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 Observe plants from a refreshingly different perspective: Assume for the moment that you are a Lilliputian denizen of the world of insects!
Capturing an entire flower in sharp focus is a classic technique, but taking close-up pictures of portions of a flower-- pistils, stamens, or flower petals-may reveal even more about the sublime forms of nature, and bring a deeper under appreciation to your viewers. 
Let’s take inspiring and natural-looking pictures of flowers by using softly blurred background effects.
If your goal is taking compelling pictures of a beautiful flowers in sharp focus, they will stand out even more if they’re composed against beautifully blurred background effects. To achieve this, set your camera mode to Aperture Priority AE and select a wide shooting aperture (small F/number) to give you a shallow depth of field that will soften background details. Think of F/4 as your standard, aperture setting and use a faster aperture such as F/2.8 of F/2 if you wish to soften the background further.
Exposure compensation is an important control for taking good pictures.
Adjust (compensate for) the exposure based on the brightness of your main subject as you observe it in the viewfinder. A convenient way of doing this is to set your camera for spot metering mode, take a reading off the main subject, and use the auto-exposure lock feature of your camera. Another way is to move in and take a close-up exposure reading, and then lock it in by holding the shutter release partway in before you recompose, then following through to take the shot. Check your camera’s instruction manual for details.
Use a tripod whenever and wherever possible.
Practically everyone who is involved in gardening wants to take engaging pictures of the pretty little flowers they’ve nurtured, whether they’re growing in an outdoor garden or in a pot or planter on an apartment terrace. Indeed, even non-gardening photographers are often enchanted by the exquisite beauty of floral forms and are strongly motivated to take pictures of the many gorgeous flowers they encounter while travelling. If you have a macro lens, especially a wide-aperture macro lens, on your digital SLR, such occasions provide excellent opportunities to create memorable floral images that you and your viewers will cherish for years to come. In short, you will be able to take something fragile and ephemeral and use it to create works of lasting beauty and inspiration.
 The ability to shoot extreme close-ups of superb technical quality is the greatest attraction of macro lenses. Getting very close to a pretty little flower and filling the frame with it is one simple and effective idea that never goes out of style. Or you may wish to crop only a small portion of a large flower to create a more dramatic image. If you get daringly close to a flower and observe it on your viewfinder, you will be fascinated with its exquisite form and subtle color and tonal gradations that are often invisible to the naked eye. Picture A is an image of a droplet I observed one rainy day. Try getting really close to such droplets and observe them in the viewfinder. You will find that various subjects are reflected in their liquid surface which acts like a tiny lens. Since the images visible in these droplets have a lot more depth than you might imagine, you must stop the lens down considerably (that is, use numerically large aperture settings) in order to capture all the details in sharp focus. In taking this picture, I used an aperture of F/4 and tried to focus on subjects reflected in the droplet. However, sometimes it’s better to stop down to F/5.6 or F/8 to capture everything that’s there. By the way, if you wish to take close-up pictures of flowers, a good rule of thumb is to use the Aperture Priority AE mode and select an aperture in the range from F/2 to F/8. To establish a point of reference I suggest you begin by setting the aperture at F/4, and using faster apertures (smaller F/numbers) if you wish to make use of out-of-focus background effects. Alternatively, if you wish to capture both the main subject and background details in sharp focus, stop the lens down further to a smaller aperture (that is, a larger F/number such as F/11 or F/16). Explore both types of effects in this way and analyze your results afterwards to see which technique best suits each type of floral subject. Picture B is an image of a California Poppy flower. As I got very close to the subject, I noticed that a portion of a flower petal was shadowed by a leaf so I focused on that portion to capture the interesting shape of the shadow that is draped in a beautiful, almost calligraphic, gradational pattern on the surface of the flower petal. |
Many beginner photographers regard macro lenses as specialized lenses dedicated solely to the realm of close-up photography, but this is a mistake. Macro lenses can be used very effectively as medium telephoto lenses for capturing more distant subjects.
Picture C is a scenic shot of a flower garden at the same location where I shot Picture B. I simply moved a little farther back to capture a wider perspective. Since my camera, is equipped with an APS-C-size image sensor, the Tamron SP AF 60mm F/2 Macro lens becomes, in effect, a medium telephoto because it covers the same angle of view as a 90mm-lens that’s mounted on a full-frame-format camera. Since its depth of field (the range of sharpness in front of and behind the sharp focus point) of this lens is somewhat shallow, it’s a good idea to focus on a subject that’s far away and use a wide diaphragm opening (an aperture with a smaller F/number) to blur details in the foreground. Here I intentionally blurred out the nearby subjects in order to express the three-dimensional quality of the flower garden with its intriguing shapes and colors and its splendid variety of flowers.
Picture D is a scenic shot of a different flower garden. If you expect to capture the overall feeling of a flower garden it’s best to vary your subject. Don’t just shoot pictures of flowers-be sure to include some scenic shots of the whole garden along with the various types of flowers.
  Picture CIf you focus on distant elements, you can capture a wide scene. Here I focused on the flowers a relatively long distance away and shot from a low angle while intentionally blurring out the nearby flowers. Since I wanted to achieve a pleasantly blurred foreground I used a fairly wide aperture of F/4 and focused on the flowers at some distance from my camera. Taken with a Canon EOS 50D and Tamron SP AF60mm F/2 Di II MACRO 1:1 (Model B005). Aperture Priority AE (F/4, 1/320 sec.), +1.7 exposure compensation, ISO200, WB: Daylight. Taken at Tomita Farm. |
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* Click on the picture to see an enlarged image. |
  To take pictures of flowers with your digital SLR camera, use the Aperture Priority AE (Av or A mode). In this mode, you have the convenience of auto-exposure, but you can set any aperture (F/stop) you wish to control foreground and background effects.
I took this macro shot of a Spray Mum flower with my Tamron SP AF60mm focused on the center portion in yellow. The maximum aperture of this 60mm macro lens is F/2.0. Pictures taken at F/5.6 and F/16 are shown at the same time for comparison. As you see, in the picture taken at F/2.0, only the center portion is in critically sharp focus and the flower petals in the foreground and background are blurred to create a soft atmosphere. As the numerical aperture value increases, the depth of field (sharpness zone in front of and behind the critically focused subject) becomes deeper and as the numerical aperture value decreases the depth of field become shallower. As you see from the picture taken at F/16, the flower, which is the main subject, is in sharp focus as a whole because the depth of field (near-to-far range of sharpness) is greater. It is up to you to set to a desired aperture value. By all means experiment with effects at different settings and learn to control out-of-focus effects as you wish. Remember that as you change aperture settings with your camera, you cannot ordinarily see these different effects in the viewfinder of your camera prior to shooting. To visualize these differences examine and compare the resulting images on your camera’s LCD monitor, or better yet, enlarge them on your computer monitor. |
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 About Aperture Range
Aperture ranges differ depending upon the lens mounted on your camera. Generally, the common range of usable apertures is shown in the sequence “F/2.0, F/2.8, F/4, F/5.6, F/8, F/11, F/16, F/22”. The difference between each successive number in this sequence is called “one stop” or “one step,” and going up the scale decreases the incoming light by half at each step and increases it by half at each step as you go down the scale (to lower F/numbers). Most cameras currently available allow you to select steps in smaller (1/2 or 1/3) increments for more precise exposure control. |
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Differences in Background Effects at Different Aperture Settings
The 2nd Session will be “How to Capture Flower Arrangements Elegantly”.
