Seasonal tips: Shooting snowdrops

Seasonal tip: Shooting snowdrops

By PA News Team

Techniques

03 February 2012 18:00

Snowdrops are out now but how do you shoot them? To get the best from this small and low-growing flower you ideally need a macro lens or at least a lens with a macro facility in it. If you don’t have either, just focus as closely as you can with your lens because you’ll still get some lovely images.

Get yourself and lens down to the same level as the flower. Yep, this means lying on the floor so either wear clothes that will keep you dry if the ground is damp, or lie on something like a waterproof groundsheet.

A beanbag is useful to put under the lens and keep it steady, especially if you are shooting at slow shutter speeds. If you don’t own a beanbag, you can always put an old jumper inside a plastic bag, bunch it up tight, and use this as a makeshift shooting station.

Look for an attractive flower and concentrate all your attention on it. Early in the morning you might get dewdrops on the flower to further enhance the picture.

The flower is white, so take care with exposure. In fact, you might need to dial in one or two stops of exposure compensation to get it right.

Choose your background carefully too. You don’t want anything too distracting but you can opt for a contrasting colour such as the blue in our shot. The blue isn’t the real sky, it’s just a small bit of card positioned behind the subject.

Good luck with your snowdrop images. Why not upload them to the Photo answers galleries? You can do that here…