Is this a bull's eye or a study in
diagonals?
Did I consciously compose these pictures so
that each line and box was just right? Yes and no. I looked for
something interesting, and then put the camera to my eye to see
if it might balance well. The picture directly above simply looked
interesting when I rotated the camera to that point. After the
fact I can see that the diagonal lines are what makes it interesting.
Also notice how I just missed putting any specific structure
at the exact center point of the frame.
Does this picture work?
I don't like this picture, which is too bad
because I really tried to compose it (paying close attention
to the diagonals and the detail of the column. I shot most of
a role of film trying to get the exposure just right during periodic
lulls in the wind. What happened is that I had an image in my
mind that I wanted to capture (details of the column), and I
ignored what was in the frame. The lip is simply to close to
the edge of the frame giving it a cut off feeling (This was taken
before my interest in orchids so I did not know the flower was
upside down).
Sharpness and Clarity
First, spit on the lens and wipe off the finger
print (a little rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball might work better
though). Second, buy a cheapo tripod at Wal-Mart and use it.
Third, use the camera's timer or a cable release.
This fuzzy picture of a Philodendron
flower was taken free hand with a $6000 professional digital
auto-focus camera and lens setup (these flowers only open for
a day so I could not go back with a tripod later, but I did take
about 15 shots with and with out flash, larger aperture etc,
so I did get some clear shots (about 3) that look OK for snapshots
(most look like this or worse).
This close-up was taken with the same
camera and lens using a tripod and the camera's timer to eliminate
movement and vibration. Fuzzy pics are not the camera's fault
folks.
Orchid blossoms are at the end of long flexible
stalks that sway enough to blur a picture with as little prompting
as the floor vibration from someone walking across the room,
or as little air movement as you bending down quickly. The action
of your finger on the shutter release will even cause the camera
to sway slightly and possibly blur fine details.
- Resolution
-
- Why does this
web image look funny when I print it out?
-
- A digital image is
made up of individual color squares or "pixels". A
computer monitor reproduces these at a low resolution of 72 dpi
(dots per horizontal inch = pixels per inch). The red green and
blue light pixels making up your monitor screen bleed into each
other so your eye sees a smooth image. Your printer ink is not
so messy so you see the little squares when you print out something
off the web. A printer needs a higher resolution, from 150 to
300 dpi, for a clear image (so your eye can't see the pixels).
You can shrink each pixel from that web image until you can fit
300 in an inch, but then your image is that much smaller when
you print it. Your digital camera takes a very large picture
at 72 dpi so that you can make normal sized prints. If you reduce
the dimensions of an image and increase the resolution (dpi)
correspondingly you don't lose any information, but if you reduce
the image dimensions while keeping the dpi the same, you are
throwing out information which can never be recovered. There
is also the phenomenon of digital decay. Little bits of digital
informatioon are constantly being lost due to many factors, even
a CD has a limited life span. Larger image files resist this
because the loss of single pixels here and ther is less noticable,
so this is another reason to shoot large image files, and then
rename any changes you make to them.
-
-
- What is a
J-peg?
The images taken by
a digital camera, and those posted on the web, are very different
from a photographic print. "jpeg" shortened to the
"jpg" suffix for PC users stands for Joint Photographic
Experts Group, a committee responsible for the standardizing
this method of image compression. What is image compression?
It is a way to make the file size smaller by removing information
that your eye is not using. A jpg image is like a tile mosaic,
it is a mathematical conversion of the detail held in the original
large image file down to the barest minimum of digital color
"tiles" needed by the human eye to form a clear image
at a given size. Any manipuilation of this set of "tiles"
(adjusting colors, resizing etc) further degrades the image because
the true information held in the original file is long gone.
The "quality" you save the the image at originally
is analogous to the size of tiles and number of color shades
in a mosaic.
In the above image
you can see the little squares of yellow color, and the waves
created by having a limited number of shades available. These
compression squares are not noticable in areas with more pattern.
Producing the image at a higher jpg "quality" would
decrease the size of the squares allow for more shades of color,
and allow for a smoother transition between shades. This would
also mean much longer down load time. It is impossible to increase
the quality of this image file now (although decreasing it's
size would make it look better). To produce a better version
I would have to start over using the original high quality image
file. High-end digital cameras offer a tif image mode (Tagged
Image File Format). This is an uncompressed format so practically
all of the information gathered by the camera's sensor is stored
in the very large file.
Lighting and Background
"Yes,
the sliding glass door in the background does detract from the
picture."
Look at what is behind the plant before you
take the picture. Find a larger plant, and use its foliage as
a background. Take a dark pillow case or towel etc. and hang
it on the back of a chair for a dark back ground (make sure it
is back far enough to be out of focus - you can open the aperture
more to do this too). If you have the camera on a tripod, and
you are using the timer you can walk behind the plant and hold
the background up. Hold it far enough back to be out of focus.
There is almost no way you can take a good
picture of your orchid in the spot it is growing. The lighting
will be poor, the background will be distracting etc. Outside,
soft directional lighting very early in the morning is wonderful.
Find a nice leafy bush, a solid weathered wooden fence, a woodpile,
anything that will look natural as a background (personally if
I could get my hands on some sun bleached cow skulls I would
try my hand at some Georgia O'Keefe rip-offs). Inside, simple
diffuse light coming through a window is good (try opening and
closing curtains or blinds for fine tuning the light). Here,
my big ol split leaf Philodendron would make a good background
(if it had good picture light in its location), but since it
doesn't, the dark fabric background is the way to go for me in
the house.
If you try to take a snapshot with a flash
you will probably not get a good picture. Special ring flashes
or multiple flashes connected to the camera by a cord are usually
needed to prevent unwanted shadows/provide interesting shadows.
I have had good luck and a lot of fun using the fluorescent light
from my orchidarium
in combination with curtained window light from the opposite
side of the room. The mirrored back of the orchidarium gives
a nice side light, and the digital camera's white balance setting
for fluorescent lights use of this light source possible. The
fluorescent light probably would not have worked well with film.
Click to enlarge
It was not easy to get these results.
In each of these cases I tripped the timer, walked behind the
plant, held up the background with my teeth and one hand, and
used the other hand to provide slight shade where too much light
was hitting. Any where from 10 to 30 or more shots were taken
of each with only one or two actually coming out "just right"
(yes, I probably would have been less sloppy if I had not been
using a digital camera).
Click to enlarge
Off camera flash held in front and
to left of blossoms (left hand shot), and behind blossoms (right
hand shot). Because digital cameras also have a white balance
setting for incandescent light bulbs you could also use a couple
of movable arm type desk lamps (with camera on a tripod) to do
anything that off camera flashes would do.
- Try Several Variations
- Pick the one you like best
 |
 |
Try different backgrounds: A
pillow from my couch/sofa was use here to bring out the purple
of the lip, and I laid a piece of black fabric over it for the
shots below. |
| Try different angles: Who knows
which one is gong to look best in the long run |
 |
 |
- My final choice
- (brightened up a little)
-
Free wall paper-click to download 1024x768 version
(116 kb)
This is a blowup/crop of the above image base file
shows what you can do with a steady tripod shot taken using a
2.74 megapixel camera on the highest jpg setting.
White Flowers
"Why is
life so difficult"
I'm not sure what to tell you here, but I
hope you have a digital camera so you can take a million shots
to get it right. Actually it is not that difficult with natural
lighting if you are using subdued, even light (early morning
out of the direct sun). The photography books all tell you to
over expose (open up) by one to two stops (otherwise the camera
is going to make your white flower gray). So if your camera tells
you to expose at 125, shoot at 60 and 30. The dark green foliage
is probably going to be under exposed slightly, but this often
cannot be helped. If the flower is not taking up a large proportion
of the center of the frame, the camera is going to meter off
of the leaves and probably cause the details of the white flower
to be over exposed and blasted out. Placing the flower so that
it covers half of the center, with the green leaves covering
the other half may be an easy way to get pretty good results.
Long (1/2 to 4 seconds or more) exposures under dim indoor or
cloudy/shady outdoor light often give very nice results.
Manipulating Digital Images
"How can
I cheat a little"
If you get a pretty good photo out of your
digital camera you can "tweek" it a little to make
it just right with any number of software programs. You probably
want to shoot in fine jpg mode on the camera to get the largest
image file possible if you have any hopes of printing out a nice
8x10 or even 11x 14 for your wall. But this software makes it
possible to email a resized smaller image to a friend. You will
also probably want to play with brightness and contrast, and
maybe sharpen the image a bit (improve focus). If you have the
top of the line software (Adobe Photoshop) you probably are not
reading this. If you are just starting out, my favorite FREE
software program for digital images is Irfanview.
It will do all of the basics.
Rotating and Cropping
It never fails, your minds eye always betrays
you and that beautiful shot you so carefully composed turns out
to be annoyingly boring when you blow it up on the computer screen.
That is when you have to go searching once again or for something
of interest. And it is yet another reason to shoot the original
picture at the highest resolution possible. Don't be surprised
it you have to abandon your original idea.
A final note on digital cameras
A digital camera with
a good macro ability and the option for full manual over-ride
of focus, aperture and shutterspeed will enable you to do almost
anything. Don't let the salesman tell you that the automatic
features will do everything you want. Color quality may be off
on some of the lower end point and shoot models (Pinks look purple
under certain light etc.), and even some of the highend models
may have problems. Search the web for digital camera reviews
before buying (there are a lot out there).
Yes, you may have some problems under different
lighting conditions with the lower end point and shoot models
since they are more or less just little computers and their cheap
programing has its limitations. They may only be calibrated for
a certain limited set of conditions deemed "normal".
Don't get too frustrated. Work around this by waiting for the
lighting that the camera "likes". Take alot of test
pictures of ordinary items in order to study lighting, color,
shadows etc. I often use some little plastic frogs as 3D models
and write down what I did for each shot. I delete all of the
test shots and then try the settings of the good shots on something
important.
[Main] [Orchids] [Culture]
