Indoor Flower Photography

Our winter hasn't been much of a winter so far. Last year, there had been close to four feet of snow, with no end in sight. A couple of days ago the temperature hit 62 degrees. I am genuinely sadded that the winterscapes that I waited a year to take will have to wait another year.

Time to implement Plan B. About 20 minutes by car from my house, the New York Botanical Gardens offers a jump start on spring. This March the NYBG will kick off the Warm season with their 10th annual Orchid Show at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory - a gorgeous example of classical Victorian glasshouse. http://www.nybg.org/exhibitions/2012/orchid-show/

As far events go, this is a Big Deal that has thousands of orchids on display and will attract tens of thousands of visitors. There you can find a veritable kaleidoscope of colors, shapes and sizes of orchids. There is nothing quite like it in the NY Metro area and it is a wonderful way say goodbye to the Cold adn hello to the Warm.

Even though my camera has accompanied me to the Gardens for Orchid event each of the past 5 years, I never grow tired of taking pictures of these flowers. They are so beautifully intricate, with gorgeous colors and textures. And therein lies the rub - how to best capture their beauty in a photo for others to enjoy.

There are several challenges - some that have to do with photo technique, and then there are the NYBG safety rules. Under no circumstances will NYBG allow a tripod to be set up. You might think that your only option is to use a high ISO setting to allow a small enough aperture to maximize your depth of field.This is not optimal, as digital noise will increase dramatically as the ISO increases and you will lose image quality. But there are some simple alternatives.

The next challenge is how to best light the flowers. While many cameras have a weak, built-in pop-up speedlight option, its best to avoid it at all costs.I have never been happy with the results of on camera lighting. You will get a bright picture, but the flat (shadowless) lighting will fail to capture the textures and sensual shapes of these flowers. Instead, I prefer to use one more more off-camera speedlights - and not postioned anywhere near the camera.

When an unmodified speedlight  (subject receives light without benefit of any softening) is place at or near the camera's point of view to illuminate a subject, the resulting image is characteristically flat and boring. This is ok for paparazzi grabbing shots of a celebrity, or for news and journalistic photography, but not what you want for flowers. It can also produce distractingly harsh shadows and hot-spots. You are likely to get pictures that look like this:

Photographers sometimes ask me about my lighting setups and why I don't use a flash bracket. I always remind them that light illuminates, shadows define. This axiom is as true with faces and bodies as it is with flowers. A light source at or near the camera's axis pointed at the subject result in pictures like the one above. In this case, the light was above the camera. I do own a flash bracket, but use it only in certain situations, usually indoors, and the light is nearly always bounced off a surface, or using a large bounce card that is attached to the light.

Flowers will take on a vivid three dimensionality when using diffused off-camera lighting. Given the constraints at the NYBG, this is the first challenge - how to best control the lighting on a flower. You will need the following "stuff" to get great, professional-looking flower pics.

• A lens capable of sharp results, some image magnfication, and a focal length that gives you enough working room to get a nice-sized image on the sensor
• A speedlight (or two)
• A trigger mechanism
• A light modifier
• A friend to help you carry and hold the "stuff"

Lens. I alternate between a Sigma 18-50 F2.8, a Sigma 150 F2.8 Macro (above), and a Nikon 18-200 F3.5 - 5.6. These give my pictures excellent sharpness and the zooms offer flexibility with working distances. There is no right and wrong here, and there are many lenses to pick from. A good rule of thumb is to have more than one option available.

Speedlight. Ebay is a great place to find inexpensive Vivitar or Sunpak speedlights that offer outstanding power, manual controls, a thyristor to offer some degree of "auto" light level control and an exceptionally reasonable price. I personally own 7 Sunpak units, Auto 444D, 433D, 433AF,  383 Super - none of which cost me more than $30. In fact I don't think I paid more than $150 for all 7. These speedlights have a wonderful aged tube that gives an ever-so-slightly pleasingly warm tone - excellent for flowers and people, a output, and 5 stop adjustment in light output from full power to 1/16 power.

If you are uncomfortable with buying used stuff and don't want to spend tons of cash on Big Name Branded speedlights, you can always purchase one of these comparatively inexpensive manual speedlights like  http://mpex.com/vivitar-285hv-flash.html for $110, or one of these http://mpex.com/lumopro-lp160-manual-flash.html for $160, or if you have a compatible camera with TTL capability, even one of these http://mpex.com/lumopro-lp160-world-record-edition.html for $230. The Lumopro LP160 is quite a unit, with all sorts of options, high output, an unusual 7 degree downward tilt for close up and macro work, and decent construction.


Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to manually control my speedlights, instead of allowing the camera/meter system to adjust the lighting. This is the way I learned, and found it to be a versatile way to work - easy to set up and easy to adjust on the fly. Sorta like learning to drive a stick shift car - once you learn how it feels perfectly natural and you appreciate the greater control it offers. After a while you get a feel for distances and flash levels and things get even easier. When all is said and done, you will not be able to tell if you made your picture with a $500 Nikon SB900, a $1000 Quantum or a $10 used Sunpak Auto 444D. Really!

Avoid purchasing gear labeled as macro lights, ring lights and the much heralded Nikon R1C1 Closeup Speedlight system that will set you back $775. Unless you are doing really close up work or portrait photography and are looking for a particular look, you are likely to be disappointed and a whole lot poorer. The big issue with this when it comes to shooting flowers in a setting is that you will need some working distance, and the R1C1 is optimal for macro work when the front of the lens is less than one foot away - basically small subjects, up really close - insects, small flowers, etc. This is not possible in many situations.

Trigger. You can always purchase a cable and hotshoe to move your speedlight away from the camera, but you will be limited by the length of the cable. Wireless trggers are a welcome alternative that come in a wide variety of flavors and prices.


These will range from a $20 optical slave that will sense the light from a speedlight  and fire at the same time (actually several microseconds after) the primary flash goes off, to infrared, which is available in external untis like these, or built into several camera manufacturers' systems and can fire multiple flash units with one as a commander, to radio controlled triggers that fire when the shutter is pressed on the camera. Some speedlights, like the LP 160, have a built-in optical slave.

The whole point of using a remote flash is to put the light precisely where you want it. The wireless option gives you total flexibility, while the tethered approach is less costly. Optical slaves may not work in brightly lit areas, and still require a speedlight to trigger them. Typically the trigger is a camera-mounted light set to a very low level, just barely enough light to offer some fill and trigger the slave. I find that infrared, which requires line of sight between the units, is also a bit to constraining for me.

Which is why I opted for radio wireless control. I looked at the industry standard Pocket Wizards and quickly came to the conclusion that with my old school ways I was less likely to use all of the automatic functionality, and decided to go with a well, reviewed Chinese-made, Ebay sourced, radio frequency trigger, and save the $100s I would have spent on the Pocket Wizards in my pocket to buy more "stuff." A set of one trasmitter and 4 receivers of the Chinese triggers will set you back $95 or so. A similar setup with the ability to control 4 speedlights using Pocket Wizard IIs would cost $850 before tax and shipping. For certain the Pocket Wizards offer some serious build quality and a very nice feature set - but for the money, the RF602 provides all that I need - a reliable means of triggering the flash without wires, optical or infrared. This was a no brainer!

I Purchased Yongnuo radio triggers on Ebay directly from http://myworld.ebay.com/hkyongnuophotoequipment/?_trksid=p4340.l2559

Yongnuo RF 602 - http://www.ebay.com/itm/RF-602-Flash-Trigger-Nikon-D700-D300-D200-D3-D3X-D2X-D1X-D1H-w-2-Receivers-/180758222521?pt=UK_Photography_StudioEquipment_RL&hash=item2a160796b9

Light Modifier. Simply put, the light coming from a speedlight is a point source - bright, harsh and unforgiving for most subjects. Which is why there are so many products out there that provide a way to modify or soften the light.  For our purposes, the options are divided into two basic categories - things that you shoot through and things that you bounce light against.

The shoot through devices are semi-transparent or translucent materials that you place between the light and the subject. These can take the form of a small softbox, a light tent, or screen, that effectively diffuses and enlarges the light source, scattering the light as the it reaches the subject. I have even seen a photographer using a tiny umbrella like this one:

When I use any of my diffusers, shadows are soft and ill-defined - very easyon the eyes and not at all distracting - exactly what you want for flowers. Illumination is very even with no hot spots. This type of lighting is lower in contrast - a good thing. It's easy to add back some contrast in post processing, but it is much harder to fix an overly contrasty image.


Diffusing devices can also take on the form of tupperware-like attachments that you place over the light, behaving like a large bare tube light. These work best when the light is in very close proximity to the subject, and you have the ability to bounce light from adjacent walls and ceilings, making it a poor choice for shooting flowers in a greenhouse. Besides, beyond a certain distance the behave more like a point source with all of its hard shadows and hotspots. With a little ingenuity you can fashion one of these diffusers out of almost anything - a Chinese soup container, bubble wrap, yogurt cup, even a white paper bag!

You can see this idea in action at blog http://www.digital-photography-school.com/diy-flash-diffuser-airline-barf-bags

The bounce or reflector type of modifier can be a collapsible bounce reflector like these - http://normanlights.com/bounce_reflectors.asp. When folded up they are very small and easy to carry, and offer a nice variety of surfaces - white, gold, sliver, black and translucent shoot through. These come in a wide variety of sizes, and can be round or rectangular.

A smaller version of a bounce idea is a product made by Peter Gregg called The Better Bounce Card - http://www.petergregg.com/a-better-bounce-card-3-0-large/. It comes in three sizes and attaches easily to your speedlight with velcro. The bigger ones give you a softer light especially when used in close proximity to the subject. These can be made from craft foam or cardboard - and is the source of inspiration of many DIY projects like this http://mcgrawphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/1427850. These are my favorite, since you can conceiveably hand hold both a camera and a speedlight with a bounce attached (at arms length) and still get some credible off camera lighting - all by yourself. Another approach I have used is to mount the speedlight on a bracket or on the camera's hot shoe, and rotate the head of the bounce the light off a different surface. That surface can be a wall, ceiling or even a person dressed in light colored clothing. In a pnch I have even used the palm of my hand.

Bring a friend. Someone who is ok holding a speedlight/reflector in close proximity to the flower. The value of a friend must not be underestimated. There is a synergy that takes place when someone is there to help. It frees your mind to look at things you might otherwise miss - backgrounds, stray light, depth of field, different angles, and in the case of the NYBG Orchid Show, the best flower to shoot among the many on display. Not to mention the comments from the visitors - "Ooh, he must be a pro with his assistant" or "direct questions like "what magazine are you shooting for?" and so on. The preseence of a friend sometimes encourages visitors to give you a little extra space and time to take your shots.

Shooting Tips.When shooting with a flash, for the most part the lens aperture setting will control the exposure, with the shuuter speed controlling the amount of ambient lighting effect. There are times when I want to use the flash to isolate the flower from the background as much as possible. This requires light on the flower to be much brighter than the ambient light. I turn up the power on the flash and move it in as close as possible, then use the fastest shutter speed you camera will allow. This will effectively eliminate most of the ambient light, with the only light being that which is reflected by the subject.With careful placement of the speedlight and a little trial and error usually get good results.

Sometimes I want to see the background, but want it blurred so it is not distracting. Here is where I combine two techniques - open the lens as wide as possible to give you a short depth of field and a nicely blurred background, and a slow shutter speed that will introduce some ambient light. Using F2.8 or F4 I get good "focal" separation, and a shutter speed of 1/60 or so helps to add a good amount of ambient light. When possible I sometimes try to come in as close as possible with a wide lens opening, to further limit focusing on the background. Again, some trial and error works well for me in these situations.

All these words about getting geared up to take pics of flowers. I thought it best to show a few examples of my favorite flower pics - and just let them speak for themselves.