Capturing White Flowers

[amarsaleem]

Hi,

 

I have been trying to get a clean sharp picture of white flowers;

but no real luck in terms of sharpness. This photo was taken on a

cloudy afternoon and now that I have had some real good feedback

from you folks on my other photos, I believe I have overexposed this

one as well.

 

What would be the trick to sharply capture the texture of a white

flower/object?<div></div>

[mbb]

You have to get correct exposure first. This photo is overexposed.<div></div>

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

Amar - Yes, you have an exposure problem. How did you meter your shot? Have you tried using an incident meter? A spot meter is fine, too, if you adjust the reading to the refelctivity of your metered subject (Or meter the palm of your hand and open up one stop).

 

Robert

[akira]

Hi, Amar,

 

I also think that the white flower of your picture is overexposed.

 

The white portion in the entire picture is so small that the center-weighted or even muti-patterned meter may have decided the exposure value more in favor of greens surrounding the flower, which inevitably leads to the overexposure of the white texture of the flower.

 

Besides the elegant suggestions by Robert, if you know more about the unique behaviour of the exposure meter in your camera, then you should be able to decide appropriate value of exposure compensation (in this case, -1.0 to -2.0EV maybe). Bracketting by 1/3 stops would be good way to nail down how much compensation you should apply.

 

Also, I may have detected very slight camera blurr in your picture (not the motion blurr of the flower because the entire picture looks blurred). The actual picture you posted is too small to make decisive judgement, so I might be wrong (which I hope), but if this is the case, you should be better to be careful about it, of course, even if you are using a tripod.

 

Hope this would be of any help.

 

Akira

[William Kahn]

Amar,

 

It's overexposed, for sure. Get closer, and you'll get a more accurate metering of the blossom itself. Then bracket a few shots, +/- one or two stops from the metered exposure.<div></div>

[dickhilker]

What film are you using? Slide films have relatively little latitude and therefore lend themselves to the problem as well. A tripod is a must for closeup work to avoid the overall lack of sharpness, assuming you've focussed carefully on the main subject.

[warren_kato]

You usually have to underexpose as other posters have advised. I think what is happening is that if all the detail in the white areas are crunched up in the shoulder of the exposure curve, there is no contrast in the white areas making it appear that they aren't sharp. What I did in the attached is to underexpose it a couple of stops and then steepen the white areas of the photo in PS to give it more contrast in just that limited area.

 

http://www.120scan.us/i/P6040286a.jpg

 

Hope this helps, but my suggestions require that you either scan or are using digital.

 

Warren

[jeff h.]

Simple solution: get a gray card and take a meter reading off it in the same light that is

illuminating your subject. Your camera's built-in meter is perfect. Apply the same

exposure values to your photo, and the exposure and white-balance should be correct.

[dan_fromm1]

Oh, no! Incident metering rides again!

[stwrtertbsratbs5]

I actually prefer spot meters (even though I advised incident above). I'd meter the white flower and try +1 1/2 or +2 stops.

 

Robert