Macro Love Part II :: Tutorial

There are only a few things in life that I am sure of. One of those things is that I will receive flowers on Valentine's day from my husband Scott. 

So beautiful, don't you think? He knows I love color, all color and all color combinations.

Here are the flowers I received on Monday! I immediatly grabbed my camera and started shooting with just my usual go-to lens, a Canon EFS 17-85mm. Then I quickly changed to my Canon macro lens EF 100mm.

Can you see why I love my macro lens? The flower in the above photo is so tiny that to look at it without the help of the camera, you can not see all the little stamen and pistil parts and pieces. 

And because this is a fixed lens, I love to get really close to whatever I'm shooting and then compose the shot through the camera. (Note: none of these photos have been cropped.) In this case, an amazing bright purple Gerbera daisy. My favorite color.

 

Here's a little tutorial on shooting with a macro lens.

Compare these two photos. In the above photo my film speed or ISO is 640 and the exposure, or shutter speed is set at 0.8 sec f/32. Needless to say with such a slow shutter speed, my camera is mounted on a tripod and is tethered to my computer so I am not touching the camera when the shot is taken. And, at an f-stop of 32, much of the image is in focus.

So here I have the same compostion, but I have changed a few settings on my camera. The ISO stayed the same at 640, but the exposure changed to 1/30 sec at f/5.6. Shots like these remind me of why I love to shoot with this lens. The foreground  and the background are fuzzy and a bit blown out, focusing on just a small portion of the composition.

In this photo, I still have the film speed at 640, but the exposure at 1.0 sec at f/32. Again, I'm on a tripod and tethered. As you can see most of the image is pretty crisp. Ok, Ready...

Same composition as the above photo, but what a difference aesthetically. Again, my film speed stayed the same, but the exposure was changed to 1/125 seconds and the f-stop was set at 2.8. Notice that I have focused on the little flower bud at the top right part of the image.

And here is the same shot, with the focus shifting to the flower bud in the middle of the image. Again, giving me another unique image. 

ISO 640, exposure 1/100 sec at f/2.8.

ISO 640, exposure 1/200 sec at f/2.8.

ISO 640, exposure 1/100 sec at f/2.8.

I Love this last shot and the blown out petals of the fabulous white gerbera daisy. This shot would make the perfect ground for an art quilt!

Happy Shooting!

 

Comments

[Susan Hosueman]

Wow, great photographs, I especially love the white gerbera daisy it appears to have a magical quality.

[Darcy]

Oh Cynthia,
Your bouquet is beautiful! Yay for LOVE!
I love all the details- how you made these great shots happen. I agree with Susan the white Gerbera is magical! Like unicorn magical!

[Ellen]

All gorgeous, but the gerbera daisy is so alluring. It is a captivating shot~ Lovely!

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