Flower Photography

         Flower Photography Tips

       

       
           Photographing Flowers is real fun. Flowers give you immense possibilities & opportunities to use your creative ability. But to get best out of them, we need to keep in mind some points. Let's discuss some...

1. Avoid distracting backgrounds -
If necessary put a screen of dull & dark colour, way behind so that it will be out- of-focus.

2. Use shallow depth-of-field, so that everything will not be sharp. Our focus should be on main object. Aperture may be 4 / 5.6 and lens around 100 mms. Wide angle gives everything sharp, cover large area & may produce distortion.

3. Use tripod to avoid shake. The picture may be blurred if camera is handheld.

4. If the background is dark & flowers are light, exposure on Auto will be over for flowers. So, shoot 1/2 or 1 stop under depending on the contrast. Or you can measure exposure for flowers, by spot reading & lock it.

5. The sunlight should not be very hard. Overcast conditions produce soft light, which is best for soft shadows. We can use reflector or flash to fill in shadows.

6. Backlight gives nice effect, translucent petals glitter & border light isolates main object from the background.

7. Composition is important. Don't place main object in the centre. The stems should not be straight vertical.

8. If you go very close to the flowers, use macro mode. Focusing should be very precise.

9. Use ISO as low as possible & picture size (resolution) as large as possible, to get high quality results.

10. For special effect, you can put water drops by dropper at suitable places.

11. Don't place variety of flowers in one frame. It destracts the attention of the viewer from main interest.

12. Photoshop the picture a little. Cropping, a little adjustments like brightness, contrast, colour, etc.
   Enjoy taking  photos of beautiful flowers.  Best luck..

Nesting of Magpie-Robin

        Nesting of Magpie Robin 

                  It is very interesting to see that Magpie-Robin pair has occupied the nest-box for their nesting during this monsoon season. The nest-box was actually designed for house-sparrows & they did used it for 4 nesting periods. But now, magpie-robins have successfully breded their young in the same best-box and feeding activity of the young by the parents is vigorously on.

                 The nest-box was fitted in the balcony of our II floor-flat 4 years back. I have observed that every 5/6 minutes, either male or female feeds the young, male making more number of trips.

                 I think we have become much used to them and they do not seem to be disturbed with our presence except a little noticing. I could take their photos from 10 feet with due care & camouflage, not disturbing their activities at all. I have also attached the previous house-sparrow nesting photo.
             
                 I would like to appeal all nature-friends to fix nest-boxes in your house premises & enjoy their activities. This will definitely help increase birds' population in urban cities. I have designed nest-boxes for some birds. You can contact me if you are interested in fixing them in your premises.