A Rose and some Bluebells

[aia21]

Hi,

Whilst getting into macro mode will give shallow depth of field (DOF) because of the close distance the general rules of photography/light still apply... So for example to maximise the depth of field you would want the slowest aperture (i.e. the f-stop). You may need to increase the ISO get enough shutter speed. I don't know your camera at all but assuming it is a full frame or crop format SLR you could try f/11 to f/16 then ISO as high as you can get away with on your camera without getting too much image degradation and see what the gives you. You might need a tripod if there isn't a lot of light and of course you need the plants to be stationary - the slightest wind would give you motion blur...

On the other hand, having only the subject, or even part of the subject in focus is often a good thing. You make subject stand out from the image and your eyes are drawn into the in-focus subject automatically. So I wouldn't aim to have everything in focus anyway. You can experiment shooting the same image with different f-stop settings on your aperture so you can compare which ones you like the most...

I find that when I photograph flowers the images I like the most are the ones where I manage to get the subject (e.g. a single flower stem) fully into focus (or as fully as possible) and everything else to be out of focus but not too much, I still like to be able to see what the background was, just not to be in-focus. But this is just my personal preference so please don't take this as a definitive guide to shooting flowers or anything! Experiment and see what you like.

To give you a random example of where I chose too shallow DOF:



And an example which I like much more:



Not the best flower photos in the world but ones I had on my web site and they do show what I was talking about...

Best regards,

Anton

[crisscross]

I rather like the rose shot Anton - dreamy and nice colour

Brigitte has a rose thread Roses which it looks as if you could usefully add to & I have a general Flower thread Photographing flowers ditto

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Anton,

I have moved this post to a more appropriate forum in a new thread so we can keep the replies here relevant to the pictures.

You're right about the rose, shot at f2.8, it is rather lacking in DoF.

The bluebells are better (at f8), although I think I'd take the background down a bit, particularly those sticks, but then I'm well known for post processing a picture to death. My excuse is I just like to get the best out of every picture.

It'll be good to see some more.

Regards,

[aia21]

I rather like the rose shot Anton - dreamy and nice colour

Thanks!

I do like it, too. I just think that more DOF would have made it even nicer by bringing the front and back petals more into focus...

Best regards,

Anton

[aia21]

Hi Dave,

I have moved this post to a more appropriate forum in a new thread so we can keep the replies here relevant to the pictures.

Thanks. I was trying to respond to the person asking about DOF with their P6000 camera which is why I replied in the introductory thread.

The bluebells are better (at f8), although I think I'd take the background down a bit, particularly those sticks, but then I'm well known for post processing a picture to death. My excuse is I just like to get the best out of every picture.

Yes it would certainly bring out the bluebells even better. But those shots are basically without much at all PP - I usually click on "Auto Tone" followed by "Punch" in Lightroom before exporting from RAW to JPeg but I seldom do anything else (I often leave those out, too). I prefer to leave my images as unprocessed as possible so they are a true reflection of what I captured and also because I prefer to take photos than spend ages post processing them - I take too many photos to invest much PP time on the all - e.g. over the last summer holidays we went on a five and a half week trip (by car) and I took 6500 photos in that time...

Best regards,

Anton

[Dave Humphries]

I take too many photos to invest much PP time on the all - e.g. over the last summer holidays we went on a five and a half week trip (by car) and I took 6500 photos in that time...

I may be heading the same way

I have about a month's backlog, including some I took on the old Fuji that I considered reasonable, even before I got the Nikon and i have since got through over 1500 in the 6 shooting days over last 3 weeks with that.

Regarding the post Move, I did it mainly because of the pictures, the Welcome thread is already huge and having pictures in it would slow its loading further.

I have now added a post with a link here.

Hope that's OK