Paph Dellaina - Photo Question

Berrak said:

Thanks for the comments.

Jean - it is possible to get the background more unsharp, but remember those pics are experiments to achive more sharp pictures ant just now we have very little natural light.

I prefer natural light but use also flash and other light sources.

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I'm not Jean, but I'll add my 2¢ worth...

The way to make the background less focused is to either use a shallow D/F, which of course affects the flower's apparent sharpness, also, or to move the flower further away from the background.

There is also a way of putting light into a back-lit flower without using flash. Take a piece of aluminum foil and crush it into a tight ball. Then undo it and flatten it over a piece of stiff cardboard. You can use this as a reflector to bounce some of that light that's coming from the direction of the background back into the flower.

SlipperFan said:

I'm not Jean, but I'll add my 2¢ worth...

The way to make the background less focused is to either use a shallow D/F, which of course affects the flower's apparent sharpness, also, or to move the flower further away from the background.

There is also a way of putting light into a back-lit flower without using flash. Take a piece of aluminum foil and crush it into a tight ball. Then undo it and flatten it over a piece of stiff cardboard. You can use this as a reflector to bounce some of that light that's coming from the direction of the background back into the flower.

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Ooooh! great tip, Dot! I'm gonna try that myself! Thanks!

SlipperFan said:

F-stop controls depth of field. You see the numbers written as whole numbers: 8, 16, 22, etc. but they are really fractions with F=1, so F/8 = 1/8, F/22 = 1/22. You can see that the smaller the fraction, the larger the denominator, and the greater the D/F. The plane of sharp focus is just that: a plane. D/F relates to how much looks sharp in front of and behind the plane of sharp focus.
.

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A-ha! I never quite understood why the smaller aperture corresponded to a greater number but it makes sense now. Thanks, Dot!

There are some great photo tips in this thread. Thanks Dot ! Keep them coming and maybe we will get a "How to take good orchid photos " spot !

another way you can get deeper depth of field is to move the camera back from the subject a bit, take a picture at the highest resolution you can, crop the resulting image and zoom it a bit. after you focus on the flower from a greater distance the depth, the field depth will be deeper. also you can use a flashlight or something like that in the front of the flower right where there is a dark spot. at camera shops you can also get spot light bulbs that daylight enhanced that look like a large tungsten bulb except that they are bluish. you probably don't want to use if for total light, but for a front spot where there is natural light it can help a lot.

in the cnyos show pictures 2008 site I posted a link found under the 'judging' forum, I took the aos awards photograph of the paph angela 'norma' next to a large side window, and used a daylight bulb in a tungsten shoplight fixture to fill in the front of the flower. sun was very bright and very high in relation to the window/plant so needed something to fill the shady areas.

I've found that a back or side-lit cyp reginae looks excellent with backlighting as long as there is enough bright sunlight reflected from surroundings

another point for really close-up pictures, often lenses will have an f-stop that has the sharpest image; if you take wide-open shutter shots, or really shut down pics, they can be slightly fuzzy improving the closer you get to f/11 or 16, depending on the lens

Nice shooting...!!!!

cnycharles said:

another way you can get deeper depth of field is to move the camera back from the subject a bit, take a picture at the highest resolution you can, crop the resulting image and zoom it a bit. after you focus on the flower from a greater distance the depth, the field depth will be deeper.

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You let the secret out! I see a lot of talk about micro lenses and I use them too but I have found in many cases that my best "micro" shots are made from across the room with my 200mm portrait lens. I realize that not many people would have such a lens but I’ll bet quite a few have a telephoto of some sort.

To reemphasize Charles’ point: the further you are from the subject the greater the depth of field at that f/stop. Thus you get the added benefit of having a broader range of f/stop shutter speed combinations to choose from while maintaining the depth of field you need. As a bonus you can use the larger f/stop to help blur the background.

Corbin said:

You let the secret out!

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actually guy danella at the camera shop in utica (now new hartford) would drum it into my head each time he saw one of my pictures where the image filled the frame too much; too much that is if I wanted to make an 8" x 10" print an image filling the viewfinder would need to be cropped or have white space filled in to side of the print so that the image would look presentable for that format. he would also say I didn't need to get that close and tell me about the moving back and better depth of field etc.

a longer macro works great for closeups of native orchids where you don't want to get too close to trample the ground around the base of the plant (where there could be roots, seedlings or avoidance of compaction) or you're on a boardwalk. unfortunately it's extremely difficult to get picture of things like, say, my growing carts in my apartment because there isn't enough room to back up and get it all! : /