PAD 184 - Nicotine

[Mike Farley]

Day 184 and a number of tobacco plants are flowering in the garden. This one is in a pot, so I brought it inside so I could better isolate the flower and buds.

Canon EOS 7D
EF 100 f/2.8 macro
1 sec
f/11
ISO 100
Tripod
Cable release

[Paul Heester]

Love the backlit effect, what were the lighting conditions?

[Mike Farley]

I mainly do my macro work in my conservatory and use natural light. There are some translucent off-white roof blinds which diffuse the light and avoid shadows. I position the subjects so that they have the window behind them for the backlighting and the background is some black velvet I bought recently.

In a couple of weeks the conservatory roof is being replaced and the new panels will have a blue tint which help keep things cooler during the summer. I will probably need to set a custom white balance to counteract the effect and warm things up. We'll see.