Flower Macros

I decided the other day to do a quick post about how I tend to take macro shots and what the post procedures usually are. After evaluating all the settings and lightroom post-work, I've determined the following things as pretty standard for my macro shooting habits.

I vignette mostly everything. I can only guess at the reasoning - I think my composition straight out of the camera is usually pretty chaotic around the edges. I tend to ignore what's going on around the edges when I take shots. Perhaps I should start thinking about then when I look through the viewfinder.

I enjoy some presets, in general, half of the time. And really to be honest, I really only enjoy the punch preset. It bumps the clarity and vibrance of the shot, which, when you're working with bright flowers and lots of colorful bokeh, probably helps make the shot less drab.


Orange

lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, aperture priority
aperture: f/4
shutter speed: 1/25s
focal length: 105mm
ISO: 100
lightroom: preset: punch, vignetting

Yes it's a bit hard to find the focal point on this shot - it appears to be the lower right flower where it meets the stem-ish. However, I love love love the watercolor kind of bokeh and the colors are fabulous. This shot was outdoors and there was a bit of cloud cover.


Be a Star

lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, aperture priority
aperture: f/4
shutter speed: 1/160s
focal length: 105mm
ISO: 100
lightroom: negative exposure bias, vignetting, slight green tint, slighter yellow temp adjustment, slight blue saturation calibration

These flowers are about the size of half of my pinky nail. They are deliciously dainty and I was a bit mad at myself that I didn't have my 70-200mm so I could get more in its face. I'm pretty sure my lightroom tweaks messed up my blue bokeh and created some chromatic aberration effects on the left bottom corner, but I could not take the lighroom anymore so I just left it. Unless I look at the left bottom corner, I forget about the CA completely. I love the blue bokeh otherwise.


Belles

lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, aperture priority
aperture: f/4
shutter speed: 1/50s
focal length: 105mm
ISO: 100
lightroom: slight negative exposure bias, dropped brightness, bumped contrast, added vignetting

I'm not happy with this shot at all - or really, I'm not happy with the flower macro part. The bokeh is astonishing to me though. I hate the purple of the bells, because to the naked eye? They were blue. And I futzed with this shot way too much in lightroom, so after about 30 minutes I stripped the history back to nothing and just did a few key changes and called it a night.


Middle-aged

lens: Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM, aperture priority
aperture: f/5.6
shutter speed: 1/160s
focal length: 105mm
ISO: 100
lightroom: preset: punch, vignetting

The wrinkles on the petals make me happy. The red and white petals are equally nice. I'm underwhelmed by the leaves and bokeh background, but as this was shot outdoors under very bright light, I'm very pleased that it wasn't extremely blown out.

All of these shots were handheld with IS turned off, outside at a park with lots of gardens and either under cloud cover or bright sun. As I cannot control the weather (shocking, I know), I just went ahead and shot a bunch in bright sun because I am a rebel like that.

I am in the mood to change up my approach to flower macros - have any signature moves to share?