How to take macro photography of flowers?

Flowers are an important theme of macro photography. Flower photos are characterized by incredible beauty and diversity, symmetry, various tones and textures. When you start shooting flowers, you will see an amazing world of petals, pistils and stamens covered with dew. The photo is fascinating and pleasant. It captures blooming flower buds or rose petals covered with frost. However, you can not only photograph any beautiful exotic flowers or roses, but also ordinary weeds to get interesting pictures. Not without reason, many photographers have become familiar with macro photography and taking pictures of flowers. What are the main characteristics of macro photography of flowers? What should I pay attention to?

What do you need for macro photography of flowers?

When taking macro photography, there shouldn't be too many objects in the picture-just find one or two flowers with interesting shapes and colors. Therefore, it is suitable for photography places, botanical gardens, regular city parks near houses or riverside open spaces in rural areas. You can also photograph flowers and plants in flowerpots anywhere, including in your apartment. Any flower can be an interesting object for macro photography, except some big flowers (such as sunflowers).

For macro photography of flowers, if we want to get really high-quality and finest frames, we should use a special macro lens with a focal length of about105 mm. The lens and camera should provide as close focus as possible, because this is the essence of macro. Therefore, it is best to shoot with a reflective camera and extend a good macro lens. This will enable you to fully study the amazing and unique macro world. Please use a stable tripod to avoid blurring the image.

Take pictures in sunny weather.

Due to the illumination of the picture, it is suggested to take outdoor flower photography in sunny weather. After all, macro photography is carried out very close to the object, and if the petals fluctuate slightly, it will affect the clarity in the photo. Choose a sunny day to shoot, and take a reliable and convenient tripod with you to shoot.

Composition of the picture

What matters is the composition of the picture. Remove small leaves that may interfere with parts. Enable real-time display on the camera to see what the picture looks like. Try to observe a specific plant from different angles to decide whether to put the flower in the center of the picture or shoot it at a smaller angle. In many cases, the background is ordinary lawn, soil or petals of plants themselves. However, you don't have to pay too much attention to the background-you can easily get rid of the background by deleting unnecessary details, scaling or adjusting the color scheme in the post-processing process. When shooting at home, as the background, just put a piece of paper or cloth behind the plants. Not only can the whole flower be photographed, but also the close-ups of its various parts can be photographed.

Be sure to show the audience the strange structure of flowers, pestles and stamens, as well as all the magical shadows inherent in the plant kingdom. This is the attraction of the world. In order to take beautiful and spectacular photos, professional photographers tried to shoot flowers from more than ten different angles.

Macro photographic lighting of flowers and plants

The best condition is dim sunshine, as observed in cloudy weather. It is also suitable for macro photography in the morning and evening. It is not recommended to take photos in bright sunlight during the day because the contrast in the photos is too strong. The exception is to shoot flowers in a greenhouse or shed where glass or plastic packaging film works like a cloud. At noon, the light is soft and hard. When taking photos indoors, it is best to use the natural light outside the window, because artificial light sources will make plants look unnatural in photos.

Manual focus and camera settings

It is best to shoot in aperture priority mode. If you choose the aperture value below f/5.6, you can make the background beautiful and only keep the most interesting flower details. In order to eliminate unnecessary noise, please take photos with low ISO. Switch to manual focus mode. You can focus on the center of the flower, but don't stop there. Look for other more interesting focus positions. Sometimes, moving the camera is more convenient than moving the object itself to achieve the best composition and clarity of specific details. In macro photography, it is necessary to adjust the focus position very accurately to obtain the required results. Experience the ability to use manual focus correctly. Don't be afraid to experiment, rotate the focus ring freely.

Exposure compensation

Sometimes when taking close-ups of plants, the colors are quite dim. In order to make the flowers really show amazing colors in the picture, it is necessary to expose them correctly. Errors or inaccuracies in determining the exposure will lead to darkening of the photo color. Use the exposure compensation function to make the exposure brighter. Especially when shooting pink or yellow flowers, they usually look darker than the actual color in the picture. Adjust the exposure by increasing 0.5 or 1 EV to obtain the best color reproduction. For snow-white petals, the exposure must be increased by 1- 1.5 EV.

In some cases, such as shooting saturated red, blue or other shadow colors, negative exposure compensation is needed when the background is in the shadow. In any case, we recommend that you modify the exposure step by step to evaluate the results and choose the most suitable option. Exposure compensation is helpful to improve the contrast of the image and improve the impression and readability of the picture.

It is worth noting that photographers have major exposure difficulties when shooting yellow or red. Sometimes, these shadows "fade in and out", or on the contrary, they become too sharp. Therefore, we need to be very careful when revising this Expo. By the way, in order to make color reproduction no problem, some plants can be removed from black and white. Sometimes, in monochrome photos, flowers look interesting.

Flowers and dewdrops

The photos of water drops on petals are impressive. They can attract the attention of the audience and make the surface texture and details more obvious. You don't have to wait for the rain to fall on the street or the dew to show. You can find a beautiful flower in the park by watering the garden, or take pictures of potted plants at home.

Droplets can be sprayed. Professional flower and plant photographers suggest adding sugar to the sprayed water. Sugar can make water droplets stick to leaves better and not dry for a long time. On the other hand, the photographer will have enough time to compose the composition. But you can't use spray, you can use ordinary watering can, and use large water droplets to produce rain effect. Macro lenses will have the opportunity to take detailed photos of plants with water droplets, while shallow depth of field will blur the background.

Flowers are famous for their amazing diversity and amazing beauty. You can only appreciate them. They look good in daily life and photos. Getting a macro photography style may be the best way to shoot flowers. You will learn how to blur the background, emphasize the details of flowers, how to use manual focusing and how to correctly construct the composition of the picture. Macro photography experiment is very useful for any novice photographer, so that they can hone their skills in practice.