Primal-Beauty
May, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo in 2007 in Red Bluff on private property that was adjacent to a creek and was full of wild plants.Time
It was sunny late afternoonLighting
In the area, I was walking in, the light was a golden backlight low in the sky.Equipment
At the time I had a Nikon D200 and had my Nikon 200 mm f/4 Micro lens mounted. This was my favorite lens for capturing macro subjects because it was sharp, had a large working distance, and could easily be handheld. The settings were f/7.1, 1/500, ISO 320, Aperture Priority, and handheld.Inspiration
This was a simple plant, and I thought its spiral structure topped by flowers was interesting and the backlighting provided a beautiful hallo. Add to that the beautiful Bokeh provided by the 200 mm lens made the image compelling.Editing
At the time my primary post-processing software was Nikon's Capture NX2. It had many features that made the processing of the NEF easy to use with things like control points and the fact that Nikon SW did an excellent job of converting NEF's to TIFFs or JEPGs. It also stored all edits back in the NEF, so that an image could be revisited at any time and the edits redone. This software no longer supports modern Nikon hardware and has been replaced by Nikon NX Studio, which is still a work in process.In my camera bag
I have been on a total revision of my photography kit. I recently sold my old D200 after trying it as an IR'd camera and also sold the last of my DSLR equipment, although I did retain a few manual focus lenses that were used with my first Nikon F film camera, a 24mm f/2.8, 50 mm f/1.4, and a 55 mm Micro Nikkor f/2.8. I also sold my 200 mm f/4 Micro lens as it was a D lens and have a 105 mm Micro S lens to complement my current move to mirrorless which includes a Nikon Z7, 24-70 f/4 S, and 14-30 f/4 S lens. I retained the following F mount lenses to use with my Z7 with an FZ adapter. There is a 70-200 VR f/2.8 lens, a 300 mm f/4 PF lens, a 24-120 f/4 lens and a 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye which I have to manual focus because it is a D lens.Feedback
The old adage that" if you want to take great pictures get closer" really applies in spades in shooting macros. Look for simple interesting subjects, pay attention to both the quality and direction of the light. To isolate your subject from the background either a wide aperture or a close telephoto lens will do the trick.
