Helleboreae
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Warren, Connecticut. My friend Zarinna had a bowl full of these flowers floating in water. What a great idea and the water made for a great "armature" to hold the flowers upright for shooting.
Hellebore on wikipedia.
These are gorgeous flowers and perfectly photographed. I especially like the light interior against the dark leaves of photo number 2. Great job Richard.
Thanks Scott, I’m glad you like them. I haven’t done much flower photography in a while and it was nice to use the new 100mm macro which is a nice lens.
After looking at these several more times I am impressed with the tonal variation and beautiful lighting, complete sharpness of focus throughout the frame, and the stunning clarity of the composition. Besides the fact that you are a great photographer, how much do you attribute to the IS aspect of your new 100 macro? I use my 100 macro about 50% of my shooting. Is it worth the price to upgrade? Your thoughts, sir.
Scott: Thanks for the kind words on these shots. They’re far from perfect but they’re definitely good enough for sharing. Here’s what I posted on flickr for Jonne in Finland on the new 100mm macro lens.
I shot these flowers a few days before these shots were taken, same camera and lens sans tripod and with IS and I wasn’t as happy with the results. One of these shots is from that session, it’s the only one shot at f/4.
I like to use my “flexpod” to get camera and lens square with the subject. If this were in my studio I’d have used a level on the lens.
Notice the shutter speed (10 seconds). Adil couldn’t believe it was so long but I had them turn out all the interior lights and this was just lit by dim window light as it was snowing out and no direct sun.
This is exactly the way I like to do shots like this and I had to do no white balance adjustment in Lightroom because the color is accurate.
Even though I turned off the IS, I have to say that I like this lens better than the older non-IS version if for no other reason that it’s sturdier and I feel more comfortable having it in a bag. My other older 100mm macro broke twice and was much more fragile. Optically both lenses are spectacular and it’s hard to tell them apart although my uncritical eye likes this one better. Could be self-fullfilling rationalization though.
The bottom line for me is, because I like to do this kind of shooting slowly, on a tripod, with no artificial light, etc. there is little reason to upgrade the lens except if it’s breaking in your bag from being too light weight. The lenses are so optically close that it’s really more a matter of technique.
However, if you’d like to handhold shots like this and feel that you can’t without the IS then it’s worth considering.
You can rent the new 100 macro from lensrentals.com and if you’re seriously considering it I’d do just that and compare it with your current lens.
http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/canon-100mm-f2.8-l-is-macro/for-canon
Perfect? We don’t need no stinking perfect, we’re photographers and the world ain’t perfect. Quite a philosophy, eh? I think they are great photos and better than good enough. So there. Thanks for the re-post on the lens. I’ll have to stick with my original 100mm for now since I’m having no problems with it.
Scott: I’m delighted you like them given that I’ve not done much of this type of photography lately and wondered if I still knew how.
Stick with your “old” 100 until it breaks, then consider the higher end one as a replacement.