Description: Cape fuchsias are members of the figwort family and are native to South Africa. Although native to South Africa, they are very popular nectar sources for hummingbirds. I decided to photograph these flowers from a hummingbird’s perspective. Although it is an ungainly composition, I was striving for soft lighting that shows some shading for providing depth to each flower…Jim
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Pertinent technical details or techniques: D850 105mm f2.8 micro ((1/40 sec, f16, ISO=80, 3 flashes set on TTL at various power pointed at the flowers with a single flash bounced off a white surface to light up the lower portion of the petals. Plant was placed in a light tent with a black velvet background.
Is this a composite? (focus stacks or exposure blends are not considered composites) No
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I will be taking a higher mag/ more macro-view of a couple of the flowers because there is some texture due to glandular hairs on the petals. So stay tuned for a better comp…Jim
I think you need more of these open for it to work. It’s a busy arrangement and maybe more blooms would help bring some cohesiveness to it. You might also want to focus stack to get all of the flowers sharp. The lighting set up looks good to me - nice and even and smooth. In post you could do some judicious cloning - for example the bit of green branch between the two lowest flowers blooming. With a black background it would be easy since it isn’t to get separation IRL. A lovely subject and I can see why they’d be a hummingbird favorite. Looking forward to seeing the close in shots.
Thank you @Kris_Smith . I will not try to do any editing of this photo and consider that I was able to get flashes working together for the exposure as a success. The buds at the tip of the inflorescence are starting to open and I will stack like crazy to get it perfect. I agree that the original comp has a lot going on and is very chaotic. …Jim
Nice shot, Jim, but I do agree it’s kind of busy. Lighting looks great. I think if you could isolate a single open flower, it would make for another interesting project.
