Friday, June 08, 2018

Wildflowers, Women and Aperture

My first dentist would say, "Open wide wide wide." Now they don't have to say that because they jam so much stuff in there that you have no choice.

But opening wide can work in photography.

Here are two similar shots, and you can see the difference in the background. The f2.8 background is very smooth and blurry and non-distracting. There is more background detail in the f16 photo that isn't as pleasing to most although it might be to some.

f16

f2.8

The f2.8 image is also focus stacked, which means that it is a combination of several images. I focused separately on each of the little blooms and one on the big centre bloom although that one could be better. At such a big aperture (opening) depth of field is very small, so I needed to combine images. At f16, however, all I needed was one shot.

And by the way, that big centre flower is smaller than my thumb. The flower is Erigeron (or fleabane).

Since I'm at it, here's another erigeron photo of just buds.



But here's where I made a mistake with aperture. I shot both Sue and her sister with a wide, f2.8 aperture. I focused on Sue and she is in pretty good focus, but Heather is blurry on this closeup.



Farther away with full body shots, the same wide aperture was good enough.



Live and learn.

7 comments:

Marie Smith said...

You have very accomodating subjects AC.

Joanne Noragon said...

I used to have a tiny "trick" camera. We called it the cold war spy camera. It fit in my palm, and took a series of secret moves to extend the lens. It had a built in light meter. It was the best camera I ever had for "opening wide". I wonder what ever became of it! A doctor I knew bought it in Germany, and passed it along to me when he lost the knowledge of opening it. My brother fooled with it for a day and, Voila, he had it. How did its wonderful life end, I wonder.

Tabor said...

I have not tried that stacking thing. I have been trying to learn to shoot only i aperture priority...but need more practice

Country Gal said...

All nice photos still . Yes photography is a lot of trial and error but it is fun learning it all . Thanks for sharing , have a good weekend !

Mage said...

Beautiful subjects too.

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

Another learning tutorial and all with such lovely subjects as well, John.

Jenn Jilks said...

I like how you are critiquing and reflecting on your own work. Well done.