in mind. Ice had formed around the legs of the jetty and the water level had subsequently decreased, leaving these feet around the bottom. Against the light they formed an interesting sculpture.

Icy Foot || Olympus 86 mm, f/4, 50 s, ISO 100

And then the new moon revealed itself in the southwestern sky, giving me a chance to try another composition with the jetty including the mountains in the background...

The Jetty III  with New Moon and Swans || Olympus 14 mm, f/8, 1/10 s, ISO 100

The Jetty IV || Olympus 17 mm, f/8, 5 s, ISO 100

...and yet another with the boathouses before I was dragged back to the car by my half-frozen ladies. But I had promised them that we wouldn't stay too long and I was happy enough with the blue-hour photos from Friday. 

Boathouse Row IV || Olympus 8 mm, f/8, 5 s, ISO 100

Lessons Learned

Every time I go out I make mistakes. Every time I make mistakes I learn something. On Friday I learned about the best composition for the jetty. On Sunday I learned more about the Olympus high res mode and that patience is required when using it in conjunction with long exposures. A couple of times I thought it had crashed, when in fact it was just taking its time. Because I thought it had crashed I turned the camera off mid-processing, leading to me losing the first 2 or 3 high res shots. This mode is also too slow for lunar photography in combination with these long exposures - the moon simply moves too fast. Fewer mistakes to make next time.

Photography is like sailing or hiking. In fair weather it's easy. Mistakes are easily rectified, items are easy to find in rucksacks, etc. But the practice of doing those mundane things in straightforward conditions pays dividends when the going gets tough. When it's so cold that you can't think straight. When it's so dark that you can't remember where you put that filter. When the conditions are changing fast and you need to access a particular function on the camera, if you don't have the fair weather experience to fall back on, you'll just go home frustrated. If you want to be a good photographer, if you want to come home with the great photos taken in challenging conditions, practice all you can. You will be rewarded.