Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

A pure white Asian lily hybrid (there are thousands of crosses and selections from dozens of species.)

I lighted it from the side to bring out some texture in the white petals.

Mike

Asiatic lily on Flickr

Swamp-Cork Loc: Lanexa, Virginia

Dixiegirl Loc: Alabama gulf coast

What a wonderful variety of textures in this beautiful image, Mike, and I love the brilliant color against the white petals!

HOT Texas Loc: From the Heart of Texas

WOW, Thats Beautiful and Beautiful shot!!!!!!

EnglishBrenda Loc: Kent, England

Wow, that is a beautiful image.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Mike, this is stunning work. Thank you for the tip on lighting! Flickr doesn't show any exif on this one. Can you add it to your opening, and also if you used tripod or any special actions such as focus stacking? Your "secrets to success" will be greatly appreciated!

Chuckwal Loc: Boynton Beach Florida

Fantastic
chuck

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

Exquisite!

SENSORLOUPE

Beautiful! Love the detail

jackm1943 Loc: Omaha, Nebraska

Wow, nice job on this.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

Thanks, Linda.

I think my work flow strips the EXIF data out.

Here we go:

The ISO was 100, shutter speed 1/50th sec., aperture f/5.6.

I use a Canon 5DII with the Canon non-L 100mm macro lens and the Helicon focus bracketing tube. The focus bracketing tube sits between the lens and the camera and automatically advances the focus ring in the increments you set.

For lighting I used an LED bulb in a reflector directly over the subject, and an LED panel at 90 degrees to the subject coming from the left. I then place thin white polystyrene sheets in front of and under the blossom to bounce some fill light back onto the subject.

The camera was on a tripod, the mirror was locked up, and I used a cable release and burst mode. I took about 40 raw captures. Those were then tweaked a little and converted to 16 bit TIFF files in Canon's Digital Photo Professional. The images were then combined with Zerene and a little touch-up was done on the final image which was exported as a TIFF. I use an old version of Paint Shop Pro to create downsized JPEG files for posting online.

That whole process from set up to final product took about 45 minutes. This was taken indoors, but I use more or less the same approach outdoors, although wind and harsh sunlight are issues that you have to deal with outdoors.

Magnification is about 1:3 on this one (a big flower).

Mike

tommyII Loc: Northern Illinois

Beautiful image.

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

Thanks, Donna. I caught the red anthers at peak color before they started to fade. Asian lily hybrids are pretty spectacular flowers, aren't they?

Mike

Blenheim Orange Loc: Michigan

Johnny, Brenda, Chuck, Carol, SENSORLOUPE, jackm1943, tommyII - thanks for the comments, everybody!

Mike

rockdog Loc: Berkeley, Ca.

Clearly written and so very helpful Mike, thank you!