Still doing flower shots every now and then but tend to murder them slightly to make them interesting (for me at least). last 3 shots are pharted (ie heavily manipulated in PS). All the shots are focus stacked for greater DOF.
Do you shoot hand-held for your focus stacking, or do you go to the other extreme and use a focusing rail and tripod? Or do you just do whatever strikes you at the time?
great shots! Can you explain the focus stacking technique in more detail? I take it that you are combining several shots taken with different focus in photoshop, but was interested in how this is done in practise.
Thanks for the comments Jim, preston and Andrew
I did say I was murdering some of them
Fairly obviously I rather like the pharts but they are an aquired taste
Jim I do all my shots sort of handheld. I normally try to rest the camera lens on something, but in many of these shots I was just resting my elbow on a knee and taking pics of flowers in a vase. The crocus shot was taken using one of my poles. ie gripping the pole in the left hand and also holding a bit of camera.
The crocus shot is outstanding, really beautiful, the others, I have to be honest and say that I don't find as effective, but that's probably just the traditionalist in me.
John - these are mainly just my normal flash although some of them were fill flash with backlighting (5 and 6)
Adrian- appreciate the honesty. Don't think you can miss with crocus shots- the petals seem to act as light deflectors lighting up the pollen anthers. Only problem I've got is I think all the lesser and greater bulb hoverflies I shot lost year have eaten most of the bulbs
Hi Brian, the traditional way of combating Bulb fly is IIRC, to either hoe very shallowly or cover with a thin layer of mulch before the leaves have totally died down, the flies, I think, tend to lay their eggs in or by the 'hole' in the soil caused by the leaves coming up from the bulb, cover that and they don't seem as interested, a bit like collars around Brassica plants helping to stop Cabbage Root Fly.
Adrian Jones wrote:
Hi Brian, the traditional way of combating Bulb fly is IIRC, to either hoe very shallowly or cover with a thin layer of mulch before the leaves have totally died down, the flies, I think, tend to lay their eggs in or by the 'hole' in the soil caused by the leaves coming up from the bulb, cover that and they don't seem as interested, a bit like collars around Brassica plants helping to stop Cabbage Root Fly.
Adrian
Thanks for the tip Adrian - now do I want to shoot crocuses or hoverflies- hard decision
Brian V.
MichAg92 wrote:
#3 #4 and #5 are my favs. I really like the lighting and pp treatment of #5- the halo effect adds to the shot here.
Thanks Amy
The lighting in #5 was the flower sitting on the face of an LCD torch and flash taken in manual but with the setting such that the shot was only 1 stop underexposed without flash. Suspect the result would have been the same using fill flash.
