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How To Photograph Flowers Windy Conditions

When you photograph flowers windy conditions, it can be one of the most frustrating photography experiences. Here are our best tips to photograph flowers in windy conditions that may save you from a lot of frustration.

Close to where I live is a local botanical garden, always full of colorful flowers in full bloom. As you can imagine, it’s a wonderful place for flower photographers to spend the day. Not so good in windy conditions though.

I was recently chatting to a nature photographer there who happened to be cursing the windy conditions. I noticed his camera was sitting on a tripod. He seemed to be trying to block the wind out with his body, waiting for what seemed like forever for the wind to calm down a little so he could take his shot.

Seeing his frustration, I asked him what camera settings he was using. ‘Manual of course’ he remarked. It had never occurred to him that there were numerous camera settings available to help out in specific circumstances.

Shutter Priority for Windy Conditions

For example, in windy conditions you need your digital SLR camera to take the photograph as quickly as possible. Or in other words, shoot instantly as if snap frozen. Therefore, it’s sufficient to suggest that in windy conditions, shutter priority is the best digital camera setting to use for flower photography.

Best camera settings for windy conditions

  • The most important aspect for windy weather is to take the shot as quickly as possible. Therefore start by setting your SLR camera on Shutter priority.
  • Next you need to set it on a fast shutter speed. I recommend trying 1/250th of a second, then go faster from there if needed.

How to photograph flowers windy conditions. Yellow flower.

Yellow flowers in windy conditions

Digital SLR Camera: Canon EOS 400D / Rebel XTi
DSLR Lens: Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro
Exposure: 1/250th of a second
Aperture: f/4.5
Focal Length: 100 mm
ISO Speed: 100
Exposure Program: shutter priority

Why this image worked

The weather conditions on this particular day was very windy. Therefore I put my digital SLR camera on shutter priority with a fast 1/250 speed. Furthermore, I took advantage of continuous mode, so I could take as many photographs as possible within each second time frame.

This technique resulted in quite a few sharp images of flowers for me to choose from.

Summary:

How to photograph flowers – windy conditions.

It’s certainly not easy to obtain nice sharp images in windy conditions.You will need to take quite a few shots to ensure that you have a least one nice photo.