Flower Macros with the FZ28.

One of the first things that most people shoot are macros of flowers, myself included. Why?

• Everybody agrees that flowers are beautiful, so the chances of shooting a beautiful photo are much increased.
• Flowers have color, which tends to be attractive and easier to shoot than night shots and potraits.
• Flowers always pose patiently, for long periods under the sun without ever complaining.
• They never asked to look at what you have shot and grimaced at the results.
• Shooting tiny stuffs (macro) almost always brings suprises and is a fascination and discovery in itself.

On the FZ28, there are multiple ways to shoot macros of flowers, in addition to Program AE, Shutter Priority or Manual mode:

Mode	Format	Focus	ISO	White Balance	Aperture
Intelligent Auto	JPEG only	Auto, cannot lock	Auto	Auto	Auto
Close Up: Flower	JPEG and RAW	Auto and manual, can lock	Auto	Auto	Auto
Close Up: Creative Close Up	JPEG and RAW	Auto and manual, can lock	Auto	Auto / manual	Auto / Manual

When shooting macros of flowers, I want some control in what to focus on, sometimes I may want to focus on the middle of the flower, but if a bug or an insect is at the edge of the petal, I want to be able to focus on that too. I also would like to control Depth of Field (DOF) so that I may want the background to be blurred or otherwise. It would be good to have control over White Balance, so that I can accurately reproduce the color of the flower.

With these requirements, it seems that the best option is to use Close Up Mode: Creative Close Up, because it allows manual Aperture (which let us control DOF), White Balance, Manual Focus and also RAW, should the need arise for post processing. Although I can use Program AE, Shutter Priority or full Manual mode, letting the camera make other decisions like ISO setting in Creative Close Up suits me fine and kudos to Lumix for the ease of use and automation.

F3.2, 1/320 s, ISO100 : Flower Macro with bokeh effect.

The subject above is about 1.5 inch in diameter, pretty small, but I was trying to focus on the yellow center of the flower. My thoughts is that I should have used a slightly bigger aperture and get a little bit more DOF so that the entire flower is sharp. Perhaps I need more practice with the FZ28, so looking forward to more pics in the near future.