Maybe right now, you are dreaming that you could become a professional flower photographer and show off beautiful close upfront flower photographs with lots of details. If your flower photograph is good, people may be interested in hiring you to take photo for them when they see your portfolio on the social media. The following are 9 tips on flower photography for beginners.
Take Photo at Different Angles
One mistake that beginners often make when photographing a flower is that they like to take a photo at the flower at the eye level. Instead, change the perspective by squatting or from a higher point. You can do an experiment on different camera angles to find out which angle can produce the nicest looking flower photo.
Get Upfront
You want to get up close to the flower so that the photo will reveal the small details like the petal texture and dew drops. To achieve this effect, you will need to use a macro lens on your computer. Other settings that you need to adjust are aperture number, field depth, and ISO. If you are not skilled in taking a photo of a flower up close, you can take a photo of the photo at a distance like normal. After that, you can crop the flower in the photo so that it looks up close with all the details.
Use a Tripod
When taking a photo of a flower in the outdoor, you must always remember to use a tripod so that your camera will be steady. If you hold the camera with your hand, the photo will be blurry because you are likely to shake the camera when moving around. After setting the camera in the right position on the tripod, you can use a wireless trigger to press the snap button. This prevents you from touching and making any vibration on the camera.
Block the Wind
When shooting a photo of a wildflower, you must block the wind because the wind will blow the flower and prevent you from taking a photo of it in the way you want. You can use different items to block the wind from blowing the flower such as wood board, and umbrella. You can also use a Plamp to hold the flower you want to photograph in place. A Plamp consists of two clamps and an articulating arm.
Photographing Cut Fresh Flower in a Vase
If you can’t find any flower to take a photo, you can order flower from the online florist and put it in your vase. Then, you prepare the background to make sure it matches with the flower in the vase. The background must be nice and not compete with the flower which is the main subject. After taking photo of the flower vase, you can give it away as a present to someone. Think about a friend that is having a birthday soon. Giving the flowers bouquet and the vase will be the best happy birthday wishes for your female or male friend.
Using Live Screen
When taking a photo, always use the live view screen on your camera to guide you. With live view, you can know how much to zoom in so that you can get the flower focused in the distance you want. The zoom in technique is best for capturing a flower because it is a subject that is not moving. In live mode, you can also see how the photo will appear when you activate in different built-in camera modes including black and white, and miniature.
Photographing More Than One Flower
Sometimes, the big picture looks better than just focusing on a single flower. With a big picture, you will capture photos of more than one flowers in the surrounding landscape. If you are taking a photo of a lot of flowers, you will want to step back a few steps away. Wide angle lens is the best for capturing landscape photo.
Take Photo when there is Sufficient Light
As a rule of thumb, you should always take the photo when the day is bright such as the morning. But, it should not be too bright, like in the afternoon, because the sun can reflect on your camera lens. Sometimes, even in the day time, the flower you want to photograph is in shadow. In this situation, you can use a reflector to reflect the light to the flower. You can use a 5-in-1 reflector as it is cheap and work well in directing the light. Alternatively, you can use your own lighting to ensure that the subject is well light when you are taking photographs.
Sprinkle Some Water on the Flower
Maybe you want to photograph the flower with the morning dew but the flower is not wet with dew at all. It is easy to fix this problem – you just have to sprinkle some water from your water bottle onto the flower and it will look as if the flower as some dew. You want to take care not to pour too much water on the plant as it can die. By sprinkling the water on the flower, you will be able to take a professional photo with the water glistening in the light.