Some of the best photos taken are those of plants or flowers.
As well as often being bright and colourful, they’re also fairly reliable – they don’t walk away from you, or blink. Want to take great close-ups of nature’s more delicate side? Here’s how, using Nokia Pro Camera.
Select a suitable subject
As easy as that sounds, it can actually be the most difficult part – depending on where you live.
For instance, if you live in a city where you’re surrounded by buildings and very little green space, you’ll have to search harder than someone who lives in a rural area with a garden.
However, that doesn’t mean that your final photo will be any less interesting. On the contrary, a flower sprouting up from a crack in the pavement could tell a much more interesting story.
Getting down and dirty
For taking close-ups, you need to be prepared to get yourself dirty and get on the ground.
If you’re trying to focus on a giant sunflower, this won’t be a problem, but if you’re focusing on a tiny, delicate flower, hit the deck!
There are obvious advantages to this, in that you’ve got the benefit of being able to rest your phone, or arms, or shoulders, on the ground for stabilisation. However, there are disadvantages too. There are some environments where this could get really messy. Dress appropriately.
Stay focused
Now that you’ve found your subject and are laying comfortably on the ground, load up Nokia Pro Camera on your Nokia Lumia 1020, Lumia 925, Lumia 928 and Lumia 920 and head to the control panel at the top of the screen.
You could try using auto-focus for your shot, but you’ll probably get a better shot if you use the manual controls. It certainly feels great taking control over it, anyway. But it’s worth trying the auto focus before going into the manual mode.
Tap the focus icon (third icon from the left) in the control panel to activate focus mode. Then, position your camera phone lens a short distance away (min 15cm) from the flower.
Slide the little focus icon up the screen slowly. This will take it out of auto mode. While keeping a steady hand keep going until your phone is focused on the part of the flower you want.
You may find you can get a clearer shot if you move closer, or indeed further away; do what feels right at the time.
Once you’ve got crystal clear focus, tap either the on-screen camera shutter key, or the camera key on the side of the phone.
Done. You’ll now have one perfect close-up photo of a flower.
You could go one step further and adjust the exposure, too.
If you’re in bright daylight and the position of the sun isn’t giving you the best light, you might find that manually lowering the exposure (the first icon from the right in the control panel) by just a small fraction gives just a little bit deeper colour.
For example, I’ve taken two close-up photos of a red flower. One with the exposure set to 0.0 and the other set to -0.3. It’s only a small amount but it can make a difference to the colour, as you can see below.
Close-up with 0.0 exposure compensation
Close-up with -0.3 exposure compensation
Get out there and take some close-ups with Nokia Pro Camera. Don’t forget to share them with us in the comments section below; we’d love to see them.
Photos taken with a Nokia Lumia 925 and Nokia Pro Camera.