Your Canon Photos No. 5: 4th to 10th June 2023

Another superb shot Dan. Well done.

That’s very nice of you Dunlin. Thank you kindly.

Dan

Thank you kindly Digi. I was fortunate enough for the scene to come together before me and all i had to was press the button. We do not get a lot of sun this far north, but when the sun does decide to show itself it can create quite dramatic scenes.

Dan

Thank you Davidwien. Lovely shots of the flowers. I can almost smell the roses from here I am sitting.

Dan

Hi Dunlin,

Ahh Yes but will you be in time to see the beautiful Poppy fields. 😁

(Aperture f/9 <> (SS): 1/250 <> ISO 100 <> EC: 0 <> PASM Mode: Aperture Priority <> Metering: Evaluative <> Focus Mode: One Shot <> FL: 70mm <> Lens: Tamron SP 70-300mm f/4-5.6 Di VC USD <> Camera ID: Canon EOS 7D Mark II).

(Aperture f/9 <> (SS): 1/320 <> ISO 100 <> EC: 0 <> PASM Mode: Aperture Priority <> Metering: Evaluative <> Focus Mode: One Shot <> FL: 18mm <> Lens: Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM <> Camera ID: Canon EOS 7D Mark II).

Hi simplejoy, Thank You.

This peak is called "Klotinden" (671m above sea level) and can apparently be traversed by foot, though I have yet to try so.

Dan

Hi davidwien,

Love the photos, that garden looks beautiful.

Hi CarryLight,

Excellent photo.

Wow.
I'll be sure to tell you.

Impressive.

David,

Your rose flowers look great. I like the red color a lot too. Years ago, I don't think the reds turned out as good as they do now; at least that was my experience with some of my older cameras (taking them as out-of-the-camera JPEGS).

Mocha,

Yes, the poppy fields are beautiful. We can't wait for Dunlin to find some more.😀

CarryLight,

Wow...that's neat...great photo. That would be a good hike to the top. I'm sure you would get a lot more photo ops. 😀

Great capture - very atmospheric with the fog! At 671 m it doesn't seem too bad, I guess. But it absolutely depends on the condition of the path (or lack thereof) if it's worth it, I'd say! 😉 (Last but not least it also depends on how fast the weather can change in that region.)

So... I have a question for all of you here, given that a couple of people seem to enjoy shooting some flowers as well:

Do you really try to get the full flower in focus usually?

Being a macro shooter for the most part and also using old manual lenses exclusively (many of which, like projection lenses don't have a variable aperture) that thought seems very foreign to me, even though I get the notion and value of showing a full bloom in its own right of course - particularly if the intention is an accurate documentation. I still usually can't bring myself to do that.

I just find the background way too distracting most of the time, unless everything else is really far away or I got some of those (rare) lenses in hand, which seem to be able to render anything smoothly, no matter how far you stop it down.

Here's a shot with an Agfa Super-Intergon 105 mm f/5.6 (wide open), which shows the maximum DOF where I usually still feel comfortable:

Dig in, little one! by simple.joy, on Flickr

Perhaps I can sometimes deal with going to f/8, if I feel like there's enough interest in showing more and I'm already relatively close... but usually I like somewhere around this best:

No one else wanted it... now it's Robert‘s! by simple.joy, on Flickr
(shot at around f/2.8)

or even softer, like this:

Hard to be soft in a good way... by simple.joy, on Flickr

I'm curious to know your thoughts and preferences!

Simplejoy,

I do try to get the full flower in focus usually. In doing so I try to pick the best background I can. Sometimes moving around a few inches will achieve that. But I often find what you show as being outstanding too with the softness. In particular, I really like the 3rd photo. I'm open to different styles, so anything goes.

Saying that, I also try to keep everything in focus for many other types of photos. The exception would be if I was taking pictures of wildlife with my long telephoto lens. But It would be at that time that I would want to have a great looking background too. What I have learned over the years is that everything in the photo is important. It's more than the subject matter; it is everything.

But that's my style with keeping most things in focus (if possible)...with some exceptions. Everyone is different and I like seeing this diversity.

Thanks for the input! It's really interesting to realize that I'm pretty much the other way around... in very rare instances I go for "sharp from front to back" but even when I focus stack I usually try to at least keep some part of the natural DOF present:

And you just looked away... by simple.joy, on Flickr

Colors spring to mind by simple.joy, on Flickr

I feel like your approach works very well though in cases like this:

On the uniform background and with enough color contrast present the flower looks beautiful at f/9 and nothing distracts from its beauty, while it still is shown in a more realistic way in its surroundings. I like that. Gotta try to do that more often myself. I feel like it's an important skill finding a working composition, even when there's not too much possible in terms of using DOF separation.

I fully agree! It's great seeing different approaches.

Here's a lens I recently loved to experiment with which seems to render very nicely no matter the f-stop btw.! However it seems to be limited to around f/6 or f/8 anyway...

They open as daisy fit by simple.joy, on Flickr

I'm not lucky enough to own a macro lens or substitute (yet), so it's not usually a problem with single flowers for me.
I do like trying to isolate individual flowers with a telephoto lens.