Wide Macro

I purchased a Laowa 15mm Wide Angle Macro Lens last year to photograph wildflowers. The advantage of this type of lens is that you capture the flower as well as the surrounding foliage, however, I struggled to get decent results. The issue was that I could not get a good exposure while maintaining image sharpness. This was mostly due to the subject moving in the wind. I decided that the only practical application was to use it on stationary objects (e.g. mushrooms, cactus flowers, etc.), however, I had an idea to use some of the knowledge gained from my recent trip to photograph large birds in the Gulf Coast. I set my camera on Aperture Priority mode (to lock in the depth of field) and set the ISO to Auto (with a range of 100-1600).

I went out to photograph Texas Wildflowers with one of my photography friends and I decided to spend some time using the lens with my new knowledge. We chose a day with low winds and went out early to take advantage of the good lighting. I looked for flowers that were illuminated by the early morning sun and I tried a variety of aperture settings. My results improved significantly from my early tests. I still need to work on getting softer backgrounds but I like the sharpness of the flower and the bee.

The flower in this photograph is a Greenthread (Thelesperma filifolium). I am not sure what the small sweat bee is. If you know please send me a comment and I will update this post. This photograph was taken at McKinney Falls State Park on one of the picnic trails.

This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5DS using my Laowa 15mm f/4 1:1 Macro lens set on. The camera was set on Aperture priority mode with the aperture set at f/11, shutter speed at 1/1250th of a second and the ISO set at 800.

You can access the profile for this flower by clicking here. Please use the section below to post your comments, questions or suggestions.

© 2016 T. Kahler Photography