When you want to fill the frame with lush peonies, these are 3 things you need to watch out for:
1. your camera Thinks all flowers are grey
On aperture priority, this is the camera's auto exposure
The camera exposes everything for a mid-grey tone. The camera doesn't know you are shooting white flowers - it assumes they are mid-grey, so it calculates its exposure for a mid-grey flower. To override this, either dial in plus 1-2 stops of exposure compensation, or shoot on manual mode.
Learn exactly how the camera exposes, in my free workshop
If you have never heard about the mid-grey thing before, sign up for my free online workshop which explains it all in a step by step, entirely understandable manner. You'll never have photos that are too dark again:
2. Without a reflector the image will have uneven light
The lighting set up here is very simple: indirect natural daylight coming from above the peonies (to the right in the image above). Notice the reflector propped up against the tripod legs: it is a sheet of 5mm foamcore and reflects enough light back onto the near peonies to even out the light.
Without a reflector the near peonies are in the shade of the peonies immediately above them
3. If your camera is not perfectly parallel to the table the flowers will seem to slope
Can you tell that the camera was pointing too much towards the bottom of the frame, and wasn't perfectly parallel to the peonies?
This post is one in a series. Read the rest here:
