Foxglove Flower
I actually took these pictures a couple of weeks ago, drawing upon the ever-changing abundance of fresh flowers maintained by my mother.
This is a foxglove flower, formally known as ‘Digitalis’, which means finger-like, and refers to the ease with which one can insert a finger into the flower.
This picture was taken outside, using natural light, with my Tamron 28-300 mm telephoto, maxed out at 300 mm. The exposure was 1/80 second at f/11 (ISO 200). Even though that’s a fairly fast shutter speed, a tripod is critical for a shot like this, for two reasons. First, to avoid camera shake, you need a shutter speed at least as fast as 1 over the focal length – in this case, 1/300 second is the minimum to avoid camera shake.
Foxglove Flowers
The second reason is that with the long focal length and close focusing distance, depth of field becomes an issue. Slight movement of the camera after focusing will cause the close up view of the flower to be out of focus, which is prevented when using a tripod.
This second shot was taken indoors, near a large patio door with natural light. It necessitated a much slower shutter speed – this was taken for 1/13 second at f/18 (ISO 200), also at 300 mm.
The final picture in this group is a small bonsai tree. Bonsais can offer many interesting photo opportunities, due to their small size and the twisting of the tree trunk.
Bonsai tree
For this picture, I positioned the bonsai tree outside, against a backdrop of green foliage. The intent was to capture the twists and turns of the bonsai’s trunk and give the feel of a much larger tree via a close up.
The bonsai, however, was not cooperating. It was in a dormant state, with no foliage of its own. As such, the bark still provides a lot of interest, but to me it doesn’t fulfill its potential. This photo was shot for 1/80 second at f/11 (ISO 200) using a focal length of 119 mm.
If you’ve got a bonsai tree at home, try taking some photos using natural light. The uniqueness of the bonsai’s growth provides some great opportunities.
