Plant photography skills

I'll integrate the plant photography skills for you.

Plant photography skill one

Plant distribution

There are many meadows full of flowers in the mountains and plateaus, where there are many most photogenic plants. For example, on the gravel slopes and terraces in mountainous areas, you can find purple green bristlegrass and bird's-eye primrose, and their scenery is waiting for you to express it with a wide-angle lens. Climb up again, and you will find that spring comes very late there. Although there will be butterflies such as leopard butterflies, butterflies and pink butterflies in hot weather, there won't be too many insects there on the whole.

Water is extremely important for most life forms, so the most fascinating plants often appear around wetlands, lakes or ponds, and those magical insect-eating plants such as sundew, insect-catching violets and pitcher plants also grow in wet areas such as swamps. In spring, you can also see pink Scrophularia, calendula and buttercup, and damselflies begin to fly by the water. In other kinds of plant habitats, such as slow-flowing rivers, a large number of water hyacinths will be covered. On the relatively calm water, white and yellow water lilies began to sprout. The wet river bank is a paradise for flowering plants, and radish and parsley in autumn will grow in large quantities in spring. On oxalis and garlic mustard, you can also find eggs laid by Papilio citrifolia. They are very small and shaped like bottles.

In our city, parks and green spaces are suitable for the growth of wild and cultivated flowers. In the spring and summer when plants are flourishing, we can usually see a lot of Chinese rose, iris and Fritillaria. The flowers on the tree attracted butterflies and bees, and even the potted flowers on the windowsill made the photographer raise his camera.

Plant photography technology ii

Insect behavior

If the role of insects is not clear, then any research on plants is incomplete. For photographers, adding insects when shooting plants will undoubtedly increase the interest of photos. Some butterflies (such as pink butterfly, peacock butterfly and tortoise shell butterfly) hibernate and appear first when the weather gets warmer. Other butterflies followed. They spend the winter in the form of pupae, caterpillars and even eggs. The life course of most insects is similar to that of butterflies.

The life cycle of insects begins in early spring, but June to July is the best time to photograph them. Find a wet and flowery meadow by the water, and you will find many insects there. Close to some flowers, such as lilacs and roses, you will find insects patronizing all day. You can shoot butterflies on nectar-rich plants such as Buddleja, Lavender and Alfalfa at any time. They like to stop to dry at some time in the morning and evening, which is also a good time to shoot. To photograph the butterfly wings as clearly as possible, you must try to keep the camera parallel to the butterfly wings and make full use of the depth of field. Smaller aperture (f/8 or smaller) always gets better results. For larger butterflies or after careful preparation, you can also take exquisite photos with the aperture of f/5.6.

Both bees and wasps like to gather food on their stamens, so you can take pictures easily. If you approach carefully, crickets and locusts won't run away soon. Most insects draw a warning circle around themselves, so it is best to use a telephoto macro lens of 180 ~ 200 mm when shooting.

On sunny days, we can often find insects lying together to mate. Pairs of damselflies by ponds and streams are very attractive, because one of them can only bow into a circle and catch the other to fly together. When you shoot close to them, frightened damselflies often fly to distant plant branches and leaves. At this time, a telephoto zoom lens with a relatively close focal length will be very useful.

Insect larvae feed on plants, which play an important role in the life cycle of insects. The caterpillar does nothing but eat. When you take ecological photos, they are good models. Insect eggs are very small, many of which are less than 1mm in length. By docking the two lenses, you can take amazing photos of eggs with magnification equal to or greater than 4∶ 1

Plant photography technology 3

Qi yi de zhi Wu

Insect-eating plants embody the most surprising and dangerous relationship between insects and plants. Laurel is one of the most photogenic plants. Its leaves are covered with tiny sticky liquid beads, which can trap many insects from mosquitoes to damselflies. The leaves of the fly-eating grass are covered with sensitive tentacles. When an insect touches the tentacles, its leaves will suddenly close. Many people have taken photos of pitcher plants preying on insects, and some larger insects can often get out of trouble by their own strength, so the photos will be more exciting. The hardest thing to shoot is the Utricularia, which has insect traps and can prey on tiny underwater animals. To photograph their insect traps, it is necessary to use a close-up leather cavity to obtain a magnification of more than 6∶ 1

We can build a small greenhouse on our balcony to cultivate exotic plants from tropical or desert, or go to the botanical garden to watch them. Orchids are one of the most fascinating plants. They have strange shapes and complex structures. The most special organ of orchids is the labial flap, which is the main basis for distinguishing orchid varieties. There are often protrusions of various shapes and bright colors in the lips, and some even look like female insects, so orchids attract insects to achieve the purpose of pollination. Wild orchids are more diverse. Monkey orchids look slender, while bee orchids look like hairy bees. Orchids have a three-dimensional appearance, so be careful to control the depth of field when shooting. When shooting orchids, it is best to put the camera obliquely above the flowers, focus carefully and clearly record the points of interest on the orchids.

Potted cactus can thrive on the windowsill, and when flowers grow on its swollen stems, it will become extremely photogenic. Its prismatic protrusions and rows of spikes form interesting geometric shapes, and its gorgeous flowers, like daisies, are good materials for photography

In short, the flowers of tropical plants are usually huge and gorgeous. You can find many tropical flowering plants in any local flower market. When you face them, you will get a good opportunity to show your artistic talent. There is no need to use high magnification and a wide range of depth of field when shooting. As long as the stamens are clearly highlighted in a slightly blurred background, charming photos can be taken.

Plant photography skill four

Composition of close-up photos

It is difficult to get excellent flower photos at will, and only after careful composition can they show their unique qualities. Flowers are completely static, so it is difficult for us to get the best effect only by the color and shape of flowers. At this time, composition is very important. We can start with the rule of three points, and use eccentric flowers or even flower hearts to attract the attention of the audience to the picture. As for the branches and leaves, they should be placed diagonally to create a dynamic picture. When shooting a single flower, we should find a good angle to fully show the beautiful geometric structure of the flower. When shooting multiple flowers, let them form a unified and harmonious picture. There are always many ways to shoot a plant, which can be made into macro works or put into landscape photos.

The choice of lens is undoubtedly very important. With telephoto lens and large aperture, flowers can stand out from the background, while with wide-angle lens and small aperture, plants in the foreground can be photographed as clearly as distant mountains.

Depth of field is also an important creative tool. With a small aperture and a flash, you can clearly photograph every hair on the plant. When using a large aperture to achieve a shallow depth of field, if you want to shoot the points of interest on the screen sharply, you need to use a shutter speed of1125 seconds or faster.

The beauty of flowers is also reflected in their delicate colors. Although black and white photos have great advantages in geometric structure and texture, color is still a very important element in flower photos. Putting flowers in the middle of fuzzy green leaves or under bright blue sky is one of the best shooting methods, and the color of flowers can also achieve interesting results with other objects. For example, the color of the scarab that climbed to the top of the flower changed subtly, while the green locust that jumped to the red flower brought a strong contrast between the two primary colors.

Various geometric shapes can be seen everywhere in the plant kingdom, which is an important element of composition. Most flowers are symmetrical. Some are symmetrical, and you can see the same two halves on the left and right. Others are radially symmetrical, and any tangent passing through the center point can divide it into two halves, such as daisies. The geometric shapes of leaf veins are more abundant, from simple parallel lines (such as lily leaves) to complex meshes (such as geranium leaves). The order of leaf growth points on plant stems implies Fibonacci number, so does the distribution of seeds on sunflower disk.

Plants contain geometric shapes, which allow you to take all kinds of wonderful photos. For the leaves, you can put them in front of the window or by the lamp, so that the vein texture depicted by the backlight can fill the whole photo. Shoot the details of a certain part of a plant at a magnification higher than 1∶ 1, and you will find some completely unfamiliar geometric shapes.

Even if the weather is bad, we can shoot plants. Going out only on sunny days will make you miss many good opportunities. Flowers will be more charming in rainy days, and leaves will be greener in wet days. After a calm rain, the water droplets on the plants can reflect the surrounding scene. You can get a magical photo if you take it.

Plant photography technology 5

Plant landscape photos

In addition to finding pleasure in photographing individual plants, we can also photograph plants as landscapes. Pieces of plants can best show the magnificence of nature. Flowers are everywhere in spring, which is a beautiful sight that everyone likes to enjoy, and pastures under blue sky and white clouds are also the subject that landscape photographers often shoot.

A telephoto lens can narrow the viewing angle and take photos full of flowers, but in order to pursue creative effects, a wide-angle lens with a shorter focal length is more useful recently. Narrow the aperture, use hyperfocal distance (in fact, focus slightly away from the subject), and you can take a clear picture of the plant landscape from front to back. Because the wide-angle lens has obvious perspective deformation, you can take dramatic photos as long as you lie on the ground, reduce the viewing angle and take flowers at close range.

Don't put the camera in the cupboard after the flowers fade. All kinds of berries and seeds show their elegance on the branches. The herbs on the ground show subtle tones in the backlight, so be more careful when shooting, because direct sunlight will cause serious underexposure. When shooting spikes of herbs, backlight can set beautiful bright edges on the spikes, but don't put sunlight into the picture when shooting.

Branches of plants can also be drawn. If they are dark when shooting, you can use the built-in flash to make up a little light until you see the ideal picture on the LCD screen. If you want to get their silhouettes, you can shoot them when it is late, and then take the brighter sky in the west as the background, which can often get good results. If the light is too dark, you can make exposure compensation of 0.6 ~ 1EV. At this time, you can fully experience the advantages of digital cameras, check the effect immediately after taking pictures, and strive to take the most satisfactory photos.

In addition to common flowers and trees, we can also target those special plants, such as mushrooms. Mushrooms belong to fungi and have a lovely appearance. Their unique appearance is very suitable for shooting in natural light. You can shoot at a very low angle with a wide-angle lens to show the shape of mushrooms. Mushrooms mostly grow in dark places. On windless days, you can set up a tripod and use a slow shutter to describe them in detail.

Because of the richness and diversity of shapes, colors, textures and growth methods, plants and digital cameras are a perfect pair. They will make your photography skills and artistic accomplishment face great challenges. What other themes can you take photos of still life, macro, scenery and other types?