flowers

All posts tagged flowers

I love it. Just to go out there, be surrounded by wildlife (read: mosquitoes, and occasionally the persistent horse- or moosefly), take pictures without being disturbed (except by mosquitoes, and occasionally the persistent horse- or moosefly)… 😀
But I’m persistent, too. And that leads to some interesting pictures every now and again. This’ll go into a few posts, since I can’t really stuff all those images into one post.

So here goes. It all started after a good rain shower…

Drops on the leaves of a plant

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm

Of course us human beings (with cameras) are the only ones nagging about a bit of water (while it’s coming down, it’s all fine and dandy when it’s done and dry outside… 😉 ). These critters don’t really give a toss.

Bumblebee

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm

Bumblebee collecting honey from the flower of a yellow aster

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm

Bumbebee sitting on a water hemlock collecting honey

D800, ISO100, 1/320 sec @ f/8, Tamron 90mm, on-camera flash

Bumblebee flying to a fireweed collecting honey

D800, ISO1600, 1/4000 sec @ f/4, Tamron 90mm

 

He’s got a baby brother now, who looks just like him when he was that age.
But my godson didn’t stay that age. It’s been awhile since I took some pictures of him, but last Saturday, when we were out with the whole family, I got and took the chance. It was an excellent setting. In the middle of one of those typical Finnish scenes: a field full of blooming, bright yellow oilseed. We were on our way back to the car and he was just walking there with mom and dad, fussing with the flowers. The light was beautiful, and right in his face. So I looked at mom and dad and they were okay with it, and even helped the little guy pose. I’d say he’s a natural.
And he’s the cutest! Ever! Period! <3

Boy

D800, ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 70-200mm

Boy

D800, ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 70-200mm

(also love the little bug flying toward him in the second picture 😀 )

 

Flower

D700, ISO200, 1/350 sec @ f/4.5, Tamron 90mm macro

Flower

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/4.2, Tamron 90mm macro

Flower

D700, ISO200, 1/320 sec @ f/13, Tamron 90mm macro, on-camera flash

There WERE also flowers, of course…

I had a go with the focus stacking in CS5. Works actually surprisingly well, I must say.
The procedure:
1) shoot a number of pictures with different focus points (keep aperture and exposure the same in all images)

Focus stacking images

All 6 images D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Tamron 90mm macro

2) open images in Photoshop
3) Go to File -> Automate -> Photomerge
4) The window below will appear without the red circles (they are points of attention) and without the filenames in the middle column, but WITH the box “Blend images together” checked by default. That last one is the one you want to uncheck, because you don’t want Photoshop to flatten your image, yet, in case you want to do some adjustments yourself. Click “Add open files” to add the files you opened into the middle column. If you have more files open than the focus stacking requires, you can select and remove them from the list with the remove button.

Photomerge window in PS CS5

Photomerge window in Photoshop CS5

5) Click OK and Photoshop goes to work to put all your separate files together in one layered file.
6) Select all the layers from the layer palette and go to Edit -> Auto Blend Layers. The window below will pop up. Stack images is the default selected, and all you need to do here is…

Focus stacking screenshot

Stack images

7) click OK and Photoshop will go to work for you once again to figure out all the sharp parts in all the layers. It’s quite effective, and at least with the images I tried pretty accurate. After the work you will see something like this in your palette layer, except for the Layer 1 and Layer 2. Those I added afterward for some minor adjustments from my part still (which is why you don’t want Photoshop to blend layers together all the way in the beginning!)

Focus stacking layer palette

The layer structure after Photoshop has processed the images

The end result in my case was this:

Focus stacking

The end result after all the hard labor is done

Being a native Dutch, and a photographer, pictures of one thing you MUST have in your portfolio.
Coffeeshops! Marihuana! Red Light District!

Yeayeah… I know us Dutch people have a reputation to uphold, but I don’t do those things! Yeayeah… *LOL*

Of course I’m talking about tulips!
I started wide and then went all the way in close. Wondrous world out there!

Flowering tulips in a variety of colors in a summery garden

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm

Flowering tulips in a variety of colors in a summery garden

D700, ISO200, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm

Macro photograph of a flowering tulip in a summery garden

D700, ISO200, 1/750 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm macro

Macro photograph of a flowering tulip in a summery garden

D700, ISO200, 1/350 sec @ f/3.8, Tamron 90mm macro

Macro close-up of a flowering tulip

D700, ISO200, 1/1000 sec @ f/2, Nikkor 50mm, Kenko extension tubes 12mm + 20mm + 36mm

Macro close-up of a flowering tulip

D700, ISO200, 1/180 sec @ f/3, Tamron 90mm macro, Kenko extension tubes 12mm + 20mm + 36mm

So yesterday after my life-threatening operation downtown Helsinki I went to a big store where they sell fabrics. There was one piece missing still for my home studio table top: a black backdrop.
I went into the store and enthusiastically asked for black silk, thinking it would be some 30 euros per meter. You can imagine my surprise that the cheapest suitable silk they had in store was closer to 70 euros per meter. That was a good amount more than I had budgeted and seriously more than I was willing to spend on it. So I had to downgrade… I found a very nice piece of Lycra or something and that was really the best piece after the silk I could find. The others were not really black, or too shiny, or dusty, or what not. But this nice piece of cloth still cost me 39 euros per meter. And I needed two meters at least. So… *sighs* about 80 euros lighter (oh, and a 50 euros parking ticket, because I parked three meters from a pedestrian crossing instead of five – that’s TWO tickets in two weeks, for crying out loud!!!), but a nice backdrop richer I went home to test it out.

D200, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm, off-camera SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

D200, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm, off-camera SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

I went out to get a bunch of leaves and I even had a really nice conversation with an old guy who was working in the garden close by. That’s such un-Finnish behavior! And I like it 🙂

Oh… And when I was testing out the backdrop, I found out why it was so expensive anyway… It said with big bold white letters “GIORGIO ARMANI” on it 😀
Hahahaha! Now that I come to think of it… How decadent is it really? I’m using a GIORGIO ARMANI cloth for my photography backdrop…
Oh my… where is it going with me?