flowers (4 pics)

[katastrophekaty]

So I snapped these in my flower bed a few days ago. I was trying to really grab attention of the butterfly but it's small and I don't have a micro lens, so I just snapped to my heart's desire. CC is welcome and appreciated, but I really just wanted to show them off.

flower 1 (with flash)
sharpened 30%
booted contrast +15



flower 2 (with flash)
sharpened 30%
boosted contrast +20



flower 3 (without flash)
sharpened 30%
boosted contrast +20


flower 4 (without flash)
sharpened 30%
boosted contrast +20

 

[WesternGuy]

One of the "problems" that we have as photographers shooting flowers in a garden, or their natural setting, compared to an indoor studio is that we have to be very careful of the background. The best results occur when you can create a very good out of focus background as you have done with the first two, however, the background in the last two is only slightly out of focus and is therefore distracting from the object of the image - the flower. I am not sure why you used flash in the first two, maybe you were just trying it out and that is okay, but I find that if I have to use flash with outdoor flowers, something I seldom do, I always try to bounce the flash off something like a diffuser or a reflector. This tends to spread the flash out over the image, so that often the use of flash is not obvious to any but the well-trained observer.

The first two images are not bad, the last two have too much background distraction. Hope this helps.

WesternGuy

 

[Arthur53]

Agree with above comments. Prefer the composition in 1 and 4 not so keen on 2 and 3.

 

[mnmcote]

I had a similar experience trying to capture a butterfly on a flower. I got a shot of the flower after the butterfly fled the scene. And after a small and careful chase I did manage to fire off a few shots of the butterfly... Would have looked nicer if it was sitting on the actual flower tho... Nature.. Gotta love it!

 

[katastrophekaty]

Thanks everyone! My main reasoning in using flash so often is because with the camera I have, it makes the image much sharper and more clear when I use it. Usually not using flash makes it look extremely grainy and it annoys the heck out of me unless that's the look I'm going for. I love the way my first picture came out, and I love the lighting on the last two, and maybe with the background being a light color helped with the grainy-ness too. I think I mostly prefer using flash because that's what I've always used, especially with my Lumix Panasonic. But thankfully I'm back to work now that the summer is over and I'm going to get a better camera, maybe a Nikon or a Canon and hopefully I can get a lense to start out with so I can play around with my technique. The aperture setting on my camera sucks as well, so I hardly ever use it and I know some photographers swear by it (at least my former high school teacher's daughter does).