Sometimes when we’re out with our cameras the world around us doesn’t cooperate, and only offers us slim pickings in terms of subject matter. Such was the case last Saturday. It was a very quiet morning for bird photography at Hendrie Valley. So… I left early and headed off to the Royal Botanical Gardens. Rather than being greeted by a plethora of flower image opportunities… slim pickings awaited me.
Category Archives: Flower Photography
Handheld Flower Photography
This article discusses some handheld flower photography options and features a range of images captured using various cameras and techniques. The majority of the photographs illustrated in this posting were created using an E-M1X.
Tripod Or Stool
Depending on the camera gear a photographer owns, their choice for some additional stabilization or acquiring a difficult shooting angle, may come down to using a tripod or stool. It has been over three years since I began shooting with Olympus M4/3 camera gear and thus far I’ve not had any need to use any of my tripods or a monopod. This would change if I began to experiment with light painting using the Live Composite mode.
HHFS Macro
This article features some in-camera HHFS macro flower photographs captured with a 16mm extension tube and M.Zuiko 60 mm f/2.8 macro lens. Falling firmly into the ‘test’ category, the images in this posting were created simply to see what would happen when macro flower images were captured handheld using in-camera focus stacking technology, and a 16 mm extension tube.
Open Garden Week
After a two year hiatus caused by COVID-19 the Hamilton Spectator Open Garden Week has returned and is in full swing. My wife is an avid gardener and she has always enjoyed visiting local gardens and talking “all things gardening” with the homeowners. This article shares a selection of images that we captured over the last few days.
Focus Stacking with 100-400
This article shares some in-camera focus stacking test images captured handheld with an M.Zuiko 100-400 mm f/5-6.3 IS zoom lens. I really didn’t know what to expect using my E-M1X’s in-camera focus stacking capability with this particular lens. In the past I most often used the M.Zuiko PRO 40-150 mm f/2.8 zoom or the M.Zuiko 60 mm f/2.8 macro with in-camera focus stacking.
The 100-400 does have a reasonably short minimum focusing distance of 1.3 metres, so I thought this test was worth a try. These test photographs fall under the ‘let’s see what happens’ category.
Appreciating Camera Technology
Fully appreciating camera technology is something that we sometimes forget to do as we take our camera gear for granted on occasion. I visited the Royal Botanical Gardens yesterday for about an hour and 45 minutes. During that short time I successfully captured 127 handheld in-camera focus stacked macro images of various flowers and foliage. I did miss 7 attempts.
Redefine Camera Systems
We live in a photographic age that is causing us to redefine camera systems well beyond our previous, and simplistic, two dimensional view. It wasn’t that many years ago when many photographers only considered two factors. The camera body. And, the lenses associated with it. In the past some cameras were bought more because of the lenses that could be married to it, rather than specific attributes of the body itself.
Handheld Macro Fun
I recently had some handheld macro fun photographing blossoms at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton Ontario. Being able to create handheld macro images, especially when 10 photographs are combined with in-camera focus stacking, continues to amazes me.
Handheld Focus Stacked Flower
This article shares some handheld focus stacked flower images captured in my front yard yesterday morning. With COVID restrictions and safety precautions it has been difficult to get out to photograph this subject matter in public settings for a number of months. While the selection of spring flowers in our front yard is limited… it was still an enjoyable photographic experience.