I just discovered a great resource to share: Greenpix goes into all of the issues of photography without wading so deep into the arcana that struggling would-be picture takers like me get lost. His latest post opens the floor to questions. Mine is: how the heck can I take a decent picture of white flowers? You may have noticed my frustration in this department. Several of the shots in recent posts (the Romneya coulteri, the ‘Casa Blancas’) were taken in bright daylight, so I thought once an overcast day came along, I would be home free.
Not so, and here are a couple of pix to prove it.
It’s almost as if the white burns out all detail. I know many of you have great success at this, because I have seen terrific shots on several of your blogs. Your input is always extremely helpful, and as soon as I hear from Greenpix on the subject, I will share it here. In the meantime, if you have posers of your own when it comes to photography, you might want to pop on over there and poke around.
Hey Ricki,
I’ve got a good (and easy) solution for you, but I want to take a few sample shots to illustrate my point. I’ll include both your original question and the fix in an upcoming post.
Mike
I’ll watch for answers here, as I def have the same problem. I just avoid them, usually.
Mike~That will be swell, and I will follow up here as well.
Jane~I have so many whites that they are hard to avoid. When Mike comes through, maybe we will no longer feel the need.
Do you ever edit your photos in MS Picture Manager? You can fiddle with the brights and do all kinds of fun edits. Picasa also has a fabulous free downloadable picture editor that allows you to straighten horizons among other things. I wouldn’t be without these fine tools. I also lower the aperture on my camera to get better shots of bright things. It’s best to photograph on a cloudy day but even then it can to be too bright for the whites so turning the aperture down then editing makes all the difference. Sometimes I still end up deleting the photo but it’s so much fun to play around with I don’t mind. Now the expert will probably say something completely different. LOL
Grace~Wouldn’t you know that just when I am getting all this great advice I seem to have misplaced my camera’s users’ manual. It really is fun to experiment. I use Photoshop and PhotoBase to fiddle around with shots after the fact, but am really trying to learn how to get the best possible use out of my camera. In the past, just as I was getting to feel comfy with a camera, it would break or I would lose it. TRYING to be very careful with this one, but when in the thrall of a garden, it’s easy to be distracted.