Purple reign

Use your macro lens at its widest aperture for a bold wash of rich colour

1 Careful composition

Set up your composition with the camera on a beanbag to keep it stable and close to the ground. The idea here is to frame one bloom with blurred flowers front and back, using the Live View screen as your framing guide.

2 Focus on the stamen

Either use a single AF point, or manually focus on the yellow stamen. Zoom in to check the accuracy of focus, but if using a beanbag, take great care not to move the camera’s position while you do so, because your depth of field will be minimal.

3 Dial in your settings

In Aperture Priority mode, set an aperture of f/2.8 and meter off the brighter stamen using Spot. In some lighting conditions you may need to use some negative Exposure Compensation to retain detail in the highlight areas.