all feedback welcome- clematis flower

here is a picture I got the other day- no flash, all natural lighting. I am also wanting to know if this is 90* sidelighting?

I could not say about that but generally you are better off photographing flowers on cloudy or cloudy bright days with the exception of having sunlight back lighting the blooms.

Little dark, little blurry. Need a faster shutter speed, improved hand-holding technique, tripod, or some combination of the group to sharpen your shot.

What I like? The perspective - this flower has a lot of tentacles (stamens).

RON said:

I could not say about that but generally you are better off photographing flowers on cloudy or cloudy bright days with the exception of having sunlight back lighting the blooms.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I do take TONS of those pictures- I have SOO many pictures of flowers being backlit, it's crazy LOL! I will post some actually.

Moab Man said:

Little dark, little blurry. Need a faster shutter speed, improved hand-holding technique, tripod, or some combination of the group to sharpen your shot.

What I like? The perspective.

Click to expand...

Thanks! Okay- I will use a combination of those 3 on these types of shots. Would this be classified as 90* sidelighting, anyone know?

You should update you profile or add to your signature what camera you're shooting with. And... welcome.

Shooting across wide, flat flowers is also difficult, especially when lighting forces your settings -- where is your focus going to be? The petals at that angle are usually uninteresting and focusing on the stamen makes the blurring worse unless you can get a lot of DOF that close. Unless I have a specific purpose, I try to stay at least 30° above this type of flower's 'horizontal' plane.

Moab Man said:

You should update you profile or add to your signature what camera you're shooting with. And... welcome.

Click to expand...

yes, I will update my signature!

wev said:

Shooting across wide, flat flowers is also difficult, especially when lighting forces your settings -- where is your focus going to be? The petals at that angle are usually uninteresting and focusing on the stamen makes the blurring worse unless you can get a lot of DOF that close. Unless I have a specific purpose, I try to stay at least 30° above this type of flower's 'horizontal' plane.

Click to expand...

Okay, thank you! The focus was going to be the middle of the flower, and my goal was to do a 90* shot because that's one of my projects for my photography school, I will probably go back & reread that lesson.

LenspirationalPhotography said:

my goal was to do a 90* shot because that's one of my projects for my photography school, I will probably go back & reread that lesson.

Click to expand...

While Wev's suggestion is a good one, don't sweat it as you have a specific lesson you have to accomplish. Unless in your reread it's not a 90 degree shoot in the instructions LOL. Then you owe Wev for catching this LOL!

LenspirationalPhotography said:

The focus was going to be the middle of the flower, and my goal was to do a 90* shot because that's one of my projects for my photography school, I will probably go back & reread that lesson.

Click to expand...

For the sun to light your subject at a 90° angle, the sun should be lower in the sky--such as early morning or late in the evening. This would allow your subject to have one side of it lit.

Moab Man said:

While Wev's suggestion is a good one, don't sweat it as you have a specific lesson you have to accomplish. Unless in your reread it's not a 90 degree shoot in the instructions LOL. Then you owe Wev for catching this LOL!

Click to expand...

Thanks & yes the lesson says specifically to get a photo "using sidelighting to emphasize texture" it also says- "photograph an outdoor subject, with a surface that is emphasized by sunlight coming from about a 90* angle from the left or right". Can't use flash, & have to shoot in the early morning or evening (the picture taken in the thread was taken in the late evening as the sun was setting, in what photographers call "the golden hour".

hark said:

For the sun to light your subject at a 90° angle, the sun should be lower in the sky--such as early morning or late in the evening. This would allow your subject to have one side of it lit.

Click to expand...

okay, thank you!