Petals Contests - Flowers - 3 photos
Greetings from rainy Victoria my friends.
It's a beautiful evening with a gentle mist falling and I've just come inside from taking some macro shots with extremely shallow depth of field. This is macro with no purpose other than to enjoy the 'art of the blur'. If you love bokeh, please take a look at my tiny Ranunculus flowers.
All three of these photos were made with a 50mm lens and 32mm Kenko extension tube - this combination allows for high magnification but produces a razor-thin depth of field. Stopping down the aperture to f/16 would have increased the depth of field, but I didn't care about that. These photos were all shot wide open at f/1.8 because that's where the blur begins to feel magical to me.
Nikon D750, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/320 second, ISO 1600, plus 32 mm Macro Extn tube
The photos are shot hand-held, and I didn't use autofocus or turn the focus ring. Resting my elbows on a tabletop, I leaned forward closer and closer to the flower until part of it popped into focus in the viewfinder. The front of the lens was roughly five or six cm from the flower. Moving closer or further from the flower by as little as one mm is enough to throw it completely out of focus. Someone told me this method of focusing is called the "human bellows method."
Nikon D750, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/250 second, ISO 560, plus 32 mm Macro Extn tube
The last image was made from two handheld shots with slightly different focus points, aligned and stacked in Photoshop. To make a properly stacked image with perfect focus across the entire flower would probably require a dozen or more photos. I only wanted to increase the depth of field slightly, so I was happy with the effect of combining the two images.
Nikon D750, 50mm, f/1.8, 1/320 second, ISO 320, plus 32 mm Macro Extn tube
Thanks for taking a look, and I hope you don't mind my rambling explanation of these photos. You can click on the photos to view full-screen if you like.
Thanks very much @pixresteemer!
Most excellent work @keithboone! And the explanation is most appreciated. Ramble on..... :)
The ISO was high? Was that due to poor lighting? I've never moved mine past 400. I know the higher you program it the faster the shutter speed....yes? no? maybe so? hehe
You raise some interesting questions. I assume you're asking when shooting in aperture priority mode, does raising your ISO cause the camera to calculate a new and faster shutter speed? Absolutely true.
I shoot in manual mode (almost). I set my shutter speed and aperture manually according to whatever I'm trying to achieve. I'm happy to use auto ISO... in fact I think it has completely changed the way I shoot!
If the shot is for the web, I will set auto ISO with a max of 6400. If I'm trying to make something for a large print I will set the maximum at 1600 in order to preserve the image quality.
The most important thing to understand about using high ISO is that if the exposure is correct - meaning you don't have to brighten the shot or open up the shadows a bunch, or crop severely or sharpen severely - then, in that case, you should not see any serious noise. In my experience, it is trying to post process an underexposed shot that will really cause the noise to show.
If you see no visible noise in a photo then you shouldn't be concerned about the ISO. That first shot my post was at ISO 1600, but I can't see any noise.
All this will depend on the camera, and my D750 is awesome at handling low light and high ISO conditions. All cameras are different, but I feel pretty confident you can push your D3100 a fair bit higher than 400. You should give it a try. I bet you can use ISO 1600 without any issues.
Good luck my friend, the 2nd and 3rd will be among the winners 😉
Thank you, Erika, you have been quite accurate with your predictions in the past!
My pleasure, let's see if I'm right this time :)
I love the 1.8 aperture for the same reason. It has never occured to me to stack shallow depths of field. This is something I must try. Your images are stunning.
Thanks very much! It's so hard to hold perfectly still and keep the subject in focus... I will normally fire a burst of three or more shots, and because I move they will each be focussed slightly differently. Sometimes I can pick out a couple of shots where stacking adds just a little more DOF while still keeping that cool bokeh look.
The bokeh is what I love about it. I am going to give this technique a try.
Great, I'd love to see what you come up with. You can tag me on your post if you want :)
Unbelievably gorgeous Keith 🌸💖🌸
Thanks so much, Lena, I'm very happy you like the shots! :)
Magical, indeed! I love this and found it very interesting how you accomplished these beautiful photos!
Hi Melinda, I'm happy you like the photos! Thank you very much :)