[First, a shout out to Cee Neuner who was the inspiration for my motivation to learn how to capture a decent image of a flower. Cee shared the harrowing account of surviving the wildfires that have ravaged the west coast of the United States.]
I commented on the Art of Macro that floral photography was not my specialty. The images were always fuzzy with a blurry pistil and soft edges around the petals.
What was I doing wrong?
Standing too close to the flower. Because the camera will focus at 3-inches from the subject, I tended to position the lens on the flower, pull back until focus was acquired and then click the shutter.
It seemed logical that the best way to capture the flower’s natural beauty was to get as close as the lens would focus. Instead, it produced images that were terribly soft and lacking bokeh (the blurred background that allows the image to pop with vivid color and detail).
The Solution?
If focusing up close produced unpleasing results then doing the opposite should be the fix. Right? In the header photo, I stepped back 3-feet and was able to capture a decent, but not perfect image at 55mm. What I’m looking for is maximum bokeh and petals that are crisp out to the edges. The flower in the foreground is okay, but the other two are soft.
You can see what I mean in the photo below. The patch of background flowers are completely blurred thus allowing the foreground to pop. I was standing ten feet away focusing at 250mm.
The remaining photos were captured at least six feet away focusing at macro 250mm.
In Pics and Words 
Good job! Lesson learned. Are you using a macro lens?
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Yes, the Canon EF-S 55-250mm macro lens.
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Nice shots. Depending on your focal length and aperture you can also get a nice out of focus background when the background is one or two, or more feet away from your subject.
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I like using my long lens for macros. My Macro lens does a good job too.
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For sharp flowers and soft bokeh background, I usually use an aperture of around 9. But like David says there is a lot to it. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. These are great examples. 😀
Thanks for the mention. 😀
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Thank you, Cee. I will definitely play around with the settings. The photographs posted here were captured at f/5.6.
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I corrected the misspelling of your name. Spell check doesn’t fix mistakes like that.
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Incredibly beautiful!!
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The photos were captured with automatic settings, but David and Cee suggested I could get closer using manual settings while achieving similar results. It’s a good tip for amateurs like me to become more familiar with the camera’s capabilities.
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Great flower shots Say When. Be proud of them.
I will have to remember that next time I photograph some. I usually went in close and used an aperture like f/8 or greater. Problem is when you get in real close is the wind factor. Slightest breeze and it blows your sharp focus you was trying to get.
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Sorry David. Did not realize she shared your post. You did well young man!
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Beautiful images !!
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