In Dunedin we recently had a weekend of misty overcast days. These conditions were perfect for soft flat light photography. I had been visiting the Dunedin Botanic Garden to scout a location for an upcoming family photoshoot, when I noticed how lovely the flowers were looking. Under the flat light their colours popped and many were bejewelled with dew drops adding interest to their petals and branches. I had my portrait lens with me the GF 110mm F2 for framing scenes for the upcoming family session, but I couldn’t resist taking a few photos. What started out as a bit of fun turned into a weekend of colour and peaceful relaxation. I hardly ever take images of flowers as I find them hard to compose. However, I thought it might be easier (and fun) for me to manage my compositions by using the XPAN crop ratio option on my GFX. The XPAN crop uses half of the sensor and creates a panoramic aspect ratio of 65:24. I was hoping that the restriction of view would help me create pleasing images.

SATURDAY

All the images I took on Saturday were hand held. Shooting the GF 110mm at f2 with minimal focus distance only gave a sliver of focus plane to work with. So I just experimented with how much i stopped down to get more in focus.

Fujifilm GFX 50sii, GF 110mm @F2.8, ISO 250, 1/500sec. Another image I loved. The colours and the almost painterly out of focus areas were very pleasing.

SuNDAY

I really enjoyed the experience of slowing down and taking images of the flowers on Saturday. On Sunday when I returned, I thought I’d be even more deliberate by mounting my camera on a tripod. By doing so I could also look at trying to focus stack some scenes to get more in focus while maintaining a lovely creamy bokeh with out of focus areas. I still just shot with the GF 110mm.

I really enjoyed photographing the Dunedin Botanic Garden over the weekend. The fresh colours were an absolute joy to capture. The XPAN crop gave me the ability to more easily compose an ordered image and the GF 110mm performed admirably. Using a tripod gave me the advatnage of setting my composition and selectively focus stacking the image. However a disadvantage was not being able to get the best angle on all occasions as the tripod is not as flexible as the camera being handheld. Finally, a word of thanks to the staff at the Dunedin Botanic Garden who are doing a splendid job on my cities public garden.