Thursday, July 21, 2011

Flower Photography - Getting Started

By Danielle Russell


Flower photography is one of the most popular forms of photography. There's more than one way to photograph flowers - you can photograph wild flowers in their natural habitat, flower arrangements in a studio setting or flowers as they grow in a greenhouse or garden.

You can use a standard film camera or a digital one for flower photography.

Depending on your flower photography needs, you can choose from a variety of lenses, from 17mm lenses classified as ultra-wide to super-telephoto lenses measuring 300 to 400mm, but closeup flower photography would be best enjoyed with a macro lens on your camera. Digital cameras would often come with a similar macro mode you can use. When photographing flowers, you would really need such a mode that would allow you to magnify your subject as close as you possibly could.

A tripod would be necessary equipment so that you can reduce the chances of a blurred image. Many tripods, even when fully collapsed, are too high for photographing low growing flowers. That is why you need to get a tripod that allows you to get close to the ground. A special kind of tripod, called a tabletop tripod, is great for photographing small flowers and other objects.

Choose film that has color saturation. You can use ISO 50 or ISO 100 and get bright colors with your flower photography. For flower photography, go no faster than ISO 400 film.

The ideal lighting for photographing flowers is the soft, diffused light of open shade or a cloudy day. Or you can snap your photos in the evening. A flower photo can be very attractive when illuminated by flash. The wind can make photographing flowers quite difficult, but if you're patient enough to wait it out, you could get some quality results.

Whether you're photographing flowers indoors or outdoors,consider unusual angles. Try photographing your flowers in early morning light and photograph them again in late afternoon light. Use warming filters to create mood. Add water droplets to the petal of your flower and give it that dewy,morning look. Other options you have would be backlighting and transparent effects to highlight different petal textures.

While flower photography is best done in color and most people prefer this medium, monochrome is also acceptable and creative enough to work on.

But the two best things you can do in flower photography to enhance your craft are the common-sense tools of practice and research. For example, you can visit your local botanical garden or a nature preserve to take interesting flower photographs while learn at the very same time.




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