My wife’s indoor plants bloom today and I happened to receive a new lens... Not that the image couldn’t be taken with a non-macro lens but this is one of the first images. It was captured under strictly available light and a white cardboard in the background.
As you may have noticed I have been shooting birds in my backyard since the lockdown Learning the a9, and birds.
I have been a little disappointed in the colors I am getting out of my resident Hummingbirds. I read that the colors are mostly the result of reflected light.
So, I decided to try flash to enhance the colors. The problem with flash is that I can only shoot them in single shot to give them time to recharge. This means I really have to time the shot.
So, I decided to try a continuous light to get the best of all Worlds. I shot in the late afternoon at a time when normally there would not be enough light for fast little birds. It worked out well. I did get some better colors, and it looks like the images may be a little more crisp as well. It also looks like it enhances the separation from the background and gives a more "3D" look. Below is a picture of my setup. I tried to keep the light as much on axis as possible to maximize reflected colors.
Four of my regular customers stopped by for the test. Notice that you can see a catch light in their eyes.
Photo taken at 7:16 PM about 26 minutes before sunset.
Looking at a field of Muscari "Bluebells".
Tripod mounted A7r and Leica M 90mm f2.5 Summarit lens.
ISO 200, f11, 1/5 second.
Exposure Corrected -0.10 Stops.
HelenaN wrote:
Thank you very much! I too generally prefer colors, but the light is often bad in summer here and I don't like greens together with blue skies, which is why most of my photos are in B&W now. Can't wait for fall! I know nature needs summer, but I would happily skip it if it were possible.
Some more left-overs. These are from when I was beta-testing the new Lensbaby Velvet 28 earlier this year. All of them are taken wide open where the rendering is similar to Monolenses/Monocles (glowy and makes "bubbles" around highlights), but stopped down it looks like a normal lens.
