Photographing Hibiscus

[capt-j]

Hello all

I am amazed at the beautiful pictures in the "pictures of the day".
I know you need to keep the file size down, but my pics don't have the saturation of color they deserve.

How do you get such good pictures?
 - take in sunlight?, - or move to the shade?,  use a filter?, - or what

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Charlie]

This is a big topic, but the short answer is:

1. Take photos of blooms as soon as they open in the morning.

2. Shade almost always gives better flower photos than full direct sunlight.

3. Its OK to pick blooms and move them to other bushes where there is some shade or inside before taking the photos.

4. Light tweaking in a photo editing program to recreate what the eye sees is acceptable and sometimes the only way to show the real colors of the bloom. Heavy editing to create an unreal flower photo is a no-no in my opinion and entirely unnecessary.

Lots of other tips and techniques but these should help.

Charlie

[Ernest]

Capt-J, I've learned that one of the problems with taking pictures of outdoor plants is that the sun tends to wash out the colors in the photo. Since plants in the ground can't be moved into the shade I'll usually take one in the sun and then stand so that I block the sun for a shade shot. Then I pick the one that looks the best and 9 times out of 10  it is the shade photo. These I took today illustrate it both ways. The Night Runner is much better shaded while the darker African Princess shows better in the light.

Erny

[Charlie]

Nice examples, Erny. Welcome back!

Charlie

[farmer d]

Great advice Charlie & Erny!

A few extra things I look for is time of day.  Morning is best to capture more vibrant colors but that varies depending on the variety.  Some get better as the day goes on - Climax being an excellent example.  Also I find it interesting to see how blooms transform throughout the day.  Acapulco Gold is a fine example of constant transformation that offers quite a few stunning looks.

One downside to morning and afternoon is the sunlight is more at an angle so you get more shadows from tufts of the petals or surrounding leaves.  Whereas if your home during the time the sun is directly overhead that is a great time for shots too.  That is my favorite time to take pics as it has the most cheerful, bright energy that makes blooms seem to almost glow and radiate back that sunlight.  Also I love to get under the blooms and try to get some sky or other plants in it like palm frawns for example.

To really highlight a bloom I'm really excited about I cut it and place it on my grass as that dark solid background lets the bloom become the sole focus of the picture.

Cloudy days are great for bush shots.

Don't be afraid to use your hand behind the bloom to move it around to capture the best angle.  I believe every bloom has a sweet spot for pics and you have to rotate and bend them find it.  The great thing about digital cameras is you can take as many pics as you want and delete the ones not good enough.

Lastly if you can avoid using your zoom you increase the resolution and picture quality.

Have fun and don't be shy to post pics.

Farmer D

[Ernest]

Thanks for the helpful tips Darren. I didn't realize that using the zoom reduced the clarity. As someone with virtually zero prior experience and knowledge of photography I would welcome more advice from others on this subject.

Erny

[Gil]

1. Set White Balance for actual light (daylight, shade, cloudy). Do not use Auto. Daylight means full sun

2. Use a polarizing filter to remove glare and saturate colors. A polarizing filter also makes the sky a deep blue if at a 90 degree angle to the sun.

3. If the plant is still in a pot, move the pot so no distracting elements are in the picture (fences, etc). I have gotten great shots by holding the plant up and using the blue sky as the background.

4. Dark leaves and dirt will influence the exposure and make the flower too light, so try changing exposure compensation to -0.3 EV, or -0.7 EV

5. DOF (Depth of Field) or how much is in focus.  A small aperature (f/22) will make everything in focus, but also make a distracting background.
Find an aperature that gets the whole flower in focus, but blurs the background too.

[capt-j]

Thank you for the great suggestions.  I am having better success by getting the blooms into shade - usually by using a large plastic trashcan lid to make the shade. 

Unfortunately, my grass is mostly brown - so the green grass suggestion won't work for awhile.

I will work with the depth of field - the pics showing only the bloom in focus - versus - the bloom and background in focus.  I am not sure which I like better, but it is something to play with.

I have been using just a simple point and shoot digital camera.  Messing with EV and white balance - something I will need to study up on.

Thanks again for all the great help.

[Ernest]

Gil, thank you for the tips. I'll have to dig out the instructions that came with my camera (Canon PowerShot) and actually read them in order to change the various settings. In case I can't find it I wonder if anyone knows whether the instructions can be downloaded off the internet?

Erny

[Gil]

http://www.canoncompact.com/canon-powershot-manual

[farmer d]

Gil that is some fantastic advice - very technical which is perfect.  This will be good for me to test the parameters of my point and shoot Sony pocket cybershot.  I love the sky background photos. 

Farmer D

[Gil]

Unfortunately, most point and shoots are very limited in what parameters you can change, if any.

If you can't change exposure due to dark backgrounds, try changing the angle or time of day, so that all the light on the flower and background are similar.

Our eyes can see 21 shades of light, from white to black.
Cameras can only see 1/3 of this range at a time, so if you have bright sun and shade in the same picture, something will suffer.
Ever try and take a picture of a great sunset, only to get a white sky, or black foreground? This is because the proper exposure for the sky is more than 7 stops from the foreground.  When doing landscapes, some photographers use a graduated neutral-density filter, which is half gray and half clear. They move the gray portion over the sky, to lower the exposure and make it closer to the foreground.

If the camera has a spot meter, this can also be used to only meter off the flower, and ignore the background.
The camera's meter works on average daylight.  If you mixed all the colors of an average scene, it would be 18% gray.

If you took a picture of a lightly colored object (or flower) or scene such as a snow landscape, the camera would underexpose and give you gray snow, or a darker flower
A night scene, might have a gray sky, rather than black, because the camera would overexpose it. Dark background=overexposed flower.

Move or zoom in close. Crop the image in camera, even if you have to cut off parts of the flower to eliminate the background.  Artistically, it's hard to photograph a round subject in a rectangular box (image).