Akaroa, Bank Peninsula, New-Zealand
via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/w3RfHX
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Akaroa, Bank Peninsula, New-Zealandvia Flickr http://flic.kr/p/w3RfHX
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Eternal Flame – The Bangles (June 1998)via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/w4iVVy
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+ Flickr+ 52weeksthe2015edition, eternalflame, favorite, favorites, Favorites, Flickr, week292015, weekstartingthursdayjuly162015+
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citação de José Saramagovia Flickr http://flic.kr/p/wkko51
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Not the best quality due to trying to merge 3 handheld exposures from the LX7 into one HDR imagevia Flickr http://flic.kr/p/wkZyb7
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Alt Title: Telephoto Lenses are for Flowers TooSure, telephoto lenses are great for wildlife, sports and many other uses, but they are also great for flowers! I’ve had my eye on a small field of wildflowers and, after spending a large number of contiguous hours of work putting the Lens MTF Comparison tool (http://ift.tt/1JeaS5k) into place, I gave myself the freedom to go after some summer color in the form of flower pics.
I knew that making an image worth sharing from this field was going to be a challenge. The location was not well-suited for a grand landscape image incorporating the flower color in the foreground. The flowers were beautiful, but they were intermixed with other vegetation, were very random in position and most were imperfect including a random state of bloom (some were well-beyond peak).
I was biking to this location (2 cars – 4 drivers = a problem) and, since I wasn’t sure what the best opportunity was going to be, I put lenses ranging from 16 to 300mm in focal length along with a Canon EOS 5Ds R (http://ift.tt/1C7xKuL) in a Think Tank Photo StreetWalker Pro backpack and was on my way. After riding past and then walking back along the edge of the field, I found few standout subjects calling for emphasis. Sometimes, flowers look best when blurred out of focus, becoming blobs of color and this was what I determined the case to be for much of this field.
This pair of cosmos did appear to be a cut above the rest and I focused on them for a period of time. By using a 300mm telephoto focal length with a relatively short focus distance, a nice blur was created, making full use of the imperfect blooms in the background.
While simply setting up such a blur is easy and can be good enough, taking the shot to the next level requires some attention to detail. In this case, I oriented the tripod-mounted camera and lens so that the background of the in-focus flower was only green, making the flower pop. This perspective also placed a complementary same-color cosmos just out of focus with a matching pair more-strongly blurred above. An intermittent light breeze made this alignment a bit more challenging, but … patience was the answer to that issue.
I used manual focus aided by the 5Ds R’s 16x Live View, allowing precise focusing on the center of the flower (preventing AF from picking the petals just in front). While an f/5.6 aperture would have given an even stronger background blur and would also have created a nice image, I opted for f/8 in this case. F/8 kept more of the flower in focus and reduced vignetting to even out the background brightness. Lighting is courtesy of a bright cloudy sky.
Then, right on cue, the bee landed on my primary subject. I was shooting the scene in vertical orientation at that moment (creating a nearly identical image), but I wanted to post the horizontal format picture as it fits better on computer monitors. So, I simply copied the bee out of the vertical photo and pasted it into this one.
Go get some summer color (in your photos, not your skin). Mount your telephoto lens and go flower hunting!
Gear Used:
Canon EOS 5Ds R
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Lens
Gitzo GT3542LS Systematic Carbon Fiber Tripod
Arca-Swiss Monoball Z1 Ball Head
Circular Polarizer FilterCamera and Lens Settings:
300mm f/8.0 1/30s, ISO 100, 8688 x 5792pxClick on the image to view large. Get more camera gear and photo information at http://ift.tt/UiPeDl
via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/w4ALTa
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+ Flickr+ B&W, bee, bokeh, bright, canonef70300mmf456lisusmlens, canoneos5dsr, colorful, Cosmos, favorite, favorites, Favorites, Flickr, flowers, gitzo, outdoorflower, photographytips, phototips, summer, telephoto+
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Northern Wyoming, near Red Gulch at the mouth of Trapper Canon, I saw two mule deer, a doe and fawn running over this hillside at dusk.via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/whriYL
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via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/wjty43
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Gentle trade winds blow all your cares away in Cayo Santa Maria, Cuba.via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/wkN9fX
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I decided to give ‘Bob’ this nickname due to the fact I was impressed with his lust for the ladies.
As I was going past a large herd of cows ‘Bob’ was already …er..er..covering one of the bunch :). When he finished he started walking towards another lady but as he got parallel with me he stopped for a moment as if he was inviting me to take a photo…so I didn’t disappoint him. He then trundled on towards his next conquest and as I am not a voyeur I continued my walk and took a photo of a skylark instead:)via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/w4yA2p
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Favonius (neozephyrus) quercus.
Alners Gorse, Dorset.via Flickr http://flic.kr/p/wjd4QE
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+ Flickr+ 100400mkii, 1dmkiv, alnersgorse, Butterfly, canon, dorset, favorite, favorites, Favorites, Flickr, hairstreak, insect, lepidoptera, purplehairstreak, wildlife+
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