Phalaenopsis Vio Vio

[WhiteRabbit]

Beautiful!

Originally Posted by silken

I actually prefer to use the natural light as I find the flash kind of glares on the blooms, even if I bounce it. I think you have a new Nikon, right? I'm waiting to get a new one.

I really like aperture priority so that you can pick the aperture (depth of field which controls how much is in sharp focus) and the shutter speed is selected by the camera. But if you have lots of dark background, the meter in the camera will think the view is too dark and bump up the exposure. You can select different metering such as spot metering or centre weighted metering etc. Pick a smaller area type and focus on your bloom and it should expose more for the bloom, not the black background. Also using exposure compensation is really useful. If they keep being over-exposed, set your exposure compensation to a negative number (-1 or -1.3) and that will force the exposure 1 f stop or whatever you chose below what the camera thinks is a proper one. That will lower the exposure a bit. Same applies the other way for under-exposure.

If your pics are blurry, maybe you are using a large aperture and have a shallow (short) depth of field? Try something like F11 or a bit more and more of the subject will be sharp and in focus. Something like F4 will have only a bit in focus and the background blurred and soft.

Hope these little tips might help your dilemma!

Thank you Silken, Those are excellent tips.
I just took my phal outside for photosession and changed to F11 and here is what I got:





Still not perfect but much better than I had before.

Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

Beautiful!

Thank you, WhiteRabbit.

[silken]

They are lovely orchideya. I thought the first ones were gorgeous and these too, just in a different way.
Do you use a tripod? I think yours are real clear and sharp anyways , but a tripod really helps. Also you can set your camera to have a sharper image in the settings. I leave mine not very sharp because I prefer to use Photoshop afterward, but I use the RAW file anyways which is mostly unaltered by the camera. If it is J-peg, the camera is doing a lot of the adjustments and you may need to look at how it is set up in the options.

Originally Posted by silken

They are lovely orchideya. I thought the first ones were gorgeous and these too, just in a different way.
Do you use a tripod? I think yours are real clear and sharp anyways , but a tripod really helps. Also you can set your camera to have a sharper image in the settings. I leave mine not very sharp because I prefer to use Photoshop afterward, but I use the RAW file anyways which is mostly unaltered by the camera. If it is J-peg, the camera is doing a lot of the adjustments and you may need to look at how it is set up in the options.

Thank you.
I do have tripod and monopod, but just have no patience to use it. My camera is set to jpeg. It is so great that you shoot raw. I have Photoshop at home, just would need time to learn how to use it (maybe during winter when the evenings are long ). For now I just use the program that comes with Microsoft Office mostly to resize my pics.

[silken]

Originally Posted by orchideya

Thank you.
I do have tripod and monopod, but just have no patience to use it. My camera is set to jpeg. It is so great that you shoot raw. I have Photoshop at home, just would need time to learn how to use it (maybe during winter when the evenings are long ). For now I just use the program that comes with Microsoft Office mostly to resize my pics.

Ya, our winters usually have looong evenings! There are some good Photoshop books and I also took some evening university classes on Photoshop and photography-very helpful, but I also learned a lot from the books.

It is working on a third bud now:

[RosieC]

Gorgeous!

[ronaldhanko]

Love that intense color. Beautiful photos, too.

[ronaldhanko]

Just a note on the photography. I agree with what's been suggested, but would add that a reflector of some kind is helpful in getting rid of really dark shadows. You can make one of some crumpled tinfoil over a piece of cardboard.