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Flower Arrangement Photography Lesson in Tampa with Gopal

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Getting things setup to photograph flowers using an industrial light system in TampaI have taught over 200 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons to people who were mostly hobbyists wanting to get better at making photographs for themselves.  However, I am increasingly teaching people who want to get better at photography for improving their own business.  These are what I call Commercial DSLR Photography Lessons.  Such was the case when I went over to Tampa to teach Gopal (holding camera above) how to photograph flower arrangements using the lighting and gear he currently had.  

I still began the lesson like I do any other, by teaching Gopal my step-by-step processing for setting the camera in order to procduce a well exposed and sharp image in any given shooting condition.  From there we went to using his very specific setup in the same room he would be photographing the floral arrangements.  I gave advice on where to better position the lights and how to manipulate the exposure to produce the darker overall tone to the images that he wanted.  

In addition to this shooting process we also covered a little bit of digital editing workflow.  I look forward to seeing his final images using all we covered that afternoon.

Use a 50mm lens as a macro lens photography tip

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Bokeh created by using a 50mm lens - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm @ f/2 ISO 200 1/400th natural lightMacro lenses are expensive.  They are great, but if macro photography is one of many types of photography you like the cost may not be justified, even though macro lenses often can be great for portraits and other things too.  Before you spend $500 or $1,000 or more on a dedicated macro lens, I suggest getting a 50mm lens first (if you do not already have one, which you should!) for about $120 which can be used as a kind of macro lens and see just how much you like macro photography.  If you cannot get enough of it, then investing in a dedicated macro lens would be worth it.  If you are pleased with the results you are getting with the 50mm lens, well then you saved hundreds of dollars and you also get all the other benefits of a 50mm lens.

The flower image above was made with a 50mm f/1.8 lens @ f/2 with no special lighting, just ambient.  Post a link in the comments below to macro images you made with a 50mm lens.

Photography Tip - How to make a black background out of nothing but camera & strobe settings

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This flower was photographed in my living room in the afternoon, black background achieved by: Nikon D300 Nikkor 105mm VR micro lens @ f/22 ISO 200 1/250th - Strobist: SB-800 in reflective umbrella to frame leftIf you would like to photograph a subject on a black background, you do not need to have an actual black background to achieve this.  Using strobist skills and manual settings on your DSLR you can create a black background almost magically.  I set these flowers on a small table in the middle of my living room.  It was 1:21pm on a sunny afternoon with the blinds closed on both windows, but a lot of light was still filtering through.  I setup a reflective umbrella (a softbox would work even better) to the left of the flowers with a Nikon SB-800 Speedlight.  It took some fiddling to make sure none of the light from the umbrella splashed onto any of the walls, which made them visible in the shot.  The same goes for getting the settings on my DSLR to produce the results I wanted.  In the end I was able to achieve what I wanted, just the light from the speedlight exposing my subject with the ambient light in the room eliminated due to the small aperture and fast shutter speed settings.  

How to create a black background: 

  1. setup the subject in a room with as much distance from the walls as possible
  2. setup a speedlight to left or right of subject with umbrella/softbox/other light modifier
  3. start with f/16 and 1/200th & adjust from there as necessary (ISO should be at lowest setting) 

Thank you to Bill Gracey and his great flickr photostream for the inspiration for this shot.  Be sure and visit his extensive gallery of strobe lit plants.

Try this at home and be sure and post a link to your results in the comments below.  If you would like to learn how to make photographs like this first hand, I offer 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lessons in and around the St. Petersburg area.  Reserve your lesson today! 

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    • Snell Isle Series - 03 - Bird of Paradise Flowers of Snell Isle Florida

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    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G @ f/4 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power with diffuser cap on tripod backlighting flower triggered by Yongnuo radio remotes

    I had been wanting to photograph these Bird of Paradise (strelitzia) flowers in my neighborhood for at least six weeks.  Day after day I would be walking Kiki past the flowers thinking, "maybe this evening I will come photograph them."  Then there would be no good ones in bloom.  By that I mean already dying petals on the flower or they were too low to the ground and therefore I could not photograph the flower with a clean (no distractions) background.  Finally, after a heavy rainstorm, everything came together two evenings ago and I was able to accomplish a photography goal and continue the Snell Isle Series.  

    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G @ f/22 ISO 200 1s Strobist: Nikon SB-800 Speedlight @ 1/16th power with diffuser cap on tripod backlighting flower triggered by Yongnuo radio remotesBird of Paradise flowers secrete a nectar that ants love to eat.  Even just a short time after a very heavy rain, the ants were already back out to the nectar trough.  I did not even think to sample the nectar myself until just now!  Maybe next time I pass by.

    I cannot help but think if one of these is really angry that the other totally invaded its space . . .The type of Bird of Paradise flower that grows in my neighborhood are part of medium-sized long-leafed plants that make for very attractive landscaping even without any blooms.  I will still keep my eye out for a particularly good bloom for future photographs, especially one with a lot of ants feeding on the nectar.

    Florida Botanical Gardens flowers in brief macro

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    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/8 ISO 640 1/25th natural light

    I made these macro flower photographs during a recent DSLR Photography lesson with a student at Florida Botanical Gardens.  I was of course focused on teaching her, but I did have a few moments to shoot along side her after I helped her get her camera set to make a similar shot.  Sometimes I used my Nikon Speedlight SB-600 on and off camera, sometimes, like above, the natural light at 8am was good enough.

    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/11 ISO 200 1/200th strobist: SB-600 on cameraThe above magnolia flower was offering parts of itself, or getting rid of parts of itself, in a very interesting manner to me.  I wonder how often a magnolia flower's lower petal aligns just right so that it can catch those stems?  Maybe it is not uncommon?  

    Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR Micro f/2.8G @ f/11 ISO 200 1/60th strobist: SB-600 off camera TTL modeThat red flower seems almost bioelectric to me, like it is plugged into electricity somewhere and at night would light up like a flower found on Pandora.  I considered a closer crop of the flower, but wanted to included background elements to show its seeming desire to remain unseen by the passerby despite being so pretty.

    Sepia Senior Portrait in St. Petersburg

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    High School Senior Maria posing with a jacaranda flower in downtown St. PetersburgA large jacaranda tree resides in downtown St. Petersburg next to the Museum of Fine Arts.  Its bright red blossoms fall to the ground still in full possession of their dignity, making for prize souvenirs for passersby, or the random senior portrait shot.  As you can see the tree has been defiled with carvings.  Someone declared their love in a large heart upon the poor trees vast trunk.  Perhaps now in hindsight I did a dishonor to the tree for using the carving in my portrait.  I will make it up to the jacaranda tree the next time I see it.  

    How I made this shot:

    • Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
    • f/11 ISO 200 1/30th
    • strobist:  Nikon SB-600 Speedlight on light stand to the above left of frame
    • processing: Aperture 3, Color Efex Pro 3, Photoshop CS4, sepia in Silver Efex Pro 3

    Free iPhone Wallpaper Monday: Blue Flag Iris flower

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    free iPhone wallpaper -- Blue Flag Iris flower with bokeh

    Start your work week off with a free new wallpaper for your iPhone or iPod touch!

    This past summer, despite Florida's sometimes oppressive heat during that season, I tried to visit a number of parks and botanical gardens in Pinellas County Florida.  This week's free iPhone wallpaper is the result of one of those such visits.  I found this blue flag iris growing around a pond in the Florida Botanical Gardens. 

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    My full (and growing) collection of iPhone wallpapers can be viewed HERE and are available for just $1 each.

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     To Install the wallpaper onto your iPhone:

    1. Right-click or control-click on the image.

    2. Select “Save as…”

    * Mac users:  save the image to a folder or add it to your iPhoto library.

    * PC users:   save the image in your “My Pictures” folder.

    Connect the iPhone/iPod Touch to your computer and do the following:

    1. Launch iTunes, click your iPhone icon on iTunes, choose the Photos tab, and select “Sync photos from:”

    2. From the pop-up menu, do one of the following:

    * If your using a Mac, choose iPhoto or your Pictures folder.
    * If you’re using a PC, choose My Pictures folder.

    3. Choose Folder, then choose any folder on your computer that has images.

    4. Choose “All photos,” or choose “Selected folders” or “Selected albums” and choose the folders or albums you want to sync.

    On your iPhone:

    5. Launch the Photos app. Browse through the albums or Camera Roll until you find the picture you wish to use.

    6. Select the picture so it is displayed full screen.

    7. Tap the icon in the lower left corner of the screen. If you don’t see the icon, single tap the picture to display the menus.

    8. A menu pops up with three options: Email Photo, Use as Wallpaper, or Assign to Contact.

    9. Choose “Use as Wallpaper"

    Thanks to Photo Focus and Scott Bourne for the directions above.

    All iPhone/iPod Touch Wallpapers are provided without any technical support. Each image is a 320×480 jpg file. All images are Copyright Jason Collin Photography, All Rights Reserved. You are granted a single use, non-exclusive, perpetual license to install this wallpaper on any iPhone or iPod Touch personally owned by you. This license grants you the right to use the wallpaper for non-commercial/personal use only. You may not re-sell, distribute, print or otherwise publish the image without the express written consent of the Copyright owner: Jason Collin Photography