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 |
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 |
Fill that Frame! Pansy close-up |
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 |
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 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.
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:
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 |
Primulas at the Stream || Olympus 100 mm, f/4, 1/50 s, ISO 200 |
Crocus Field || Olympus 80 mm, f/8, 1/320 s, ISO 400 |
Spring Blossom || Olympus 60 mm, f/8, 1/400 s, ISO 200 |
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. |