Sharing of Experience: Plant Photography

[Vijayasankar Raman]

Dear Garg ji and all,

I feel this is high time to discuss about plant photography. Thanks to Dr. Rawat ji for pointing out the issue that is always there in our minds. Taking good plant picture, showing features that may be helpful in identification, is crucial and comes by experience. Since there are many expert photographers in our group, i wish, their experience can be shared among other members too. It will surely help this group in building up of a QUALITY image database of Indian plants with GOOD pictures.

In my experience, I learnt that just taking tight close up of flower (of course it will look beautiful) will not be enough and many pictures of the same plant showing a habit with habitat in the background, a twig that shows the arrangement of leaves and flowers and fruits etc. required to describe a species completely. For some species even number of seeds is a key character, hence, whenever i collect a Crotalaria species i always split a pod and take photo of seeds, at least to know the seeds are more than 30 or less than 10 etc. Similarly glands, exudations, stipules etc are to be covered in the picture to establish correct identity of certain species. 

So, the learners (new to photography) can ask questions (like how to set camera when the background light is more than that of the object? or how to focus a flower when its parts are in different planes? etc.) and the experts may like to answer based on their experience. As a learner, i have many questions relating to plant photography too and I hope many others also may need experts' advice in this regard.

Thank you

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With regards

R. Vijayasankar
FRLHT, Bangalore

[J.M. Garg]

Thanks, Vijayasankar ji,

It's a very good subject.

Just to start with, I offer a few broad suggestions for a layman (which will go a long way in improving ones' plant images) for plant photography:

1. Try to use 'Manual' focus instead of  'Auto' focus as it gives better control etc. Try to learn Manual Focus for those who has not  done so till now & see the dramatic results themselves.

2. Similarly use in-built 'Flash' in 'Manual' focus generally except where the plant/ flower is white or in bright sunlight.

3. Try to use ISO 100 or less to minimise noise, in a Manual/ Shutter priority/ Aperture priority mode.

4. Try to have shutter speed of 1/x or more if one is using Lens at x mm e.g. if one has set one's Lens at say 55 mm, shutter speed should be min. 1/55 sec. for a clear picture. 

5. One should use shutter priority mode (with small lenses say upto 65 mm) by setting shutter speed at 1/x to get more depth for brightly lit plants instead of aperture priority mode.

6. Process a bit for levels, shadow/ highlight and brightness/ contrast in suitable photo processing software.

2009/10/22 Vijayasankar Raman <vijay.b...@gmail.com>

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With regards,
J.M.Garg (jmg...@gmail.com)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmgarg1
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For learning about Indian Flora, visit/ join Google e-group- Indiantreepix:http://groups.google.co.in/group/indiantreepix?hl=en

[Vijayasankar Raman]

Thanks a lot Garg ji and Tiwari Ji, for quick response and valuable tips. So far i was not very confident in using 'manual' mode. Next time I am going to surely try it out using your tips.

And regarding processing of picture, I use photoshop for the purpose. But when i see the same pic in different systems (monitors) it looks different in brightness and contrast and even colour sometimes. Why that happens?

Thanks in advance

[Rajesh Sachdev]

Thanks Gargji,

I am using OLYMPUS SP570UZ camera, which is semi-SLR kind of prosumer camera, almost equuipped ith all function , which normally DSLR has. Kindly suggest few tricks for such camera holders who use digital equipments.

2009/10/22 J.M. Garg <jmg...@gmail.com>

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Regards
Rajesh Sachdev
------------------------------------------------------------
http://picasaweb.google.co.in/leopardguy
www.rajesh-sachdev.blogspot.com

[J.M. Garg]

Hi, Rajesh ji,

I think all the above basic points I suggested are applicable.
I would like others to share their experiences.

2009/10/22 Rajesh Sachdev <leopa...@gmail.com>

[rashida atthar]

Thank you Garg ji for the useful tips.  I will try out the manual focus, although the rest seems as complicated as Botany!.
 
regards,
Rashida.

 

 

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Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:33:50 +0530
Subject: [indiantreepix:21311] Re: Sharing of Experience: Plant Photography
From: jmg...@gmail.com
To: leopa...@gmail.com
CC: indian...@googlegroups.com

[Anand Kumar Bhatt]

Thank you Mr. Garg.
You can see the diference in photograph quality of 'Trees of Delhi' and 'Trees of Bombay'. Good equipments do make a difference. The Mumbai pictures obviously have been taken with a very basic camera, by an amateur who is not aware of even the basics of Photography. The photographer thought that straight light on the subject was good, the more the better.This has made the picture shiny, with the features of the tree and leaves lost. No effort has been taken to show the distinguishing features of a tree. A good pictorial representation would mean leaves, flowers, trunk (for bark) and fruit separately. In addition a hand drawing giving the overall shape of the tree. Pradeep Krishen is of course a professional and he has given a beautiful book.
ak

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