I often like to shoot wild flowers with my macro lens, in particular the 100mm. Mostly I find that I don’t shoot a true macro shot, more of a closeup, as getting the flower in frame would often be too big at 1:1. I normally shoot them on a tripod and prefer a narrow depth of field to them personally.
However suffering from an injury recently I have not been able to carry the tripod and the camera. So these are shot hand held. This is not the key difference as for the first time I decided to shoot them with a card bouncing the sunlight towards the camera. I like the way this has made the shots standout. I used a series of different coloured cards on two different wild flowers. I fired a burst of shots at various apertures to get some sharp ones, due to the fact that I was hand holding the camera which introduces some shake along with a slight breeze. Normally the tripod would remove one of these variants in focus tightness and the shot burst would not be necessary.
To show the difference between the way I would normally shoot a Wild Flower – the first shot is without a card in the background.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, ISO400) Herb Robert – Natural Background Herb Robert – Natural Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 400 F5.6 1/400. Natural Light – Handheld.
The following set are all with the cards in the background.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/3.5, 1/800 sec, ISO200) Herb Robert – Deep Yellow Background.Herb Robert – Deep Yellow Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 200 F3.5 1/800. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/3.5, 1/400 sec, ISO200) Herb Robert – Light Blue Background.Herb Robert – Light Blue Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 200 F3.5 1/400. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO200) Herb Robert – Purple Background.Herb Robert – Purple Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 200 F8 1/250. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/4.5, 1/400 sec, ISO200) Herb Robert – Blue Background.Herb Robert – Blue Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 200 F4.5 1/400. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/10, 1/160 sec, ISO100) Wood Sorrell – Yellow Background.Wood Sorrell – Yellow Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 100 F10 1/160. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/8, 1/250 sec, ISO100) Wood Sorrell – Yellow LandscapeWood Sorrell – Yellow Landscape. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 100 F8 1/250. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/5, 1/320 sec, ISO100) Wood Sorrell – Sky Blue Background.Wood Sorrell – Sky Blue Background. Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 200 F5 1/320. Natural Light – Handheld.
Canon EOS 650D (100mm, f/3.2, 1/640 sec, ISO200) Wood Sorrell – Sky Blue Background (NDOF).Wood Sorrell – Sky Blue Background (Narrow Depth of Field). Taken on Canon 650D with Canon 100mm F2.8 USM Macro Lens. ISO 200 F3.2 1/640. Natural Light – Handheld.
I hope you like at least some of them. I personally can’t decide at the moment which of the colours I prefer the most.
