Flowers in my garden always amazed me. They are small, yet they looked very graceful and beautiful. I tried twice before, under shady as well as indoor lighting conditions, but did not get the image I was looking for. And this time I decided to combine a cloudy overcast at around 2:00 PM in the afternoon with a little bit of sunlight and the help of a golden reflector.

Photo setup

The following photo setup was done for all the photos in this page

1. Camera was fixed on a camera stand(tripod) to avoid any minute shake. Make sure you tighten all the screws on the tripod to avoid ANY kind of shake or you will have blurred photos
2. 50 mm lens was used at 2.8 so as to blur ( out of focus ) background as much as possible. Now what that meant was that I had to do manual focus. To get clear pictures in manual focus, you have to take care of several things including minute focus adjustments ( what you see is NOT what you get, that is, even though the photo may look very clear in the view finder and even in the LCD but make sure you take several photos + / – the current focus, to make sure you get the correct images ) and also proper lighting, which brings us to step 3
3. There was little bit sun light coming through the roof of the adjacent house. The flower pot was placed so as to clearly distinguish the leaf petals and also to separate the background. An additional golden reflector was used to light the leaves ( as in the first picture, look at the top of the page)
4. A ten second timer was used to further reduce any camera shake. If you have a remote control, even that should be okay

 

Post processing for the image ( at the top )

1. Contrast was increased to ensure that the background was out of focus and was dark
2. Once this was done, any other leaves which were not required were painted black, especially on the left bottom corner and right top corner

Details about the image ( at the top )

f stop	f/ 2.8
Exposure	1/ 640 sec
ISO	100
Focal length	50 mm
Max Aperture	1.6
Flash mode	No flash
Metering mode	Spot
White balance	Sunlight
Exposure Program	Manual

Original Image

 

 

Yellow Lily

Post processing

1. As you can see in the ‘original image’ shown below, the flower is actually at the top right corner
2. It was cropped out and all background was painted grey using the paint brush as well as air brush
3. The length of the stem was extended using ‘clone’ tool in GIMP
4. Contrast was increased and brightness decreased
5. Color correction was done

Details about the image

f stop	f/ 3.2
Exposure	1/ 250 sec
ISO	100
Focal length	50 mm
Max Aperture	1.6
Flash mode	No flash
Metering mode	Spot
White balance	Sunlight
Exposure Program	Manual

Original Image

 

Yellow and white lily

Post processing

1. Cropped to make sure that the flower pot was not included
2. Color correction, contrast and brightness adjustments
3. In the left bottom corner, some leaves where removed using the airbrush tool

Details about the image

f stop	f/ 3.2
Exposure	1/ 640 sec
ISO	100
Focal length	50 mm
Max Aperture	1.6
Flash mode	No flash
Metering mode	Spot
White balance	Sunlight
Exposure Program	Manual

Original Image