rosebloom

Rose Blooms in September
I have chosen to display some photographs that I took this morning of the last blooms of the season on the rose bush in our backyard. Unfortunately, the weather was not ideal for outdoor photography. It was overcast, so I experimented with custom white balance settings. We have a new digital camera, and are still learning the ropes. These photos are all much more interesting as larger images. **If you click on the image on this page, it will blow up to a larger size**. All of the photographs were taken in aperture priority mode. I wanted to have control of the depth of field and did not feel that shutter speed was particularly important as the rose bush was holding nice and still for me.

This photo was taken with an ISO of 200, a shutter speed of 1/250 sec and an aperture of f 5.6. I wanted a large aperture so that the depth of field would be short - highlighting the bloom and leaving much of the rest of the picture in soft focus. I was happy with the color dispite the poor lighting. The white balance is set at 5200°K

The second photo was taken as a wider shot to give more perspective and show where the rose blooms are in relationship to the rest of the bush. For this shot the ISO was set at 1000 with a shutter speed of 1/640 sec and an aperture of f 7.1. The white balance remains set at 5200°K which is a temperature that seems to be good for overcast conditions.

This photograph provides a side view of the blooms. It was taken with an ISO of 200, shutter speed of 1/200 sec and an aperture of f 5. The lens on our camera is a 17-85mm lens that does not allow for photographs to be taken extremely close-up to the subject. We really enjoy macro photography and are considering getting a lens that might be better for these situations.

I wanted to include at least one vertical photograph for variety. This image was taken with an ISO of 200. The shutter speed was 1/250 sec and the aperature was f 5. I experienced some frustration due to our lack of a macro lens for this shot. I set the lens to manual focus and did the best I could to keep it sharp.

This is my favorite shot of the day. I would probably crop the shot differently, but the detail is very good. I recommend clicking on the image to see a larger size. The ISO was 200, speed 1/250 sec and the aperture was f 5.6. I used spot metering because I wanted the camera to give lighting priority to the bloom only rather than averaging the entire frame.