Blood oranges

[Mike Buckley]

Blood oranges, which are available in my area only from about December through March, are great for making red sauces at Christmas time. They're also fun to photograph!

This is only the fourth scene I've photographed using my newly acquired macro lens, so I am surprised and happy to realize it can be used so effectively in a composition that includes out of focus objects in the background. Considering that it's a 90mm lens only 9 inches (23 cm) from the subject, I expected the oranges another 9 inches to the rear to be just an unrecognizable blur of color. Fortunately, I was wrong. Knowing how the optics work in scenes such as this one makes all sorts of compositions possible using the macro lens.

The magnification ratio is about 1:2.5, which means the entire scene is only about 2 1/2 times larger than the sensor. The photo would make me think the scene is a lot larger. Another way of putting it is that the sensor is 40% the size of the scene.

Setup
The background is translucent vellum lit from behind by a small continuous-light lamp fitted with a yellow gel. The oranges on the left side are on a small block of wood painted flat black. Those oranges are lit by a small continuous-light lamp placed at their right side. A speedlight lights the foreground slice from the rear to take advantage of the subject's translucent areas. It also lights a white reflector on the left front side of the scene that reflected light back onto the slice to brighten the front of it.

[Rita]

With the results that both you and Brian are getting with this lens I would say that it is a pretty darn good purchase. I love this image, really like how you can see all the veins (?) in the orange sections. Blood oranges are good eating too.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[JBW]

Hi Mike, With the 90 it will be well worth your time to play with the F/. The (I forget the technical) background blurring is one of the strong points of this lens. Great shot. I'm looking forward to what you achieve when you know the lens.

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Rita, John and Brian!

Brian: I think you're referring to the bokeh. That's not applicable to this image but it's definitely something to keep in mind in the future.

[JBW]

Thank you to Rita, John and Brian!

Brian: I think you're referring to the bokeh. That's not applicable to this image but it's definitely something to keep in mind in the future.

Yes I was

[Manfred M]

The backlighting really works well in this shot Mike. All that texture of the orange can be seen. I suspect the shot would not be nearly as interesting if you had lit from the front.

[NorthernFocus]

A nice one, Mike. My favorite so far of those produced with your new lens. The slices in BG are a stroke of genius and came out well. Overall nicely done.

[mugge]

Mike, I love it for no particular reason, which to my mind is the best reason.
Cheers Ole

[John 2]

Nicely conceived and your lighting set up has brought out that gorgeous colour.

[TonyW]

The texture of the section is specially good here. I tried something like this some time ago with a variety of fruit but could not get it right. I agree with Manfred about the light but I also wonder if a good clean cut was important.

[madcrow]

Super composition, never thought an orange would look this good up close. Mike, your are putting a new twist on food photography.

[terrib]

Always fun to see what you are up to, Mike. I like this composition and the detail and color are wonderful.

[Mike Buckley]

Thanks, everyone!

Dan mentioned that this one is his favorite of my first four images made using the macro lens and I agree. That's because it has all of the characteristics of the other images plus this image has the translucency of the subject and the supporting objects in the background. Only one of the other images features a translucent subject and that one has only a plain, black background.

Manfred is correct at least in my mind that the key to lighting this scene is to use back lighting as the primary light on the subject. I believe any translucent object will appear more interesting if at least part of it is lit from behind. Without that back lighting there is no way to know from the image alone that the object is translucent.

Even so, it will almost always be important to light both the front and rear of the object. Otherwise, the front of the subject, especially its opaque and less translucent areas, will remain too dark. When using both front and back lighting to enhance translucent areas, it's important that the front lighting is less powerful than the back lighting. Otherwise, the effect will be the same as using no back lighting. I ensured that the front lighting was less powerful than the back lighting by using the same light source to produce the direct back lighting and the reflected front lighting, though the ideal light ratios can also be achieved using direct lighting on the front and rear.

By the way, the saturation is less than I might use on a landscape scene and the same I might use on a portrait; the natural color of blood oranges really is this intense.

[Mike Buckley]

Tony,

You mentioned that you couldn't achieve a satisfactory image of fruit. If it was translucent, did you use continuous light, strobe or flash to back light the subject? The reason I ask is that either strobe or flash was necessary to achieve the effect of this image because continuous light was not powerful enough. On the other hand, the back lighting of the orange slice in this image was done using continuous light. At the time, I was thinking that that lighting was just right, though I now wonder if more detail in the slice brought out by a more powerful light would have been appealing or a distraction from the rest of the scene.

[Donald]

A whole new world of opportunity opening up with the new lens.

[Mike Buckley]

A whole new world of opportunity opening up with the new lens.

Yes, and my efforts so far are just the tip of the iceberg with lots more concepts to use.

[KimC]

Love this one Mike. Great composition, nice use of DOF, wonderful color and texture, and most importantly, it looks so delicious it makes me want to eat one!

[bnnrcn]

Great one Mike, very inviting

[Mike Buckley]

Thank you to Kim and Binnur!