Flowers

I think that flowers are the most beautiful thing in the world. I cannot imagine life without them. The fact that I produce them professionally has nothing to do with it since you can do stuff not loving them. I adore flowers and I have dedicated a big part of my life to them. I treat them like living and feeling beings that develop beautifully when loved. Looking at them I can say whether they are healthy or they lack something. At home I have got lots of orchids by each window. My garden is also colourful. I don’t understand people who plant only bushes in their gardens. Photographing flowers, contrary to what some say, it is not at all difficult, unless it is very windy or they grow in water or on high trees. I am especially fond of the orchids. I admire the beauty and strength of their flowers. There is something exotic and mysterious about them among others because of their origin. For years they were considered the symbol of luxury. They were grown only in the aristocratic manor houses. It was said that their cultivation is really hard and a special greenhouse is required for that, whereas my experience is that having a little knowledge you can successfully grow them in the house, and not only on the window sills. They are very decorative and improve the well-being of the household.

Canon 50D, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, f /2.0 ISO 400 1/125s, -0.7 EV

When taking shots of flowers you should try to achieve the effect of blurred background. In this case it was obtained using the smallest possible f-number for this lens that is 2.8.

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro The picture of the orchid of the Paphiopedilum genus.

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro
The orchids of the Paphiopedilum genus in the picture.

Canon 50D, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro
The flowers of the Phragmipedium genus in the picture.

Canon 50D, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro.

The flower of the Paphiopedilum genus in the picture.
Setting the aperture you have to make sure that the whole flower is in the depth of field. Here there was too little light and 1/125s time is rather a minimum to get a sharp picture without a tripod. I could have increased ISO but not everything has to be perfect all the time.

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Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro
The flower of the Phalenopsis bellina genus in the picture.

 

The orchid flowers are the most specialised flowers as far as pollination by animals (zoophily) is concerned. They produce three kinds of flowers. The first type is a flower that procuces nutrient. It consist of upper medial part called labellum that is modified and enlarged, (suitable to form a platform for the insects to land on) and a spur filled with pollen which serves as a lure. Second type is fitted with special traps into which the insects are lured by means of colour and smell that is not that luring for us. The trapped insect pollinates the flower when trying to get out. The flowers of third type are most interesting. They imitate other flowers (e.g. of honey plants) or even some insects. The latter, thanks to special look and scent, can influence male insects in such a way that they are cheated and copulate with them thinking that it is a female insect and pollinate them this way. In nature there are such things that even philosophers have never dreamt about.

This little flower is commonly called “a vampire”. It is the orchid of the Bulbophyllum genus.

 

Olympus XZ-1

Mixed orchid genus Phalaenopsis is a hybrid ideal for growing on window sills. It blooms almost continuously and it develops new flowers all the time.

Compact cameras are suitable for photographing flowers, especially those with good super macro mode and not that big lens, such as Olympus XZ-1. It has an excellent sharp and very bright iZUIKO DIGITAL 1;1,8-2,5 lens. You can literally get inside a flower with it and at the same time achieve large DOF. Another advantage is zoom that allows you to frame the subject freely. Moreover, small camera size enables taking shots from different perspectives, even from the bottom. The large DOF makes them seem supernaturally big.

OLYMPUS XZ-1. A pasque flower photographed from the ground.

Olympus XZ1. The flower in my conservatory in the picture.

A daffodil in the sunset light.

When taking shots of flowers on the absorbing, not uniform background, the good solution is to use a bright prime lens and big aperture in order to blur what is behind the subject.

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Fujifilm Fine Pix S5 PRO, AF-S Nikkor 50 mm 1:1,4 G f 2,0

 

Fujifilm Fine Pix S5 PRO, AF-S Nikkor 50mm 1:1,4 G

 

The same effect can be achieved using telephoto lens.

Canon 50d, Canon 100-400 mm L IS 1:4,5-5,6 f /5,6 320 mm

In my opinion flowers look even more interesting in extreme macro shots.

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Canon 50D, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro

Canon 50D, Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro Photo, Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX flash

 

Canon 50D, Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro Photo, Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX flash

 

Canon 50D, Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro Photo, Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX flash

 

OLYMPUS XZ-1

Canon 50D, Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x Macro Photo, Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX flash

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, lampa Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX

And what to do if you want to photograph flowers from a short distance and achieve a very large DOF? You can use ultra wide-angle lens e.g. Sigma 10-20mm f 4-5,6 DC HSM. It focuses already from 24 cm and the DOF it achieves – you can see for yourself:

The shots taken at night with Olympus XZ1 and Olympus Macro Arm Light attached look very interesting.

Drops once again

My passion for drops does not end in static shots.
Lately I have devoted much time to photographing the drops of water in movement. I didn’t think that it would absorb me so much. I have been testing my speed with a camera in my hand for hours while trying to capture falling drops.

I had to use a tripod to focus properly on the spot where the drops were falling. The mere arrangement of composition and preparation took me more than an hour each time. But then I could take as many photos as I wanted. I used Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, and Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash.

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, lMacro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash

How did I take this picture? I directed a thin trickle of water up at an angle of about 45 degrees. It looked as though it was coninuous. However, in the photo it turned out to consited of single drops of water.

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash

 

And what’s this creature jumping out of water? Similar to a fox or maybe a rat?

I have never suspected how many things happen when one little drop falls into the water. Still it is different each time. It is not possible to take two identical photos.

It is beautiful, isn’t it? Like an eperor’s crown. You are probably wondering how come it is so blue. This is not the colour of water, but of the glass vessel I poured the water in.

I will now tell you what happens when a drop falls from the tap to a vessel with water.

A tiny drop hangs. Gradually it is becoming bigger and bigger. It is getting so heavy that it begins to extend...

...then it breaks off and falls down easily.

 

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash

Usually some smaller droplets fall after it...

...then a drop falls into the water.

Falling into the water it causes a spherical crater with a crown gushing up from water.

Then the crown falls down, the crater shuts, and the energy finds its vent in producing a shape of mace which is shooting up...

...and getting longer and thinner.

And again a drop breaks off.

This one looks twisted.

And this one...resembles something

It is hard to imagine how fast it all happens. Many times I tried to capture such drop using continuous shooting (burst) mode. Canon 50d burst rate is 6.3 frames per second, but it wasn’t possible. That’s why trying to press the shutter release button at a right time is such a great fun. I can photograph this way for hours and I find it difficult to stop, because with each photo there is a hope that it’s going to be better and more interesting. Think about how a ski jumper feels when skiing down a ski jump at a speed of 90 km per hour he has to take-off at the right time. Certainly it isn’t easy as even the best jumpers make mistakes.

Faling drops against a background of a peacock’s feather. It this case the trickle of water also seemed continuous, but in fact it was divided into many single drops. Each drop behaves like a magnifying lens of a small focal length. Since the lens is far out of focus, it registers the reduced and reversed image.

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash

What kind of oddity emerges from water?

Some fabulous lake painted on the crown.

A sunflower snake.

Close-up photography is a world of all the colours of a rainbow. A fabulous world in which you can be engrossed to such an extent that you don’t want to come back to reality that often seems mundane and boring. For me, it is an alternative to the everyday humdrum as if a semblance of paradise. I think I even don’t fully realise how much I owe to it.

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash

Canon 50d, Canon 100 mm L IS Macro, Macro Twin Lite MT-24 EX flash