I love taking photos of flowers. For one thing, unlike
humans and animals, you can take your time to compose your
shots till the cow comes home and they will not get bored.
However despite that, flowers are not the easier subjects
to be captured on film and will requires some careful planning
when shooting them.
Some standard gears required for flower shots includes
the standard zoom and a macro lense. A wide to medium zoom
will allows the capturing of a group of flowers and/or their
immediate surrounding (i.e. the garden).
Larger flower such as the lotus can also be captured similarly.
For close-up shots, a macro lense (No, I do not yet own
one. Any sponsors?) would have been extremely useful. For
those without a macro lense, a close-up filter (which essentially
acts as a magnifying glass) would be a good alternative.
A tripod and a flash would also be essential for such close-up
shots. The primary reason being that at such close range,
the depth of field would have been extremely narrow and
it would be neccessary to stop down the lens aperture to
the smallest possible. As such, the shutter speed would
often be far too low for the camera to be handheld steadily.
A flash would help improve the lighting and bring the shutter
speed to a more manageable one.
Having said that, here are a few locations in Singapore
where flowers and gardens can nicely be photographed. That
include places such as Chinese Garden, Mandai Orchid Gardens,
Botanical Garden and National Orchid Gardens. National Orchid
Gardens is located right within Botanical Garden, both of
which is my favourite locations for flower shots. As always,
be at the garden early for the beautiful morning lighting.