Closer than yesterday

Posted by dobbino (Cape Town, South Africa) on 5 March 2009 in Plant & Nature.

Special request from yesterday. Here we have just two different flowers from a different cluster. The one on the left with the straight stamens has just recently opened, while the main flower has already been visited by the bees.
Same process as yesterday - and BTW - I also set the camera on a 2-second delay shutter setting to minimise shake, for both yesterday's and today's photos.

Title from the song by Renaissance

All comments, and especially constructive criticism is truly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time.

All images © Rob Minter, and licensed in terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License

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Comments (8)

Nicholas from Shah Alam, Malaysia

Follow up to the comment yesterday, f22 will let you have all if not most of the subject in focus. But for the background, it will usually be black because light has not reached the subjects in the background before the shutter closes. That is why most macro shots have black background when its shot with small aperture opening with fast shutter speed. Do I make sense to you?

5 Mar 2009 6:11am

@Nicholas: Hi Nicholas - thanks for the clarification. What you say does make sense, but I am unfortunately not able (or too dumb) to make it work. I've just come in from trying some photos (it's very bright outside), and to get enough light to actually capture an image at a fairly fast shutter speed, I've had to crank up the ISO to 1600. The photo still comes out very underexposed and now with huge amounts of noise. Anyway, will bear what you say in mind and will try again.

jamesy from christchurch, New Zealand

this is fabulous I didn't know that bees made your stamens curl hehehe you learn something new every day

5 Mar 2009 7:57am

Lorraine from Gatineau, Canada

Like a wink from spring, lovely touch ;)

5 Mar 2009 11:46am

zOOm from Paris, France

Lovely crop ! And what a nice specimen !

5 Mar 2009 11:55am

Jason Kravitz from Brussels, Belgium

I definitely like the details shot better - the composition seems cleaner to me this way with more focus on the individual details of the flower...

Just picking up from Nicholas's ideas... it is tough to have enough light to shoot with such a small aperture and still have a decent shutter speed to expose yours subject (no blur from wind) and not having to use a high ISO - probably the optimal condition for that kind of setup is bright sunlight. The drop cloth is a good way to ensure you get the dark background if you can't get the available light. A reflector works well too to brighten the subject so you can use smaller aperture / fast shutter...

If I had one very slight criticism it would be to watch your edges around the frame - the bud on the left is kind if part cropped and may have been better to crop it more distinctly or leave some room between the flower and the edge of the frame - it's really a minor thing and maybe a matter of taste but just a suggestion for what its worth :)

5 Mar 2009 12:21pm

@Jason Kravitz: Thanks Jason - all comments much appreciated.