Fern macros (kind of)

[Reschsmooth]

I saw some monochrome photos of branch and leave sillhouettes (sp) in a magazine that I thought I would like to copy.

Here are my feeble attempts using a maiden hair firm, 85mm lens and 1x & 2x macro filters.

C&C appreciated.









All hand held, ambient light, 1/60th - 1/100th, f1.6 - 3.5

[dawesy]

I like the idea, and the choice of background is good. I think though that some more DOF would make these better. More of the plant being a crisp outline will have more impact, and make it a stronger image. Of course that's potentially a tough thing to do if they're blowing around in the wind!!

[Reschsmooth]

Thanks for the feedback.

The background was the splash back behind the stove top, light by the exhaust fan light. I dialled the WB to a nice warm colour.

There was no wind as it was indoors.

I should have gone for a smaller aperture, but hand held, I would have had to drag the shutter speed down too far (I couldn't be bothered getting the tripod). The macro filters have a significantly shallow DOF regardless of aperture used anyway.

[dawesy]

Ah, it has a look of a being shot into sunset which I liked. Perhaps if you could light the background more strongly to get the aperture smaller, you could use a desk lamp or even a strobe and then just use WB to get the colour, and focus the light somehow to get the fall off you want.

I do think with a little tweaking you could get some great shots, and it lends itself to other silhouettes as well.

[BT*ist]

I agree with the discussion points above

I reckon the first is the strongest image... I'm not sure, but I think I prefer the 'stronger' (not necessarily sharper - but merely not as 'transparent') silhouettes.