I seem to get a favourite lens out when the flowers are blooming. I mainly use a Nikon 105mm f2.8 Macro lens on a D800E DSLR.
Most of the images are just handheld and if the light is okay then I generally take the pictures using "Aperture" priority with a setting of say f8 - f16 to increase the depth of field. Of course putting the camera on a tripod and manually focusing on different areas and taking quite a few images that can then be "focus stacked" is a common technique.
I experimented with my Nikon D500 and a 28-300mm full frame zoom lens to capture some flower macros. See the article HERE
Next I went out with my Samsung S9 Galaxy phone and took the following images. They are essentially the same image taken three times - just in case the wind blew or I moved the phone. The ones shown have been resized to 1920x1080 pixel resolution (I call it TV sized) and then cropped to give a similar content to the square images in the other article.
One of the tricky problems with taking pictures of flowers is whether to use a dedicated "macro" lens such as the Nikon 105mmf2.8 macro.
I think this is a very good lens. But, if using a wide apperture - say f2.8 -5.6 - it may be difficult to achieve a desired depth of field.
There are techniques for overcoming this - namely taking of several pictures with a different focus distance and then focus stacking the set of images in Photoshop or other software.
Multiple images tends to force you into the use of a tripod. This may not be great as there is the setup time to get a good composition. Some cameras can take multiple pictures by varying the focus distance from the closest object to the furthermost that you require for a flower. There are other devices such as Arsenal that might control the camera to do this. My initial experience with Arsenal is that it wants to do multiple images way out to infinity.
The spring flowers at White Gables - mainly roses - are still doing well although the Rodos are well passed their prime.
A sudden rain/light hail storm got me out looking for water droplets on the flowers.
Then a quick trip into the Morton National Park where some new growth following the previous summer fires was adding to the colour.
I am looking forward to getting these images back from the printer!!
Macros from our own Garden.
A few macro shots taken during 2018 in our garden or in the nearby Morton National Park.
These are all single handheld shots using a Nikon DSLR 800E with a 105mm f2.8 macro lens.
