Magnolia inside
Lensbaby Velvet Lens for selective focus used
Lensbaby Velvet Lens for selective focus used
Read less
Read less
Apr, 2020Views
1586
Likes
Awards
Chatter Award
Zenith Award
Curator's Selection
Top Shot Award 22
Spring 21 Award
People's Choice in Capturing The Purple Color Photo Contest
Peer Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
Magnificent Capture
Superior Skill
Genius
All Star
Top Ranks
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rankTop 10 rank week 1
Top 10 rank
Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
My direct neighbor has a beautiful garden, among others with a large Magnolia tree, showing its beautiful blossoms despite frosty days in late April. Thus, I only had to go out of my house daily to check the progress of the blossoms waiting for the perfect easily reachable blossom, which also is not covered by the leaves usually appearing some days later.Time
In the afternoon, when I took the photo, the sun usually still send some beams through the spruce forest located in front of this magnolia tree, nicely smoothly illuminating the Magnolia blossoms avoiding too harsh shadow castingLighting
I wanted this image to look smooth and evenly illuminated, thus I took the photo in the afternoon, when there is no direct sun at this place, but some light from behind .Equipment
I used a Nikon Z7 with a Lensbaby velvet 80 lens at an open aperture, guess 2.8 (not in the exif file, since the lensbaby lens is mainly a manual lens), no tripod necessary due to the high shutter speed, usually I do not use flashes but rely on the natural light. Theopen aperture helped to really focus on a view places in the blossomInspiration
Magnolia trees with their overwhelming blossoms in the early spring always attract me, perhaps also because they are among the first blossoms in spring in Germany. However, in my view, it is not easy to take interesting and attractive pictures, maybe because of the number of blossoms, such that it is difficult to focus on only one, and also to the fact that the picture easily looks too crowded, therefore I tried to focus on a single blossom with focus on its beautiful interior, the anthers being nicely arranged, the use of an open aperture with this Lensbaby lens even more emphasized the anthers with a very shallow depth of field .Editing
I only used Lightroom here for contrast and clarity increase, focusing on the anthersIn my camera bag
This is my camera, the Nikon Z7, several macro lenses, like the Nikkor 105, the Sigma 150, Lensbaby Velvet 80, Lensbaby Sweet 50 + diopter, Lensbaby Composer (I am a Lensbaby fan) but also the Nikon kit lens 24-70 S, the Nikon 70-200 lens, and a wide angle lens Nikkor 14-30 S. In my bag there is also a cable release shutter (rarely used), a second SD card, lots of ND filter (NISI), replacement battery packs and a Gitzo tripod.Feedback
It is useful to check certain flowers / plants regularly for the best time point to shoot, if wanted, with blossoms open, not faded and so on. Also the direction and height of the sun is really important for getting a certain mood. In my view it is not necessary that everything of a blossom is sharp, personally I like selective focus a lot, leaving room for fantasy and generating a more simple picture.
