Photographing flowers with white background

LisaB

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Hi

I'm a wedding stationer, and I currently use a professional photographer to take the images for me, to use on my designs. But I would like to start trying to take the images myself, but as a beginner, I'm going to need a little advice.

I have a Canon 300D SLR and was wondering what equipment I would need to be able to take good quality photographs of flowers. My designs are usually of a single flower set against a white background.

Do you recommend the table top studios that you can get, or would this be for web shots only?
If this isn't the way to go, what lighting etc do you recommend I should buy.

I don't want to go overboard, and spent thousands on equipment that I'll only be using a few times a year, but on the other hand, I want to be able to take good photographs. It will only be flowers that I'll be shooting, or maybe the odd smaller product.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance, Lisa
 
Welcome to the forum.

I guess we could call this, still life photography. Or even product photography...or even fine art, depending on how you want to portray it.

You might want to pick up a book on lighting, with one of the above topics.

You shouldn't need expensive lights, you should be able to use just about any lights...but make sure that the White Balance is set correctly. Auto WB on my Canon 20D, usually does a good job but you may want to set a custom WB for your lighting.

It may be as simple as using window light and maybe a reflector as well.

If you want the white background to be really high key or washed out white, you may have to add a background light.

I'm no expert but there should be some others here who can offer good advice.

Could you post an example of what you are trying to achieve? That would help with recommendations.
 
You can get damn fine results from a light tent. You can even make it yourself!!

b0_12.JPG


They can be quite pricey, presumably you'd need one at least 1m square for sprays etc. However, compared to a studio flash rig, they're peanuts.

Rob
 
This is about as good as you can get with the onboard flash and a piece of paper! A light box would render much better lighting, note the shadows:

Rob

flower.jpg
 
You're having an interesting day, no? Pre-memes, CPL thread, now reviving a thread that's almost 5 years old? There's A LOT of winter still to go up there in Minnesota.
 

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