Just for my own pleasure, and yours if I'm lucky...
It's an addiction that I can easily indulge in, with no one getting hurt! lol...
I'm always amazed at their wonderful shapes and the way they dance in the wind...
So, here's a full serving of ferns... Enjoy!
When doing macro photography, you discover the world of the very tiny. It's incredible what you can find just by laying on the ground and by looking closely at the busy life happening between a couple of blades of grass. They do have a world of their own, filled with fairies and gnomes imagery ( or that is just my imagination...). Look at it with the eyes of a child, you'll see a whole new dimension opening up right before your eyes...
I am an up, close and personal kind of girl. I can't tell you why, but I got really frustrated, before doing macro photography, because I could never get close enough! I don't have an eye for landscapes, though somedays I wish I had! I have a natural attraction for macro photography.
Here are some beginners tips for macro photography.
I started doing macro with the macro settings on my camera, it was nice and the details and images were clear. It may be okay for the occasional macro lover. But, it was not enough for me...
Taken with the camera's macro setting
So with a limited budget at the time, I started using macro filters, a set of 4, (x1, x2, x4, x10) for under 20$usd. It worked quite fine, you can add one on top of the other and get more magnification, but remember you will lose in light and in depth by doing so. You will need some practice to work with filters, because, like a magnifier, you will have to move back and forth with your lens to get a good focus, and you definitely want to work with manual focus. You also have to be closer to your subjects, so with bugs, it may be challenging. Here are photos taken with these filters, I was really pleased with the results, they were great for their price! I used them for as long as I waited for a real macro lens, and I can say I still love the photos I took with them. People could not believe they were taken with filters!
Taken with macro filters, and believe me, the first one is a fruit fly, and it's really really small...
Now that I own a real macro lens, I am really thrilled with the results! I use the Canon 100mm f/2.8 and LOVE it! The light is way better than with the filters, But, it's a heavy lens (a big one has benefits, like one of my
friends would say!) so if you want perfect sharp focus, a tripod is necessary. When you have the time to set it up, it's really worth it. Hand-held macros are more tricky, unless you have really steady hands. But sometimes it's more handy that way, and to tell you the truth, I like to be free to move around (yeah, I know, I like it really close, but then I need a lot of space, I'm complicated like that!) so I don't use my tripod as much as I should... As opposed to the filters, you can be at a certain distance from your subject, and you can choose to have a really close focus or not with the same lens, while with filters you would have to add/remove one each time you want to change your focus.So, I don't deny my filters days, but the macro lens is really my favorite weapon!
Both were taken with the Canon 100mm f/2,8
Lately I've hit a red streak, I can't tell you how it happened, but I've found myself having more and more red photos. In some comments I received people kept telling me how difficult it is to capture the color red.
What works best for me is natural light, but not too sunny, because the sun will add warmth to the red and give it a slight orange hue. A blue/white fluorescent light will turn it lightly purple. The best choice is natural light coming from a nearby window, but not direct sunlight. If you want to work indoors with flowers, using artificial light, you may change the white balance of your camera, or invest in a light bulb re-creating natural light. Those you can find at Lowes or Home Depot, they are used for indoor plants, but they work fine for photography too!
I love ferns! They are a highly addictive photography subject. Their delicate foliage and curly tips and sprouts are so amazing and challenging to capture at the same time. So many points where you could choose to focus, and you have to carefully decide what will be left out of focus.
In our local botanical garden, The Fern Greenhouse is where I spend the most time. Tripods or monopods aren't allowed in any of the greenhouses so that makes macro photography a bit harder... But to be honest I almost never use my tripod, I need to move! So instead I take more pictures, with different focal points and choose afterwards which ones I will keep.
So, here's a couple of fern pictures, I have so many, I may post some others in the future...
"Just living is not enough," said the butterfly, "one must have sunshine, freedom and a little flower." ~Hans Christian Anderson
I totally agree... One must definitely have some beauty around, it makes this world a happy place! I went to this Butterfly Go Free exhibit, and I loved it so much! Hundreds of delicate fluttery wonders flying around us, I could have sat there all day...
This one particular photo is precious for me, not for it's quality, but for the moment it reminds me... This tiny butterfly was on the cement path that goes all the way aroung the flower beds, and my youngest son was so worried someone would step on it and crush it. So he sat in the center of the path and wouldn't leave the spot, he was protecting the butterfly with all his mighty will! He was so sad... He wanted me to take the butterfly and put it on some flowers, but I told him, we weren't allowed to touch them, we could hurt them... So this lady who works there saw the whole scene and gently removed the butterfly, put it safely on the flowers and comforted my son, thanking him for taking care of this little creature. You should have seen the relief in his eyes...
