Hi Mike:
As List members are probably bored to hear, I photographed plants in the
field for 25 years as a Conservation Biologist. Probably 100 field days
per year each year. My standard setup evolved (after MUCH
experimentation) into a T32 w/ Diffuser or ND4X on a Bounce Grip 2 with
a 50mm f/2 Macro Zuiko on a OM-2S. I went for manual flash exposures
(based on a table for various mag. ratios) 1 to 2 stops brighter than
the ambient light, which required me to match the film speed to the
subject lighting so that I could get 1/60th or 1/30th at f/11 to f/20.
That would require ISO 25 or 50 speed film in open prairies to ISO
200-400 in deep woods. If only I had used a OM-2000, which would have
allowed a faster X-sync speed and slower films.
Most folks wanted to see shots with as much of the plant in focus as
possible, so I rarely did anything more open than f/8. But I got shots
that stood out from the darker, mostly out of focus background due to
using ambient light as a fill and the T32 as the brighter key light. If
you don't flash, many of your shots will blend into the tones of the
background - not too effective!
Early on I had a 50mm f/3.5 SC, but the results were soft at f/22 and
f/3.5 was terrible and the lens has a very bell shaped performance curve
across its aperture range (classic Tessar response curve). I don't
consider Zuikos with such curves to be very professional grade optics.
Most working photographers need to be able to rely on a wide range of
apertures and have faith they will perform where ever they are set to.
As far as performance differences at various mag ratios - that is
something someone needs to determine yet.
My 135mm f/4.5 Macro wasn't ever very useful for plant photography. A
90mm would be more difficult to hand hold at the 1/30 to 1/60th sec.
speeds I use. OTF metering is unreliable for botanical photography
where the subject matter (stems, leaves, petals, etc) is often a small
percentage of the total frame. Light flowers need 1/2 to 1 stop less
exposure and dark ones 1/2 to 1 stop more.
As you probably already know, the 50mm f/2 is actually a 40mm focal
length at 1:2 magnification. The 50mm f/3.5 is less, also, but how much
I don't know.
If you want artsy renditions of plants, I'm sure my recommendations
aren't very helpful. It is quite a bit "documentary photography." But
this technique produced shots used over and over for all the various
presentation purposes that botanical photography is put to.
Gary Reese
Las Vegas, NV
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