Plant photography
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Photographing plants is easy. Just point the camera a flower and shoot. Well, that's what many people seem to think, and although you will get some sort of image with that approach, the chances are that it won't be what you are looking for. A little more care and attention to detail will yield far better results, and with the high quality of even the simplest modern photographic equipment, there's no reason why you shouldn't get superb pictures.
Plant knowledge
Knowing your subject well is important in any type of photography. Such knowledge allows you to present the subject at its best and also lets you know when to break the rules and try something different.
Understanding why a plant appeals and knowing what you want to show is vitally important yet often overlooked. That I have had little trouble selling my plant photographs I put down to years of experience with plants and gardeners rather than photographic talent. Working in nurseries gave me an appreciation of what gardeners and plant enthusiasts find attractive and interesting.
Without that experience you may struggle to produce shots that convey your feeling for the subject. The only answer is to stick at it: keep on taking photographs, seek others' opinions of them, and improve your plant knowledge through observation and reading.
Photographic equipment
Camera
It goes without saying that to take photographs you'll need a camera, but which type? In pre-digital days the answer for plant photographers was almost always an SLR (single lens reflex) camera. SLRs allow you, by way of a moving mirror, to view the scene through the lens. This was a great advantage over the point and shoot or rangefinder camera where you viewed the scene through an auxiliary viewfinder. Compact digital cameras, however, usually have a through-the-lens display and can focus very close, so the answer is not now so clear-cut. Digital SLRs, though usually have larger sensors (actual sensor size, not necessarily pixel count) and produce cleaner, clearer images. Also, because you can fit a range of lenses and accessories to an SLR it is very versatile.
New digital SLR camera bodies range are still tending to fall in price, though this trend now seems to be bottoming out. As a beginner there's no need to go for an expensive professional model, indeed the most basic cameras are fine for garden photography, but there are a few features that your camera should have.
* Ease of handling. Provided the camera does the basics this overrides everything else because you have to be comfortable with the camera.
* Several light metering modes.
All modern film and digital SLRs have a built-in light meter that register the light
passing through the lens (TTL). This eliminates the need to adjust the exposure
for filters, lens extension and the like. At a minimum you will need a camera
that offers manual metering and aperture priority (you set the lens aperture,
the camera sets the shutter speed). Other modes are handy at times but not
essential.
* Wide range of shutter speeds.
You'll often be working with small lens apertures, which necessitate slow
shutter speeds. While you won't have much use for speeds over 1/1000th
of a second in garden photography, you will need a good range of slow speeds,
including a bulb setting (the shutter remains open as long a you keep pressure
on the button). Many modern cameras offer metered speeds down to 30 seconds — 8
seconds is fine, 4 will do.
* Remote or cable shutter
release. Camera shake is one of the most common causes of blurred photographs.
Mounting your camera on a tripod will get rid of the shaking hands but even the
most gentle touch of a finger on the shutter button is
likely to cause a tremor — your camera must be able to take an electronic or
cable-operated shutter release.
* Dedicated TTL flash. This is
one of the greatest advances in modern photography. By measuring the light
falling on the film during a flash exposure, the camera can adjust the flash
output. This entirely eliminates the tedious calculations and guesswork that
used to be required. Consider it essential.
* Depth of field preview. When
you look through the viewfinder you see an image through a wide open lens. This
is useful because it gives you the brightest possible image for focusing and
composition. A depth of field preview button or lever enables you to close down
the lens to the taking aperture and view the depth of field as it will appear
in the photograph. However, a smaller viewing aperture means a darker viewfinder
image, which somewhat negates the benefit of the preview, though it is still a
very useful feature to have and one you will use regularly.
You may also perhaps consider choosing a camera that has mirror lock-up. An SLR allows you to view the image through the lens by reflecting it into the viewfinder via a mirror. This mirror has to flip up out of the way at exposure time to allow the light to reach the film. When it reaches the top of its travel the mirror comes to a sudden stop that can set up vibrations in the camera. Mirror lock-up allows you to flip the mirror out the way well before firing the shutter thus eliminating a possible source of vibration.
Lenses
SLR cameras have interchangeable lenses
and every lens has different properties. The most important is focal length.
This is measured in millimetres — why is not important at this stage. The
shorter the focal length the wider the view, the longer the focal length the
narrower or more magnified the view.
The 50 mm lens is widely regarded as the standard lens for a 35 mm camera. Lenses shorter than this are wide angles and those longer are telephotos. In practice the wide angle effect is not noticeable above 35 mm focal length and 100 m is the minimum for any kind of telephoto effect.
Although digital SLRs look like 35 mm film cameras, often the sensor size is smaller than a 35mm film frame. This means that the entire image projected by the lens is not uses the effect is rather like increasing the focal length of the lens, typically by around 1.5 times, so that a 100mm lens delivers an image like that of a 150mm lens on a 35 mm film camera.
Probably more important for plant photographers is the lens' minimum focusing distance. To achieve anything like a close-up it has to be able to focus close enough to provide a magnification of 1:4, that is the image on the film is one quarter of its real life size. Macro lens (Nikon calls them micro lenses) is a term used for a lens that focuses to at least 1:2. All will focus closer still with accessories and many will go to life size (1:1) unaided.
How close this is to the subject depends
on the lens' focal length. The longer the focal length the
greater the distance between lens and subject at the same magnification.
To attain a magnification of 1:2 with a 50 mm lens the image plane (rear of
the camera) will be around 22 cm from the focal plane (subject); a
100 mm lens gives 45 cm and a 200 mm, 90 cm. Short macro
lenses force you to work almost right on top of the subject, while long macro
lenses tend to rather heavy and unwieldy. For most purposes a macro lens in the
90–105 mm range offers the best combination of close focusing, reasonable
working distance and light weight.
Your basic lens kit should include a 28 or 35 mm lens (the 28–80 mm zoom that comes as standard with many cameras is fine) and something in the 85–135 mm range, preferably a macro. If you cannot afford a true macro lens, consider obtaining some extension tubes to make your conventional lenses focus closer. For digital users the all-rounder type 18-200mm lens are a good starting point. They may not deliver the absolute optimum image quality but they are very versatile.
Tripod
Tripods are unwieldy, heavy and tiresome to carry and setup, but they keep the camera rock-steady and enable you to take great photographs that would otherwise not be possible. A tripod is indispensable for just about any type of nature photography, especially close-ups.
Choose a tripod that is sturdy, rigid and
has enough stability to stop it moving in the breeze. It should also be very
flexible: able to fit into awkward positions and open all the way down to
ground level.
Technical basics
This is a quick look at the physics and
optics of taking a photograph: things you can't alter but which you need to be
aware of to get the best from your camera, lenses and film.
Depth of field
In very simple terms this is how much of
the photograph is in focus other than just the plane of focus. This is largely
determined by the setting of the lens aperture.
Aperture
All but a very few camera lenses contain
an aperture diaphragm. It is the collection of wafer thin metal blades within
the lens, and is opened or closed by a lever at the rear of the lens, or in
some cases electronically.
What are the effects of opening or
closing the aperture? First it obviously alters the amount of light passing
through the lens. Why would you want to close down the aperture if it lowers
the light level? Well, that brings us to the second effect of the aperture:
variable depth of field. Wide open apertures give shallow depth of field —
little in focus but the point of focus — while small apertures give greater
depth of field — most of the frame is in focus.
Fair enough, but how? The first thing to
realise is that a lens is not capable of resolving of focusing a point of light
as a point of light, instead it will always be resolved as a small circle.
However, when in focus these circles are so tiny that we perceive them as
focused points of light. The larger the circles, the more out
of focus an image appears. The circles are known as ‘circles of
confusion' because of the way they confuse our perception.
While scarcely the correct technical
reason, it's probably easiest to think of the aperture as a circle of confusion
sieve. Smaller apertures will sieve out the large circles and more of the image
appears in focus, larger apertures let them through resulting in less of the
image being in focus. The exact plane of focus does not vary, but the effect of
how much of the image appears to be in focus does.
So generally you choose to close or stop
down the aperture to get more of the image in focus, and open it up when you
need as fast a shutter speed as possible.
You will notice that the aperture
settings of the lens are measured by a series of numbers that seem rather
unusual. Unlike the clear progression of shutter speeds (1/250th,
1/500th, 1/1000th of
a second, etc), aperture settings (1, 1.4, 2, 2.8, 4, 5.6 and so on) seem an
unusual collection of numbers. In fact they follow a very similar progression:
each succeeding setting allows through half the light of the one preceding it.
The question is, if each succeeding
number lets through half the light why isn't it half the size? Well, the
aperture diaphragm creates a near-circular hole and simple geometry says that
we can find the area of a circle by using the formula pi X r², which means that to halve the area of a circle,
we have to lessen the radius by a factor of 1/1.4. For
example, if we have a 100 mm lens it will be at full aperture (f1) with a diaphragm 100 mm wide,
giving an area of 31,415 mm². To halve that area we have to reduce the
radius of the aperture to around 70.1 mm or approximately 100/1.4.
To get a quarter of the original area we have to reduce the radius to 50 mm
or 100/2.
While a little confusing at first, the
beauty of this system is that it is consistent across all lenses. So when
focusing a group of lenses of equal clarity at infinity, set at the same
aperture and pointed at the same object, the light meter in the camera should
give the same reading for all of the lenses.
Other factors
Image magnification and lens focal
lengths also affect how we perceive depth of field. But to avoid getting too
technical and carried away on perception versus reality, it's probably best
that I recommend further reading rather than try and cover such things here.
Shutter speed
Small apertures mean less light reaches
the film. Unlike out eyes, which cannot discern objects if there is
insufficient light, film can compensate for low light by being exposed for
longer. So, small apertures require longer shutter speeds to provide the right
exposure. However, long shutter speeds lead to problems with camera and subject
movement. While we can eliminate camera movement by using a tripod, foliage and
flowers are continually ruffled by the breeze. There are times when I feel that
I spend most of my time waiting for the breeze to die down.
You can try shooting early in the morning
or in the evening when the conditions are less breezy. You can also try carry
small bamboo stakes and ties to restrain foliage. You can even carry a small
enclosure of translucent plastic as a windbreak. But whatever you do, you'll
need to be patient.
Film speed and films
Films are rated at varying speeds according to their sensitivity to light. Fast films are more sensitive than slow films. At any given light level, fast films allow you to use smaller lens apertures or faster shutter speeds than slow films.
However, there are limitations. Films are sensitised using fine grains of chemicals and the finer the grains, the smother the tonality and texture of the final image. Nature photographers generally prefer smooth, fine-grained films, but the finer the grain, the slower the film.
Slow film not only has a less granular texture than fast film, it also offers better definition and better contrast. Film speeds are rated by ISO (International Standards Organisation) numbers. ISO 100 film offers a good compromise of high resolution and moderate speed.
Digital sensors suffer from similar problems but it is not grain but interference or 'noise' that creates a fine random mosaic colour pattern at higher speeds. However, it is not nearly as great a problem as film grain and most digital SLRs produce better image at ISO400 than 35mm ISO100 film
Slides or prints
Despite the fact that colour print film is by far more widely used, no print can capture the colour intensity and vitality of a transparency (slide). By all means, use print film if you want convenience, but don't pass judgment on your garden photographs until you've shot a roll or two of slide film and examined the results. Of course, the question now has to be asked, why use film at all. Well, if you can afford a digital SLR the answer is that there really is no reason to use film - go for digital.
Composition
Composition is simply how the elements of
a photograph are arranged within the frame. Vital as good composition is, it is
just a matter of deciding what to include and what to leave out. However,
unlike painters, who can pick and choose when it comes to deciding how to
depict a scene, photographers cannot shift or greatly modify the scenery.
We have to carefully consider many
elements in the composition of our photographs. Some are simple matters of
observation: making sure nothing unwanted intrudes into the scene, some are
technical: the camera position and degree of magnification, and others are
artistic: the lighting and the arrangement of the flowers and foliage.
All of these aspects are tightly
interwoven and combine to form the final image. Any attempt to analyse a
photograph by dissecting its composition and the photographic techniques
involved is very difficult. We all know a good photograph when we see one, but
that doesn't mean that we can simply slot all the parts together to come up
with a good shot. Like painting by numbers, the results of such an attempt
usually look lifeless and contrived. The personal touch makes the difference
that sets apart the mechanical from the inspired. Because of this, nothing
defines the style of a photographer more than the way he or she composes a
photograph.
Common problems, like why flowers that
looked so huge in the viewfinder are so tiny on the film, and intruding power
pole or wires, result from not looking closely enough before firing the
shutter. Scan the whole viewfinder to make sure it's filled as well as possible
and use your depth-of-field preview to check out for unwelcome intrusions that
may show up later.
Although experience eliminates most
problems and inevitably comes with time, you have to start somewhere, and there
are a few vital points to consider when composing your photographs.
Avoid high-contrast lighting,
especially for close-ups. Sunlight provides plenty of light and allows for fast
shutter speeds with small lens apertures, but it leads to high contrast
photographs that are seldom satisfying. Film is just not capable of recording
the full range of light intensity from bright sun to deep shade. If you expose
for the shadows, the highlights (sunny parts) appear washed out and over
exposed, but if you expose for the highlights, the shadows will be underexposed
and very dark. Overcast skies provide soft diffused light that eliminates the
contrast problem. You can also modify bright sunlight by using diffusers
(muslin, translucent plastic sheet or something similar). An alternative is to
use a reflector or a burst of light from a flash to “fill” the shadows with
light. Some cameras offer automated fill-flash or you can do it manually with a
little experimenting.
There are
exceptions to this rule. Long shots that show an entire tree or garden scene
are often better taken in sunlight. Taking such photographs on cloudy days
tends to result in washed out skies that take up a large part of the shot.
Provided there is not too much dark shade to distract from the sunlit scene,
blue skies will look better. Also, plants from hot, sunny areas often look more
at home in a sunlit scene. Again reflectors or fill-flash can be useful to
slightly tone down the contrast.
You can't always have still,
overcast days and you may be tempted to shoot in the shade on sunny days. Fine,
but take care: the light in the shade reflects the blue of the clear sky and
your photographs will have an overall blue cast. This can be corrected by using
a warming filter (81 series) on your lens.
Don't place the main subject in
the centre of the frame. It may make focusing easier but if you always put the
subject in the middle all of your photographs will look the same. Although I'm
against arbitrary composition rules, consider the rule of thirds. Dividing the
frame into three even parts horizontally and vertically gives a frame with a
nine-part grid. Moving your subject away from the centre, towards one of the outer
part of the grid will lessen the “bullseye” look of your photographs.
Balance the frame. Shifting
your subject away from the centre leaves the top or bottom or one side of the
frame to fill. Try to avoid blank or “dead” areas in the frame. When photographing
a flower balance it with some foliage, or take a group of flowers rather than
an isolated individual.
Consider the lines that cut
across the frame. Because we are conditioned to having everything square and
regular, diagonal lines tend to add quite an impact to a photograph. Now I'm
not suggesting you tilt the horizon or have trees
growing sideways, just consider your use of diagonals when arranging arching
stems or shooting flower beds.
Consider lines that lead into
the frame. The S curve, a line the meanders in an s-pattern from the front to
the back of a shot, is one of the great photographic cliches. Nevertheless it
is very effective and certainly leads the viewer into the picture. Things like
garden paths often provide sweeping curves and you can often achieve a similar
effect with branches, stems and leaves.
Remember, there are no rules of
composition, only guides. If something appeals to you, photograph it. Even if
the shot ends up in the bin, you will have gained a little more experience that
could make all the difference next time.
Close-ups
Macro lenses make taking close-ups easy,
but bear in mind that the closer you get, the more abstract your subject
becomes and the more explanation the photograph will require. Often a shot from
further back is actually better because it is more self-explanatory. Consider
what you are trying to achieve with a close-up. If you are
trying a show a rarely seen aspect of a plant or a botanical study (a record of
dissection), fine. But if you're just getting closer for the sake of it
or as a way of filling the frame, think about how a casual viewer would
interpret the scene. Is it immediately understandable or easily explained?
*********
Regardless of your results or how little
you may understand of the technical side of photography, keep on taking
photographs. The more you shoot, the more you'll appreciate what you're doing
right and where you're going wrong. Experience, practice and critical analysis
through comparing your work with the best on offer in books and magazines are
the best ways to advance.
Copyright Geoff Bryant
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