Hi ,

Over the years, I've really enjoyed photographing flowers in our garden. One year, my wife planted 72 zinnias around the yard, and I had a lot of fun shooting closeups of those, often using the Fujifilm's MCEX extension tubes.  You can also see some of my early 70-300mm garden photos in the "Image Quality" section of this video.

These days, my favorite "garden lens" is the XF70-300mm, which I often use with the XF1.4X Teleconverter. The 70-300 already has a great close focus distance of only one meter, and when you add in the 1.4X TC, you can magnify the scene even further to get more dramatic results. 

This summer, I've enjoyed capturing our delphiniums, poppies, trollius and mallow, but the other day, our fuchsia plants began to open up, and WOW! If you haven't seen these amazing plants, the flowers are stunning!

The other night, I spent a few minutes trying to capture these gorgeous blooms with my 70-300 lens and 1.4X TC. I ran into a couple of challenges, though. First of all, it was evening, so the light was getting a little dim.

Fortunately, the 70-300 has excellent stabilization, so using the Front Curtain Electronic Shutter, (I talk about the EFE in my latest YouTube Video.) and pulling the camera tight against my neck, I was able to hold it steady enough to get down to 1/20 sec. shutter speeds while still getting sharp images. That's how good the stabilization on this lens is!!

The other challenge I faced was that I didn't have a very compelling background. Since I was trying to show off these amazing flowers, I wanted a nice, dark shadow, or something similar. All I had was the back of the house, which was kind of busy. 

One of the benefits of using a telephoto lens is that it allows you to easily reframe your scene against a different background with minimal movements on your part. By shifting my vantage point slightly, I could completely change the scene behind my subject.

You can see in these examples the different looks I was able to get with very little movement on my part. At one point, I even propped up a brown carpet square to try and get a full, solid color background. Eventually, I ended up using the blue shingles of the house itself. 

Let me know which one of these is your favorite, and keep this little tip in mind next time you're out shooting with a long lens and are looking for the best possible background against your subject. Remember, just a little movement on your part can make a huge difference in the overall impact of your shot. 

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That's all for now! I hope you've been able to get outside with the camera and having some fun adventures during the past few weeks! As always, take care, keep in touch and keep having fun with your creativity!

Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week!!