42nd Street Photo’s Tips of Photographing Flowers

Like in any other nature photography process, it is important to be prepared for shooting flowers. Your gear has to be in order, with the right lenses and a tripod. For the purpose of this post, we assume you would use a DSLR camera. Take your time before taking each photo, and focus on what you want to capture, whether it’s an insect, or the flower’s color and shape.

Before proceeding, have a look at some of the tips 42nd Street Photo recommends so you can take the best flowers shots.

Subjects

When highlighting your subjects you should consider any distractions in both foreground and background. You may want to crop them out by shooting a tighter frame or zooming in or move them to a new location, if possible. Experiment with various angles. Use a wider aperture to narrow the depth of field.

Focus

Sharp focus is essential for flower macro photography. Any tiny change in focus will make a massive difference with such a small depth of field. So you would need a great attention to details when focussing. It is challenging to use the sharpest focus on your point of intererest, especially if you shoot in breezy conditions.

Lenses

Using a DSLR camera allows interchangeable lenses. This means that you could buy a purpose built macro lens. Before doing so, just make sure you do some research as they have their own specs and features. Major camera manufacturers offer wide ranges of them, like ones at focal lengths of 50mm, 60mm, 100mm etc. The shorter the focal length, the closer you’ll have to get to your subject.

Lighting

In outdoor photography, lighting can be unpredictable, so you’ll have to make sure you can always come up with artificial light and, sometimes, a reflector. You certainly want your shots to be less washed out, so it can be a good idea to diffuse the light of a direct flash. With a reflector, you can give your photos a natural light on your subject. You can experiment with different colors of reflectors to see the impact they have on the colors of your photos.

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