A new perspective on flowers

     

As I mentioned in my last post, last Saturday I went to San Francisco Coit Tower by walking through the beautiful gardens of Telegraph Hill residents. The abundance of flowers, the calm air and the abundance of light, prompted me to give my macro adapter an outdoor ride. I have previously posted pictures of flowers, but this would be the very first time I get so up close and personal.

I mentioned before that macro photography is best to be taken indoor and with very controlled lighting, but I overlooked that most powerful light source of our planet is – in fact – shining outdoors.

Macro photo of a yellow daisy

While it remains true that the shallow DOF of the reverse lens macro setting poses (not sure to which extent this applies to regular macro lenses), light and movement and two factors that elide each other, in that with lots of light your shutter speed will be fast enough to compensate and allow handheld pictures even in a mildly breeze.

Macro photo of a rose

So there I was, nervously mounting my 50mm reversed, in full manual mode, taking shots at yellow and white daisies, roses and jasmines. And that was really a revelation. Granted, too much wind is not advisable, but mostly because I don’t like the idea of having dust in the rear lens elements that normally stick into the camera body. Besides that, I felt comfortable in shooting with such settings. Good light overall, had to play a bit with aperture and ISO, which did not prove to be a major issue up to ISO 800 (rare shots). Few shots got bad framing, wrong focus, or bad light. As for the rest, well you be the judge. :-)