Best lens for floral photography

What is the best lens for floral photography and why? I currently use a 60 mm micro nikor lens on my D70s Nikon camera. I have difficulty shooting a group of flowers, getting them all sharp and then having the background out of focus. Is is me or the lens?
Thanks for your responses.
May

No lens will do what you want, it's a matter of physics. There is a new computer program where you take a series of photos that are focussed at different points. You then combine each photo as a layer and it keeps the parts that are sharp and overlays the parts that aren't with a photo that was sharper. You will need a good tripod to use it, which I assume you already have.


Kent in SD

As Kent said, you are running into the limits of physics. Some things simply can not be done in the field.

With regards to the image compositing programs, the one I am familar with is Helicon Focus, which does a great job. The only problem is that the images you shoot for it have to line up exactly, which means a tripod and no wind. NPN member Jack Graham ( http://www.jackgrahamphoto.com/ ) is a big advocate of it and has done some excellent work with it.

For technique, have you posted any images on the flora or macro galleries? I didn't see any on a quick check, but it was a quick check. Not knowing your work, and you may well be far more advanced than this, the one piece of advice that immediately occurs to me is to make a concerted effort to keep the camera back parallel to the plane you want in focus. Unfortunately, sometimes there are two or more planes and you have to make a decision. That is where compositional judgements take over and that is so subject dependant I can't help you on that.

(the following paragraph has been edited for a potentially confusing wording)

Sometimes a longer lens can help, especially if you can step back a bit. The reason is that it will take in less of the background. If a flower bed takes up exactly the bottom 1/3 of the frame in your 60 mm standing 3 feet away, the same bed will take up the bottom 1/3 of the frame if you stand 15 feet away with a 300 mm lens. Since the flower bed will have the same degree of magnification in the frame in either case, f11 on the 60 mm will have the same depth of field as the 300 at f11. The background of the 300 will be a bit more blurred as you are taking in less of the background to spread over the frame. To the eye, a longer lens tends to more sharply delineate the difference between what is in focus and what is not in focus (all other things being equal, such as f-stop, lens quality, circles of confusion, etc).

Then there is large format, which allows you to place the plane of focus exactly where you want it to be, but that is a whole other world of photography. I am not going to push on that because I suspect that gets beyond what you are anticipating to be right for your work.

I think that your technique is much more important than the lens you use. Virtually any lens capable of close focusing will give you a good picture; it's the way you use it that makes a difference.
Dan mentions the advantage of longer lenses concerning background control and working distance. Making sure the film/sensor plane is parallel with your subject is also important for DOF control as well.
The main thing you can do to create the backgrounds you want is to find backgrounds that will do the job. This means a background that is relatively far away from the subject. If the subject is three feet from the lens and the background is five feet from the lens, you're going to have problems. But if the background is, say 10 or 20 feet away, you'll have better results.
I highly recommend getting a copy of John Shaw's Close Ups in Nature. It's dated in that it was written eons before digital but photographic concepts don't change when you change from film to digital: good technique is still good technique and his book will give you everything you need.

I'm with Dan on the longer lens. You are probably shooting close with your 60mm to achieve a specific framing, meanwhile running into the laws of physics as others point out. But you can achieve that same framing from further back with a longer lens, in the meantime gaining DOF options. I once needed a "close-up" of an entire trillium plant, in a very busy natural setting. But shooting close and framing with a 50 wouldn't give me the shallow DOF I needed. I finally got the shot by moving back (way back) and using my 500.

You're likely to see an example of this process every time you open a magazine or see a photo with a model in sharp focus while the background is nicely blurred. Looks cool on TV to see a fashion photog climbing into the model's face with a camera shouting inanities like "Work it!" but that's not how it's done. For shallow DOF model shoots and similar, the 300 f/2.8 or 200 f/2 are the lens of choice for the photogs I know.

May, as Dan mentioned Helicon Focus will do what you want, but you can get the same type of results without spending the money using Tony Kuyper's method described in the link below. Scroll down a ways to come to his explantion. I tried it the other on a floral and it works nicely.

Link is HERE

May: I'll take a more definitve stand with regard to long lenses. I know the caliber of your compositional skills and frankly I think some of your images have been hampered by the short focal length. You know that I do probably 95% of my flower shooting with my 200mm lens. I "graduated" to it from a superb 100mm macro, which is still far and away the sharpest lens in my bag. The long lens is clearly better for critters for the longer working distance but that is not a factor with flowers. Where the 200 shines is in the narrower angle of view. Less of the BG will show up and even small adjustments in your line of sight can alter the BG significantly. A Nikon 200 might be pretty expensive but a Sigma 180 would be an excellent choice. Good luck with your research. >=))>

I agree with Rob and the others that technique is important. To your question, for me, the 180 macro has been a lifesaver. I love the narrower field of view for BG control, I love the working distance (to save my back some), I love the large apreture (f3.5), I love the tripod collar, did I mention that I love my 180 macro?

Nathan

Thank you all for your helpful replies, come spring I will be looking for either a Sigma 180 or a Nikon 200. In the meantime I will look up John Shaw's book "Close Ups in Nature"
May

I've done some manual exposure bracketing/blending and I've used Helicon Focus, both with close-ups and landscapes (more of the former than the latter). I prefer to use HF, simply because less work is needed to assemble the final package. The manual approach can involve some pretty trick masking work, depending on the number of shots used and the substantive subject matter.

This image, for instance, was assembled with 10 images, stacked using Helicon Focus.

As Nathan mentioned, the tripod collar of a longer macro lens is a great help. It allows you to change the camera's orientation between vertical and horizontal without having to tip the camera off-center of your tripod (assuming you're using a tripod, which allows you to dial in more depth of field than you could probably get hand-held).

Here's an unsolicited tip for flower work, now that you've selected your lens. Buy a Bogen Manfrotto Super Clamp. It's the best $36.95 you'll ever spend. With the right stud (3/8"?), you can dismount your tripod head from the tripod and put on the Super Clamp, then clamp that onto one of the legs of your tripod. No more raising and lowering the tripod to adjust height or alignment. A quick twist of the clamp knob allows you to raise, lower or twist the camera along the leg to suit your needs without moving the tripod. That's really handy in close quarters!

May,

I'll mention one consideration. My wife shoots a 100 macro and i shoot the 180. She hates a tripod and simply won't use one. In low light situations she needs the 100 as opposed to the 180 in that it affords her more dof with less risk of blur. On those occasions that she's used the 180, she's had a lot of blurred images.

Pat may have a point, 99% of the time I use a tripod. I guess it depends if you use a tripod for macro work or not.

Nathan

I almost always use a tripod, unless the flowers are down very low when I generally use a sandbag on a low stool. Haven't looked at the other tripod options for shooting very low subjects. May

My inexpensive Bogen tripod's legs splay out flat, and the camera sits on a Kirk BH-3 ball head. You can't get much lower than that.

In low light situations she needs the 100 as opposed to the 180 in that it affords her more dof with less risk of blur. On those occasions that she's used the 180, she's had a lot of blurred images.

This is a bit of a mis-conception. Whether using the 100 or the 180, it the magnification of the image and the aperture are the same, the DOF will be the same. If you're shooting at life size (1:1) at f/11 on the 100 and life size at f/11 on the 180, DOF is identical. The real issue with using longer lenses is background coverage and working distance.
One reason that images with the 180 are more blurred may have to do with handholding a larger and heavier lens.

Rod,

My point is that the lens with the shorter focal length is less susceptible to hand shake than the lens with nearly twice the focal length. Consequently, she can shoot a slower shutter speed with the 100 than with 180, f stops being the same, with less risk of handshake blurring the image.

Pat