Photo: Sunflower Petals

I love that macro photography opens up a whole new world to explore without requiring a car or any long travel times or expense. Pure creativity! I actually realized when posting this how much I miss macro photography, which used to be my mainstay back in high school. My photo 'Sunflower Petals' was taken with a 100mm macro lens which is essentially a specialized lens (could also be good for portraits), but I carried around a 50mm macro lens for many years which was a great all-purpose alternative. One caveat: 50mm macro lenses (vs a 100mm macro) require you to be much closer to your actual subject, so it might not be ideal for creature photography (bugs, pets, ...). 

Some wide angle lenses can also work for nice close-ups (my Curve of The Earth photo is one example) and also show the distant scenery. My little point & shoot camera has a macro feature that works well at the widest angle (counter intuitive). You just have to physically get a lot closer to objects then you might be used to with a telephoto lens (we are talking centimeters away), but they do fill the screen and stay in focus.

For the photo I'm featuring in this post, the focal plane is very specific (lower/larger aperture), so the background becomes a beautiful blur to highlight the foreground subject.

Sunflower Petals

Copyright Laura A Knauth, All rights reserved.  
Please contact me for any usage or licensing options.

I planted a vegetable garden last year, and this was my first sunflower. :) After the rains stopped, I grabbed my macro & went out to take a few shots. Thanks for looking!

Location:

Backyard Garden

Technical Details:

Canon 50d 

100mm Macro Lens 

f/5, 1/30s, ISO 100

Additional Links for My Photography:

• My Photostream Slideshow in Lightbox
• My Most 'Interesting' Images on Flickriver.

by Laura A Knauth