What kind of lighting is needed for shooting bouquets. How to shoot flowers close up? Separating the flower from the background

Here are some tips to help you avoid the most typical mistakes novice photographers, which means creating a bright and expressive photo collection of their greenfinches.

When photographing, it is necessary to take into account such things: how the light falls, in the morning we photograph or in evening time, what background is in the background, how the subject is placed, etc. It is not good if extra objects get into the frame: clothes, dishes, furniture, withered leaves and other details. All this scatters the attention of the person looking at our photo. The background should emphasize and update the viewer's attention on the main object - the semantic center of the image.

HOW TO CREATE A GOOD COMPOSITION

Prepare in advance the place where you will shoot your favorite plants. In just a few minutes, you can avoid clutter in the frame.

An example of a bad exposure. An apple, a glass got into the frame, damaged dracaena leaves are visible

The same dracaena, but from a different angle

A solid background allows you to highlight the plant and focus only on it.

You can select an object in other ways, for example, by blurring the background, taking a picture from above or below.

The photo of a chrysanthemum was taken from above with a phone camera.

Due to the maximum approximation, the background is blurred, the flower is taken close-up

Crossandra flowers. SLR camera, aperture f/5.6, blurred background

Rose stock. Photo from below, the flower stands out beautifully against the blue sky

To remove shadows and light up the plant when it's too dark, a flash can help.

Modern cameras have a macro function. In this mode, it is most profitable to shoot flowers, the depth and sharpness of the photo are automatically selected, the elements of the object are highlighted in detail. Get as close to the plant as possible, if the focus is not clear, increase the distance a little and so on until the image is in focus.

In SLR cameras, it is possible to adjust the amount of light passing through the lens at a certain point in time. This setting is called aperture. The depth and sharpness of the photo directly depends on it. The smallest aperture value corresponds to the largest aperture. Thus, we achieve that the object looks clear, and what is behind it becomes blurry.

Photo of violets. Aperture - f / 32. All details are clearly visible

Photo of violets. Aperture - f / 5.6. The background is blurry

Another parameter worth paying attention to is the white balance. If the flowers are not the same color or shade as in reality (often purple flowers turn out to be blue), you need to adjust the color balance.

Before balance adjustment

After adjusting the balance

And finally, do not be afraid, experiment, you will succeed.

How to photograph flowers so that the bouquets in the photo do not look like dull brooms, and how to convey all the charm of a flower in the frame, whether it is taken in wildlife, in a bouquet or in a vase, we will figure it out in this article.

1. How to photograph flowers in wildlife?

Spring is about to come into its own - and amateur photographers will run to the botanical garden to capture all the beauty of spring flowering. In order not to bring thousands of monotonous shots from there, but to take some really worthy shots, use our tips for shooting flowers.

#one. Don't shoot from your usual angle.

To get a truly original shot, you should not photograph a flower from the height of your height. A flower shot from above is unlikely to surprise anyone, because this is how all passers-by are used to seeing flowers. To get an interesting shot, you will have to squat and even crawl in the flower beds.

Garden photographer Clive Nichols and his student Sam Whitton.

#2. Open the aperture wider.

To separate a flower from the background, or even single out one bud on an inflorescence, you need to be able to control the depth of field of the depicted space (DOF). The aperture is responsible for blurring the background: open it wider, that is, use its small values ​​(for example, f 1.2, f 4), and focus on the object you want to highlight. Then the flower, bud or even one petal will turn out to be expressive and clear, and the background will fade into the background.

Sam Witton: “In this photo, the flower has a lot of buds, located close to each other. Our task was to highlight the beautifully opened flower in the middle by blurring the rest of the flowers and the background. A wide-open aperture helped us with this.”

If you are taking a photo with a phone or a soap dish and you can’t use the aperture, then focus on the flower and take a picture, and then blur the background while processing the photo. To control the viewer's attention, you must always separate the flower from the background so that the photo does not seem like a porridge of flowers and does not cause dizziness and nausea.

#3. Use a histogram.

If you are photographing white flowers against a saturated green background, it can be difficult for the camera to focus without distorting the colors. The same difficulties emerge as with. Therefore, you need to be able to correctly set the exposure and use the histogram.

Sam Witton: “I liked the dynamic shape of this white flower and wanted to emphasize its relief, to display all the details, which is sometimes difficult to do with a white object, while it was important to keep the rich green color of the background. To get this result, of course, I had to use a histogram.”

#4. Eliminate shake and blur in the frame.

The biggest challenge when shooting flowers in wild nature is the wind. He stirs the flowers, leaving a blur on the photo. To avoid shake, shoot at fast shutter speeds: 1/500, for example.

If the wind blows, you can turn on tracking focus (for example, Nikon calls this feature AF-S). It will allow you to keep the swaying flower in focus more confidently. With the 3D tracking function, the camera can follow the subject even if it leaves the area of ​​the focus point you have selected. But if the wind is gusty, it is better to reschedule the shooting for another day.

#5. Work with white balance

White balance is a setting that can be easily adjusted in a graphic editor, so the photographer himself decides when to set it correctly: when shooting or when processing. It is often important to catch a ray of light, which in a minute can be hidden by clouds, so sometimes it’s better to shoot an interesting shot first, and adjust the white balance during processing.

Sam Witton: “I love the symmetry in this fern photo. I used a macro lens and was amazed at the beautiful shallow depth of field that I was able to get when shooting at a wide f/3.5 aperture. The only difficulty that I encountered in the process of creating this image was the white balance. The white balance on the camera was set to Auto, the colors came out very cold, and I had to change the mode to Cloudy (Cloudy), due to which the green became bright and warm and almost the same as I saw it with my own eyes.

To shoot flowers in nature, you should not use flashes, they flatten the frame. It is better to use a golden reflector to highlight the dark sides of the flower, which gives a warm tint. At the same time, the light sensitivity should not be raised above 100, since there is always enough light outdoors, even in cloudy weather. On sunny days, the best hours to shoot are an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset.

Clive Nichols: “I never use flash - I don't like the effect it creates. The light from the flash is too hard, and when shooting flowers and plants, soft, slightly diffused light is ideal. In terms of lighting, shooting flowers can be compared to portraiture, excellent results can be obtained on an overcast, cloudy day when the light is diffused.

#7. Use macro lenses.

To shoot flowers, you need a macro lens. It gives the best picture in the macro genre. But you can use the macro ring on the lens, which will be much cheaper. Some photographers use the 100-400mm zoom to shoot flowers, which allows you to get interesting bokeh and separate the flower from the background.

Clive Nichols: “I take several lenses with me at once, but the clear favorite is the EF 180mm f/3.5 L Macro USM. A truly reliable lens that always delivers amazing results.”

Sam Whitton: “Because of the wind, I had to reduce the shutter speed to capture the flower without motion blur. I really like bright purple and blue shades against a rich green background, this color combination reminds me of a painting by Monet. Also in this photo is a beautiful depth of field, which I got thanks to a wide aperture (for example, f / 2.8).”

#eight. Take lots of shots.

It is worth spinning around a flower to display all its beauty from different angles. Try to look at the flower from different angles, find the perfect specimen and see it like no other.

Droplets on the petals look just amazing, because they reflect the whole world. But take pictures not during the rain, but immediately after, so that the drops do not fall on your equipment.

Scott Kelby; Why wait for rain when you can make it yourself? Take the sprayer and go. Spray the flower from all sides, just do not overdo it.

To capture the opening of a flower, you will need a tripod and a camera that will take pictures at a set interval. A cable release, a charged battery, and a blank flash drive with enough memory will also come in handy. To convey the life of a flower, it is enough to mount the camera on a tripod, turn off the stabilizer on the camera and lens, set manual mode on the camera and manual focus on the lens, and adjust the white balance according to the lighting.

Clive Nichols: “I often shoot long exposures, so I can't do without a tripod to minimize shaking. Also, to completely rid the camera of shaking, I use the remote remote control Canon RS-80N3, thanks to which during shooting you can not touch the camera body at all.”

The ratio between shutter speed and interval between shots should be 2/1, that is, if the shutter speed is 10 seconds, the interval between shutter releases should be 20 seconds. There are many programs for combining frames into a video, but before that it is better to batch process photos in Photoshop, because such programs, as a rule, do not allow you to experiment with colors and light like Photoshop does.

2. How to photograph flowers in a bouquet?

Bouquets are photographed for various reasons:

• for sale via the Internet;
• to receive festive photos of a wedding or other celebrations;
• for colorful photos in social networks.

In the first case, the bouquet is product, that is, the main subject of shooting, and in other cases, it acts only accessory to convey a mood or reveal an image. Let's analyze these cases in more detail.

Shooting bouquets for the catalog

When shooting bouquets for sale, the tasks of a subject photographer include displaying their realistic appearance so that the buyer does not have questions and doubts about the inconsistency of the goods with the declared description on the site.

Flores online store photo

To photograph a bouquet for a catalogue:

1. Try to achieve the most realistic color reproduction with white balance and exposure.
2. Achieve sufficient depth of field by closing down the aperture so that all the flowers in the bouquet are in focus.
3. Process your photos to a minimum so that the bouquet does not change beyond recognition during processing.
4. Use a neutral background, black or white, so that it does not distract the customer from the product.
5. Use photophones to shoot bouquets: a wooden or marble background will look spectacular.
6. Take several angles of one bouquet so that it can be viewed from all sides on the site.
7. Create a 360-degree circular image of the bouquet so that it can be rotated right on the site.
8. Take a couple of shots in the interior to show the customer how a bouquet can decorate any room.
9. Apply all your technical knowledge and tips for shooting flowers in the wild for beautiful photos.
10. Ideally, if for each bouquet you take a picture of a model with a bouquet in her hands: this will help to assess its volume and convey the emotions that can be given to a person by ordering a bouquet as a gift.

Shooting a bouquet as a detail of the image

When shooting a wedding, day of knowledge or victory day, flowers can carry a completely different story: sometimes disturbing, sometimes happy, sometimes sad. The task of the photographer when shooting a bouquet in the context of what is happening is to convey the mood of the present moment. If the flowers are the decor of the room or a detail of the image, removing them, you also need to convey the style of the entire wedding or other celebration.

To beautifully photograph the bride's bouquet:

1. Discuss the style of the wedding with the bride and advise on choosing a bouquet that will match the theme of the wedding.
2. Advise you to choose the perfect combination: the harmony of tones should coexist with originality.
3. Choose fruit or a dessert that matches the color of the bride’s bouquet for shooting the bride’s morning: for example, pink and white marshmallows to pink roses.
4. Play with depth of field by placing the bouquet in the foreground and the lovers in the background. At the same time, the focus can be moved from the bouquet to the young ones and vice versa.
5. Watch the background when shooting a bouquet, try to get rid of contrasting objects in the background that will distract your eyes from the main object in the frame.
6. Take a series of photographs where the elements of the bouquet are repeated in other details: boutonnieres, hair, decor of the banquet hall and registration arch.
7. Place these frames in a collage for a photobook, and they will be in harmony with each other.
8. If there are garlands in the room, place them in the background and focus on the bouquet - you get a magical bokeh that will help convey the solemnity of the moment.
9. Use the bouquet to build a plot between the bride and groom: the groom gives, the bride sniffs, the groom takes away, and the bride does not give.
10. And of course, don't miss the moment when the bride throws the bouquet. Capture on camera the emotions of the lucky woman who catches him!

Shooting a bouquet on the phone

So, you have received your beautiful flowers or, maybe, you have collected a bouquet from them yourself. The matter remains small: to do beautiful photo and brag about them to your friends and followers on Instagram or Facebook.

How to photograph flowers on a phone for instagram or other social networks, we will also analyze point by point.

To photograph flowers for Instagram:

1. Follow the light. The light should be natural, even, not give deep shadows, and at the same time it should be enough. It is good to take pictures during the day in a room with a large window or outside in the shade.
2. Watch the background. Flowers look favorably on everything natural (wood, brick, grass, hay, linen, craft paper, etc.), old, shabby and vintage (old fence, garages, industrial areas, old furniture, lace, grandmother's curtains, suitcase), in people's hands (clothes and background are also important here), in beautiful designer interiors (when they approach them), in a minimalist environment (when, in fact, only flowers and some plain textures are visible).
3. Watch your surroundings. It is good to photograph flowers next to goodies or books, travel souvenirs, jewelry and other cute little things. But next to sneakers, for example, a bouquet of flowers can look completely ridiculous.
4. Follow the angle. Three angles are usually used to shoot a subject: from above, from the side and at an angle. If you are shooting in the flat lay genre, only the angle from above will suit you. And if the bouquet is only an accessory for food photography, you can use the side view.
5. Follow the composition. To make a photo with flowers look harmonious, remember the golden ratio and the spiral. Also about odd numbers. 3 flowers in the frame will look better than 4. And it's not about superstition. Just one flower in this case is located between the other two and is the center of gravity of the viewer's eye.

Well, we wish you beautiful selfies with flowers donated by anyone!

Cover photo: Andrey Sashko

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It is not always necessary to use newfangled equipment to obtain decent quality color images. It is worth paying attention to details.
The process of photographing flowers requires good lighting and calm weather. Even a slight breeze can cause the stem of the plant to move, resulting in blurry close-ups. The ideal calm time of day for photographing flowers is dawn. Dawn is also a great time to get the perfect lighting.

Dawn time is not the main thing. After all, not every photographer likes to get up early. No need to be upset in this case. Time to receive original photos colors High Quality there is also. Favorable hours may be the time before sunset and during light cloud cover. During this period, you can catch soft light without sharp shadow transitions. In the periods before dawn and before sunset, you can get photos in warm colors. If windy weather still prevents you from photographing, then you can use a curtain or a temporary screen to protect from the wind.

Photos are very interesting, in the first minutes after the rain, until the drops had time to disappear and evaporate from the petals. Naturally, you can not wait for the rain, but spray it yourself on the flower using a spray bottle. Try to photograph a flower with drops on the petals and you will see how better side the photo will change.

Every photographer who has ever taken photographs of flowers was 100% sure that everything turned out perfectly until he saw the frames taken on a computer monitor in an enlarged view. Disappointment comes right away. Another problem for photography lovers when photographing flowers is that the photos are out of focus, but with a certain blur. With a certain amount of knowledge, every photographer can avoid image blur in a photo and get shots with a well-composed composition.

One of the main causes of loss of focus in photographs with flowers is an attempt to take a close-up of the subject without setting the camera correctly. It all depends on the distance at which the shooting will be done. In this regard, one of the shooting modes is selected: portrait or macro. Using the macro mode, you can shoot at a distance of 2.5 to 30 cm from the subject. It all depends on the camera. It is advisable to read the instructions before photographing. When using manual setting, a wide aperture should be selected, which corresponds to a small f-number on the aperture. These settings will make the subject sharper, and the background will turn out to be blurry.

And now some tips for photographing flowers, so to speak, the future masterpiece.

- It is necessary to examine the flower from all angles. In the future, it will be possible to choose the best angle, which will be displayed in an advantageous way in the camera's viewfinder. You should pay attention to the lighting and how the shadow falls. You can try to photograph the flower from different positions. You can take a photo while standing directly above the flower, and then change position and shoot from a prone position. Only by experience can you determine the most suitable angle for shooting.

– When choosing an angle, you should pay attention not to block the subject with your shadow. When highlighting a flower from behind, you can get an unusual rainbow effect. To avoid flare in the lens, you can use a lens hood. If there is no lens hood, then you can wear a wide-brimmed hat, while covering the lens of the objective so that direct sunlight does not get in.
– You also need to pay attention to the tone of the background. To highlight the subject, you need to choose a contrasting background.
- At the moment when the angle for shooting a flower has already been selected, you need to select it using the viewfinder. For the correct location of the subject in the frame, you can use the classic rules of composition. The “rule of thirds” works very well in this case.

- It is necessary to focus on the part of the photo that, in the opinion of the photographer, should be the sharpest, and then, without making any unnecessary movements, press the shutter button.
As you can see from the above, there is nothing difficult in photographing flowers. The main thing in this business is to pay attention to details.
It is only through practice that high results can be achieved.

Photographing flowers is probably the most popular form of photography in amateur photography. But very often the pictures obtained after the photo session are disappointing, because for the photographer the difference between what the person saw, what he imagined in the end and what the results turned out to be is too obvious. AT this material we will tell you how to photograph flowers so that your photos are the best.

This article should give general idea about what you can do to get photos of flowers that all your friends will envy. But we assume that you already know how your camera works and have figured out the settings. After mastering the following 10 steps, you will be able to take pictures of flowers every time you get better and better. So let's get started!

It is well known that one of essential elements in photography is exposure (whatever that means to you), and that windy days are not the best for shooting flowers, unless the photographer is tasked with getting some special effects.

Photographing under a thin layer of clouds softens the light from the sun, but sometimes, when the weather does not allow, it can be used to control the contrast of the image and really get better colors than under direct rays.

Surely you could hear from advanced photographers that you need a tripod to shoot flowers. It is worth subjecting this statement to some skepticism, because it may be necessary for filming only sometimes. Most of my flower photography is good example that a decent result can be achieved without a tripod. Remember that rules don't always have to be followed. After all, photography is art.

Well, now that the ground rules are established, it's time to move on to the nuances.

1. Compact cameras are great

The first thing people tell me when they see my photos of flowers is that it's only because of my camera that the pictures come out so good. They are wrong. You do not need to purchase large professional cameras to make nice photos colors.

I have photographed flowers for my collection with everything from full-frame DSLRs to compact cameras. Let me remind you this: even though I prefer DSLRs, this is only a mechanism that does not mean anything, the main thing is the photographer.

I carry a small compact camera in my pocket all the time. Most modern compacts can focus on objects that are literally a couple of centimeters from the lens. Sometimes I take a Micro 4/3 camera and it never stops me from getting the quality I want. You just need to get used to the tool that you now have in your hands, because your best camera always the one you have at the moment!

The picture above is a California poppy that grew at a crossroads and was photographed with a cheap compact camera. I just stopped the car at the curb and took pictures, to the surprise of all the drivers passing by who saw me lying on the ground. I only did this because I wanted to take a picture that was different from what most people take.

2. Get on your knees

One of the most important things to remember is to change your point of view, ie. shooting angle. Since I often visit parks and other places with flowers, I see how almost all lovers of flower photography simply approach the flower, look down, shoot and move on. This is very wrong!

To really photograph flowers well, it’s not enough to just walk up, take a picture and leave. Try to sit down at the level of the flower and look at it. When you sit and look, you will find more than just a random photographer passing by. You will learn to truly see.

3. Sit down, meditate and watch

Photographing flowers is a good reason to meditate. Try to find a place away from people (if possible), sit down and relax. Do not immediately grab the camera in your hands and do not start shooting immediately. Do not hurry! Feel the aromas, study the structure, color and shapes.

4. Master your lens

Start exploring the possibilities of your lens. Study it to understand how to achieve different results. Forget about fully automatic programs and choose one that allows you to control the aperture. This is very important for flower photography.

Each lens has its own minimum focus distance, so you need to find the distance you can get closest to the flower.

The beauty of compact cameras is that they allow you to get very close, so close that sometimes you can clearly capture just part of a flower in full frame. Try to take such a picture, because sometimes less is more. After all, it is not at all necessary that the entire flower be in the frame in order to show people what beauty you observed.

5. My best lens for flowers

People often associate macro lenses with flower photography. This is not entirely fair. For example, my favorite lens for photographing flowers is the 100-400mm used at the long end of the zoom. I like how it creates bokeh and easily separates the subject from everything else.

Me and my favorite flower lens "in the works".
Photo of my eldest son Miguel Antunes.

Most time I don't use a tripod, so I need to use short exposure, which means, as a rule, to open the diaphragm. I try to stick to low ISOs, using mostly 100-400 ISOs. And without leaving the flower in the center of the frame, I always try to photograph it not “head on”, which allows me to choose the most spectacular angle. And that's all I care about!

6. Isolate the flower

A picture of a white poppy in a field of poppies (illustration below) will only work if you can create it out of focus. The distance to the background from your main subject, as well as the influence of the lens aperture, is critical. For all other purposes, telephoto lenses are more suitable.

Exactly the kind of shots I like, with a blurred background, can be obtained with a 100-400mm zoom lens.

Based on my own photographic experience, I will say that sometimes it is impossible to harmoniously combine the subject and. Then there is nothing left but to give up and look for another flower, the shooting of which will meet all the conditions and the resulting image will satisfy the most picky tastes of the audience.

7. Use a contrasting background

Using a background that has its own color, different from the main subject, helps to determine what is important in the picture, and in case " the protagonist» is lost in the background, you need to change the background to some other one.

8. Take Multiple Pictures

In my seminars, I always advise students to follow the rule of "peeling the onion in layers." This method It's not just about photographing flowers. I rarely shoot just one photo of a flower and only from one angle.

You can get distracted and start shooting other flowers or objects that attract, but then you need to return again and look at the flower from all sides with a fresh look, and then again and again, as if removing layer by layer from your vision, each time peering at everything more and more detail. This approach I learned from my many years of experience when I discovered that the more you look at a subject, the more you can discover it for yourself.

The "Peel Onion" rule means methodically removing the skin layer by layer, which is a good tool when you're faced with a great subject to shoot, you feel like it has potential, but you just can't seem to create the most appealing picture for you. Slowly moving from the long shot to the most hidden parts of the image, you will eventually reach the moment when everything falls into place and it is possible to take the photo of the day!

Again, I remind you that with modern compact cameras and some mirrorless system cameras, you can shoot from a distance that is almost impossible for many DSLRs with a basic set of lenses. There is no reason to be jealous of macro lens DSLRs that cost macro money!

9. Control Depth of Field

When photographing flowers, many people want to get an image that has everything in focus. When everything is in focus in a photo, it looks like the image is dirty.

With flowers, it just makes sense to separate the main subject from the background, if this, of course, does not contradict your idea.

There are several ways to separate the background from the main character in a photograph: use macro lenses and/or a telephoto lens; open the aperture and walk around the flower like a hunter in search of prey to find the best angle; never be afraid to admit to yourself that you should try your luck somewhere else with a different subject to shoot. Armed with these tips and practicing photography, I can guarantee that you will be showing off all sorts of photographs of flowers very soon.

10. Find your own path

Look closely at my images and you will understand a lot of new things. I know this because I did the same thing when I looked at the work of other master photographers, such as George Lepp, who became famous for photographing tulips and California poppies. I learned a lot from looking at his photographs of flowers and trying to apply the same techniques to my work.

There are no special secrets in getting pictures of the kind that I shoot. Enough to stick general rules shooting. My most important advice is that you do not spare the time when we are talking about photography. Take your time, be patient, sit down, listen to the flowers.

Flower photography should not be approached as mechanical work. Flower photography is the result of observation, meditation and waiting. You must understand how light works. Come back again and again to the same place, and your efforts will be rewarded by the fact that they will not pass by your photos, but will stop and look at them. My photographs are living examples of this practice. Now you go and try to make your dreams of beautiful flower photos come true.

Photographer Jose Antunes . 2013

Translation by S.Zavodov

May is outside. After winter, nature finally becomes bright and interesting, leaves bloom, plants begin to bloom. There are many interesting subjects to shoot around. Actually, the flowers themselves are a great subject for photographing. While the flowers in the flower beds are just getting ready to bloom, many beautiful flowers can already be found in the fields and lawns.

NIKON D810 / 50.0 mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 140, F5.6, 1/160 s, 50.0 mm equiv.

How to show the beauty of wild flowers in a photo? In this article, we will share some tips.

In order to be able to control all the shooting parameters and get pictures of decent quality, it is most convenient to take pictures with a SLR camera. For such shootings, even the most simple models(for example, Nikon D3300 or Nikon D5500).

Important Dignity SLR cameras- interchangeable lenses. Whale lenses (complete with which the devices are sold) are universal, but they cannot always show this or that plot as beautifully and efficiently as possible. To get a beautifully blurred background or shoot from a very close distance, you can use special lenses.

Wildflowers are usually not very large in size, so it is best to photograph them from a short distance. Many of Nikon's general purpose lenses boast short focus distances that are good enough for capturing flowers. For example, Nikon AF-S DX 18-140mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR Nikkor or even 18-55mm class kit lenses. On the other hand, general purpose lenses can't always provide beautifully blurred backgrounds. Therefore, in order to get beautiful frame with a sharp flower and a blurry background, photographers often use high-aperture prime lenses. Macro lenses like the Nikon 105mm f/2.8G AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor or the Nikon AF-S DX Micro Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G, designed specifically for cropped cameras, are great choices. I used the good old "fifty" Nikon AF-S 50mm f / 1.4G Nikkor. This is perhaps the most versatile fix that can be found in the bag of any advanced photographer. It gives excellent background blur, provides beautiful bokeh, and also has a high aperture. Of the shortcomings (in our case), it is worth noting a fairly large minimum shooting distance - 45 cm. In general, for most scenes, this distance is enough. But if you want to shoot close up without using macro lenses, macro extension rings that can be used with any lens will come to the rescue. They will allow you to significantly reduce the focusing distance with minimal loss in image quality.

So, we armed ourselves with a camera with the right lens. Now is the time to think about the composition of the shot, lighting and shooting parameters.

The right selection of suitable shooting conditions largely guarantees you beautiful, expressive shots. Since we photograph outdoors, the main and almost always the only source of light will be the Sun. Therefore, the photographer will have to adjust to the schedule of the luminary in order to catch the most beautiful light. best time for shooting, “mode time” is considered - morning or evening, when the Sun is low above the horizon and gives the most expressive lighting. However, flowers can be photographed not only in the morning or in the evening. You can shoot all day if it's overcast and the lighting is more or less diffused. Or just take pictures in the shade. But in midday sunlight, you should not shoot: very dark, contrasting shadows and too light highlights will appear in the picture, the image will become inexpressive.

NIKON D810 / 50.0 mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 100, F1.4, 1/3200 s, 50.0 mm equiv.

Be careful when choosing your main subject. Choose the most interesting flowers (or one flower) in the clearing! Consider framing. When in doubt, use the simple rule of thirds: position your subject closer to one of the corners of the frame, remove it from the center. Feel free to kneel in front of your hero - this way the frame will turn out to be more expressive. A low shooting point will allow you to show the flower much better than the usual top view. For example, the frames for the article were taken from a height of about 20 cm from the ground. By the way, from such a height it will be more convenient to compose the frame not through the viewfinder, but by turning on the Live View mode.

Remember that the background (even if it is blurry) is an important part of the frame. Think it over. Remove distractions from it. On the other hand, some interesting things that complement the plot can be placed in the background. For example, here the roofs of the old city act as a background.

With such shooting, it is very important to control the aperture values, because with its help we will be able to adjust the depth of field and the degree of background blur. Aperture is conveniently controlled in the "A" or "M" modes. Even if you are photographing from a very short distance, it is not always worth shooting at the widest aperture: the depth of field can be so small that even the flower itself will not enter it, and the background will be too blurry. Find the optimal aperture value empirically. I took a few shots and selected one shot at F5.6.NIKON D810 / 50.0mm f/1.4 SETTINGS: ISO 140, F5.6, 1/160s, 50.0mm equiv.

When shooting flowers, it is very important to focus accurately. After all, the depth of field is small, as is the subject. Learn to use focus points. Since the flower can sway in the wind, it will continually move out of focus. Therefore, if the wind blows, I turn on the tracking focus (Nikon calls this feature AF-S). It will allow you to keep the swaying flower in focus more confidently. With the 3D tracking function, the camera can follow the subject even if it leaves the area of ​​the focus point you have selected.

By the way, flowers can be a great foreground when shooting landscape or architecture. We will talk about this in future articles.