Flower photography - What can be done?

[Sikario]

I've only had my camera (A80) a few days but I'm eager to learn the best ways to photograph flowers close up. The pic below is an example of one I took today, any tips, comments?

Thanks

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/n.e.bullock/Flower.jpg

[garethhhhh]

The picture is over-exposed, especially near the top of the image, it's too bright. Is that an open window that is letting all that light in? What you need to do is take the picture with the light shining onto the flower. The source of light must not be visible or the image will end up being blown out.

You need to take extra care with this particular flower since it has a lot of white on the petals. White reflects light much more than other colours so it's easy to a get an over-exposed image.

[Sikario]

Thanks for the quick reply. It is infact a white door behind, The picture was taken without flash in dark conditions but with 15 second shutter speed.

[Radtech1]

I do a lot of flowers and I agree with garth that this one is a hard one. It might help to move a little to your left so that the dark background completely envelopes the flower. You are only making it hard on yourself when you have a background of 2 very different brightnesses.

R

[garethhhhh]

It is always best to try get enough light for work like this, it will help bring the shutter speed down. :wink:
15 seconds is too long, you will start to get noise appearing in the image and if the camera or flower is moving, you will get some blur too.

[Sikario]

I'll make sure to 'quicken' the shutter speed and change the background, thanks for the tips. Here is another (closer) photo with similar settings, I think this is as close I can get without a macro filter... which I don't have. Is it worth buying one, if so which one?

:)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/n.e.bullock/Flower%202.jpg

[garethhhhh]

That's better. :D
This flower is quite big & so there are a few areas that are out of focus, if you stop the apeture down to about f8.0 it should provide enough Depth of Field to get the whole flower in focus, of course, it will mean that the shutter speed goes up again...

Keep experimenting though, its the only way to get it right. :wink: