I don't know what these grasses are (and they may be native for all I know) but I think they'd make a lovely fabric print.
There was also a lot of Queen Anne's Lace and it's just so amazingly detailed and complex - not to mention in about 4 different shades of pink! Again, would make an amazing fabric print and I adore the Queen Anne's Lace pillowcase embroidery pattern over at Sew Mama Sew by Alicia at Posy Gets Cozy (one of my favourite blogs!)
I had some focus issues with these shots, I think my depth of field was too shallow and I ended up with weird horizontal bands of focus that looked awful. I obviously need to come to grips with using this technique instead of just doing it and hoping for the best. Miz Booshay I'm not :) Though I'd like to be because she can take a good photo and isn't pretentious about telling how she did it. And if you haven't downloaded PW's action sets for Photoshop from the link above then you're missing something :)
Depth of field for a given lens is controlled by the aperture sometimes called f-stop or focal length. The aperture is the opening that lets the light in. The smaller that opening, the greater the focal length and deeper the depth of field. On a camera with an adjustable lens you set the focal length to a large number, perhaps f22 for a deep depth of field. If you want to showcase a small object on a blurred background set the focal length to a small number, like f4.5. Keep in mind that the exposure time will be much longer at f22 than f4.5 because the aperture is much smaller.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the basics I get but it's where to place that focal point I struggle with. Having the right thing in focus and everything else blurry looks fabulous, having the wrong thing in focus and it just looks like you made a mistake. Are there rules for that too? There must be natural places the eye falls on that it sort of expects to be in focus vs. something just not looking 'right' if you know what I mean.
ReplyDeleteMost SLR cameras open up the lens all the way while composing to make the scene as bright as possible in the viewfinder. On my Canon Digital SLR there is a little button on the left side that will close the lens to the focal length I have it set to. That way, as long as there is enough light, I can see what will be in focus.
ReplyDeleteWhen shooting flowers, I like to get in close and focus on one flower with a small depth of field. I've had pretty good luck using center weighted autofocus. The flower I want in focus is normally close to the center.
If the flower you want to be in focus is not in the center of your scene, make sure the autofocus system is set to focus and freeze (that's what I call it). You can point at what you want to be in focus, wait for the beep and then compose the scene and shoot.
At least it is something to try. I know as I get older, I rely more and more on the autofocus feature.
Yes, the Queen Anne's Lace was done with autofocus and it does pretty well most of the time I'd say, though there are some things it really doesn't like and won't focus on. I need to come to grips with the manual functions so I can force to do my will in those situations! :) I suppose choosing the focal point is where artistry comes in to a very technical process. I like to think I'm an ok photographer with flashes of brilliance but it would be nice to be able to use technique to increase the frequency of those flashes and I just don't have that at the moment.
ReplyDeleteThose flowers in your first photos are called plantain - maybe they also have other names? You can use their broad leaves to make an anti-itch ointment/oil which may, I believe have other healing qualities ;-)
ReplyDeleteHey neat! Thanks for that :)
ReplyDelete