Photographing crocuses

[mark smyth]

One good thing about using digital, especially when at home, is if you take a rubbish shot you can go outside straight away and take another. Before my computer slow down I would take a batch of photos and edit them and take more if need be

[mark smyth]

One good thing about using digital, especially when at home, is if you take a rubbish shot you can go outside straight away and take another.

I'll expand on this...
Dont just take one photo of your new Crocus, or whatever, but take many. I take up to 10. I vary the angle, rotate the pot, wait for the flower to fully open and take more. Always have your photo pixel size set to high. You cant do much with a standard 640 pixel wide photo. My camera is set to 3468 pixels wide. This could result in a printed photo 128x96cm/50x38 inches/4x3 feet. With an image this size you can cut/crop out unwanted clutter or background that when reduced in pixel size you get a good large image.

[HClase]

That must be your Canon Mark - the Nikon doesn't get that big. 

Another tip I can add is to use a tripod, I have one of those little ones that they use in window displays which is invaluable for short plants like crocus, using a tripod and timer means that you can use smaller apertures (larger f numbers) and longer exposures; this increases the depth of focus.  The legs expand from 6 to 16 cm.

If you are worried about the plant moving (e.g. in the wind) rather than hand shake, then the Nikon has "best shot selection", when you can take up to 7 exposures and it will pick out the least blurred one for you.  I find this can work surprisingly well sometimes.

[Gerry Webster]

Always have your photo pixel size set to high. You cant do much with a standard 640 pixel wide photo. My camera is set to 3468 pixels wide. This could result in a printed photo 128x96cm/50x38 inches/4x3 feet. With an image this size you can cut/crop out unwanted clutter or background that when reduced in pixel size you get a good large image.

Mark - I’ve been using the best quality on my Canon camera  (3264 x 2448 & DPI = 180). The pics uploaded from the camera look fine.

I prepare them for posting with the  software that came with the camera (‘Image Browser’)  using the “Create Image for Email”  with the highest quality setting & a size of  640 x 480 pixels. The results are not very good - the pics now often show pixels so that leaves & the petal edges look jagged.

I’m using a Mac with plenty of memory.

Do you have any explanation or suggestions? Thanks

[mark smyth]

Gerry I have never used the software that came with my camera nor any of the others programmes that people mention. I dont have a technical mind but it's possible your programme is fault. Why not do an experiment? You edit one of your images and email me your full size images and I'll edit it. We can post them side by side for comparison or if you own a programme like Photoshop you can try it.

[HClase]

I use Irfanview - because it's free and I can get it to run under wine on Linux, it's a bit slower than under XP, but works as well.  I'm generally satisfied, but it does seem to give me large files sometimes than others are getting.

[Tony Willis]

Howard

 I use Irfanview for reducing my files and the end result depends very much on what advanced settings you are using. I have it set to 'long side 600 pixels' This gives me consistently small files

[Gerry Webster]

Gerry I have never used the software that came with my camera nor any of the others programmes that people mention. I dont have a technical mind but it's possible your programme is fault.

Mark - I thought the programme might be faulty so I downloaded the latest version from the Canon website. No improvement. However, I think I may have found a way to produce a decent image using the 'Export Image' programme. What puzzles me is that the first few images from this camera which I posted were made using the Canon email programme  & those were OK. Computers are mysterious beasts.
Anyway, thanks for the offer.

[David Nicholson]

Gerry, if it's raining with you (it's coming down in icy torrents here!) and you want to have a play with some software it is well worth downloading Irfanview as it's free. (you can get rid of it later if you don't like it). I use it for some things and there are a whole host of plug-ins available with it which I have to say I don't understand and don't use, but again I have not, so far, just had a play with them to see what they do. I don't understand how to crop images with Irfanview as it seems very complicated and instead I use Picas 2, again a free download from Google. Cropping with Picasa is an absolute doddle wheras re-sizing with Irfanview is also an absolute doddle.

I think I realised a long time ago that I was never going to be a good photographer, I lack an artistic apptitude, and tend to just put up with whatever comes out of the camera as long as it isn't blurred. I have enough trouble growing the damned things without worrying about pictures of them.

[Gerry Webster]

David - it's stopped raining here, now it's just cold & miserable. After Howard mentioned Irfanview I looked for it on the web. Unfortunately it's not available for Macs.

[Tony Willis]

I think I realised a long time ago that I was never going to be a good photographer, I lack an artistic apptitude, and tend to just put up with whatever comes out of the camera as long as it isn't blurred. I have enough trouble growing the damned things without worrying about pictures of them.

And I thought it was only me!

[mark smyth]

We can all take bad photos. I posted a truely awful photo last week to try and get comments and although it was viewed at least 10 times no-one commented. If I dont have a good enough photo to share I dont use it. It's so easy to go outside and take another set

[David Nicholson]

I think I realised a long time ago that I was never going to be a good photographer, I lack an artistic apptitude, and tend to just put up with whatever comes out of the camera as long as it isn't blurred. I have enough trouble growing the damned things without worrying about pictures of them.

And I thought it was only me!

 

[Tony Willis]

We can all take bad photos. I posted a truely awful photo last week to try and get comments and although it was viewed at least 10 times no-one commented. If I dont have a good enough photo to share I dont use it. It's so easy to go outside and take another set

For some of us it definitely is not.A good camera helps but not all of us are a budding Lord Litchfield.  I think if it is an interesting plant better to share a poor picture than none at all, which is the method I have to use quite often.

[Maggi Young]

I am constantly delighted by the high calibre of photography shown in the forum  but I am also very aware that I would rather see a fuzzy photo of a plant or someone's garden than not see it at all.
If someone is giving a public talk then I do expect  high quality potographs but this is a forum where we can all discuss, show and enjoy the plants that we are all so fascinated with.....it's not the exam section of the Royal Photographic Society!! 
 By all means strive to improve.. whether that's in growing your plants or taking photographs of them, but, mostly, just DO IT.... and SHARE!!!