Perfect petals

Capture the power of flowers with these colourful close-up techniques

1 Use a tripod

When shooting on a macro lens, everything becomes exaggerated, including small adjustments. A tripod will give you the best base to work from and ensure your shots are a lot sharper by reducing any camera shake when taking your photos. You can also buy a dedicated macro tripod with microadjustments built into the head.

2 Shoot with a mid-range aperture

Select an f-stop of around f/8 to f/11, which will help create a greater depth of field and mean that more of your flower is sharp. Each lens will have its own ‘sweet spot’ for optimal sharpness, usually a couple of stops down from maximum aperture, so try to find yours.

3 Switch to manual focus

In most circumstances, autofocus is highly reliable. However, when working within such small margins for error, it can often be better to take back control yourself. When shooting flowers outdoors, they may blow in the wind and give traditional AF a hard time.

4 Use focus peaking

To make manual focus easier, use the focus peaking option in your menu. By turning this setting on, you can choose a colour (often red, white, yellow or blue) to digitally highlight the area in focus on your camera’s LCD screen. This is often critical when working up close.

5 Shoot in the shade

Where possible, try to find flowers situated in shaded areas. This will allow for softer diffused light (from the sun) and make your shooting conditions far easier. Your overall exposures will remain more consistent and the final look will have a more natural feel.