I was traveling to Sussex County last week to visit a potential wedding venue for next year’s festivities. Yup, I’m engaged! With that said and me being my romantic self (or not), I was moved by the Dahlia gardens all over the property and snagged this unusual 16X9 HD crop of one of the red ones near the playhouse.

A little while back I was getting creative with a sunflower photograph and decided to crop it in a different way. Enter creative cropping. Remember these sunflower petals?

Well, I took this idea and ran with it to create an extremely dynamic composition. No cropping this time, though. All 12 megapixels are present and accounted for.

Magenta Columbine Flower

My community is filled with a bunch of interesting flowers. So many in fact, that I have infinite opportunity to create a new photo every day. If only I had the time… Kudos to our neighborly gardeners for keeping up with planting new ones all the time.

Shooting nature photos on a daily basis creates curiosity; at least with me. I always want to learn more about the subject after my shoot. I got lucky with researching this next flower because I had to dive in with no knowledge of its name. A quick search for perennial flowers in New Jersey and I nailed it on the first try. This is a Magenta Columbine flower.

I thought I’d show you all exactly how I use the Color Checker Passport in my workflow to attain a correct white balance this time around.

Have a look at the small sized color swatches in the first photo and note the top half. Pay particular attention to the third row with little icons that look like mountains and sunlight; this is the group of swatches that will be used to color correct landscape photographs. The center is neutral, the two leftmost add a touch of coolness, and the two rightmost will add a bit of warmth to your color palette.

To color correct your scene, you must shoot your photograph under the same lighting conditions and incident angles as your reference shot. Also, the same exposure values must be used; any shift, and your colors won’t be true. So, in order to do this accurately, move your camera dial to manual mode and get a proper meter reading for 18% grey.

Now that we have the proper exposure dialed in, take your reference shot and forget about it till you move to post.

Once you get your images into the software editing suite of your choice, find the little white balance eye dropper and click the neutral white target for landscape that I mentioned earlier. Take note of the white balance temperature and tint, or simply lift the adjustment and stamp your remaining photos. That’s it. You’re done!

Apple Blossoms

I am back to the same location I created Weeping Dream, but only this time the seasons have changed. Apple Blossoms and Cherry Blossoms are in bloom and those same bare trees are filled with beautiful color; we have overcast skies again so color saturation is at its best.

I recently picked up a new color management tool called the X-Rite Color Checker Passport and just incorporated its functionality into my workflow. In a few words, this thing rocks! I don’t see this handy little color checker leaving my side any time soon.

So, what’s it do exactly? Well, you can use the passport in a few ways; I opted to simply use it as a white balance tool within my photo management suite. I take a snapshot of the color checker in my scene under the same lighting conditions and shooting perspective and swatch the landscape neutral target. I even have the option to add coolness or warmth to the photo by clicking the landscape swatches in either direction. Triple awesome.

Purple Hyacinth

Spring has sprung and the available flower assortment proves it. I stumbled upon a pretty patch of purple Hyacinths a few days ago and have been waiting for a cloudy day to reveal their beautiful colors.

Updated for 2013

I’m using a new macro technique (new to me) today called focus stacking; essentially, you take a bunch of frames with manual focus at the same exposure and bring focus to different areas of your photograph in each shot. you need the following setup for the best results:

• A tripod for stability
• Macro focusing rails

First, set your lens focus to the desired macro scale. Once its set, do not touch it again.

Your lens probably has markings for 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, and so on. Line up your focus scale mark to the center and nail down your distance away from the subject.

Now you’re ready to set your exposure and start shooting some frames. Start at your subject’s closest features and work your way to the back by sliding the focus rail forward. Small movements make dramatic focus differences so move the rail carefully and take your time.

Depending on your subject distance, you may need to slide right or left and stitch a panorama so it’s a good idea to make sure you have x and y axis rails on hand.

Import and Stack

After importing the set, you merge the frames together and a focus stacked photo is born.

In the case of the daffodil, I wanted to emphasize the petal and leave other features out of focus. So, I took three shots at f/4.5 – one for the closest petal edge, one for the center petals, and lastly, one for the top of the petal ring. Adding focus to more frames generally creates a sharper photo when merged together, but since this is my first time, I opted to merely test the technique.

Yellow Daffodil to Kick Off Spring

Oops, I flubbed. I mistakenly shot this yellow daffodil with the focus stacking technique at ISO 3200. Luckily, my camera sensor resolves great detail with little noise through ISO 3200 and is generally acceptable at ISO 6400. I lose some dynamic range at higher ISO, but all is not lost. ISO 3200 is totally unnecessary, though. Especially in daylight. So, if you’ve been away from shooting for a while, remember to reset your camera before you use it again.